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was chafing his temples. He had nothing on but his trousers and shirt, and she had nothing on but her night-dress—the petticoat having slipped off. The scene was awful. Susan was shocked. She couldn't have thought it. She couldn't have believed it. She wouldn't have believed it, if she hadn't herself seen it with her own eyes.

"Hem!" she cried, and bounced into the room.

"Oh! Susan," sighed cook; "I'm so glad you're come.

Susan, with a sarcastic smile, and, at the same time, tossing her head contemptuously, replied, "Very pretty: very pretty, upon my word!"

"Oh! Susan—"

"Don't talk to me. Master shall know of all this, if I live."

"But, Susan—"

"I'll have no communication with such a creature!"

"Well, but hear me?"

"I'll not hear a word, ma'am. No, ma'am; I'll not bemean myself, ma'am, to talk to you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought! Fine doings, indeed. But master shall know, and either you or I leave to-morrow morning."

"Susan, will you hear me?"

"No, I'll not," replied Susan, with a look of disdain, and, having sufficiently extended her nostrils, bounced out of the room in a high state of virtuous indignation.

Cook now felt the extreme delicacy of her position, but her very first object was to bring Jib round. This she tried to effect by all the means at her command, but for some time her efforts were quite unavailing. Had he been absolutely dead, he couldn't have appeared more inanimate: indeed, at one time she thought he had departed this life, and began to turn the probable consequences over in her mind. As a dernier ressort, however, she seized the ewer, which happened to be very nearly full, and, having violently dashed the whole body of water in his face, Jib struck out, and from that moment consciousness gradually returned.

"Where am I?" he faintly inquired at length, looking round with the aspect of a most unhappy wretch, for the water had obliterated every trace of the characteristic respectability of his appearance, "Is that you, cook?"

"Oh, James, James," replied cook, with a sigh; "you have, I fear, ruined me—ruined me for ever!"

"Ruined you!" exclaimed Jib, making an effort which rendered his restoration almost complete; "how, how have I ruined you?"

"Oh, James," replied cook; "Susan has been here—"

"She has!" cried Jib; "and saw me?"

"Yes; and called me all the names she could lay her tongue to."

"Oh, I feel very ill. But I'll soon settle that. She is jealous, I suppose—she's jealous. But the ghost, cook—how about the ghost? Have you seen it?"

"No, it hasn't been here."

"Then it's there."

"Where?" demanded cook, looking round with a feeling of horror.