"Yes," said Miss Le Petyt, gazing into the deep fireplace and letting
her hands and her knitting lie for the moment idle in her lap.
"Oh, yes, I have seen a ghost. In fact I have lived in a house with one
for quite a long time."
"How you _could_--" began one of my host's daughters; and "_You_, Aunt
Emily?" cried the other at the same moment.
Miss Le Petyt, gentle soul, withdrew her eyes from the fireplace and
protested with a gay little smile. "Well, my dears, I am not quite the
coward you take me for. And, as it happens, mine was the most harmless
ghost in the world. In fact"--and here she looked at the fire again--
"I was quite sorry to lose her."
"It was a woman, then? Now _I_ think," said Miss Blanche, "that female
ghosts are the horridest of all. They wear little shoes with high red
heels, and go about _tap, tap_, wringing their hands."
"This one wrung her hands, certainly. But I don't know about the high
red heels, for I never saw her feet. Perhaps she was like the Queen of
Spain, and hadn't any. And as for the hands, it all depends _how_ you
wring them. There's an elderly shop-walker at Knightsbridge, for
instance--"
"Don't be prosy, dear, when you know that we're just dying to hear the
story."
Miss Le Petyt turned to me with a small deprecating laugh. "It's such a
little one."
"The story, or the ghost?"
"Both."