'Well I just thought that I should tell you about it', said Lord Canterville, who had not really understood Mr Otis' last comment. 'But if you want to have the house even with the ghost, then that is quite alright.'

A few weeks after this, the purchase was concluded, and at the close of the season the Ambassador and his family went down to Canterville Chase.

Mrs Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappen, of West 53rd Street, had been a celebrated New York belle, was now a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb profile. Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt an appearance of chronic ill-health, under the impression that it is a form of European refinement.

Mrs Otis had never fallen into this error. She had a magnificent constitution, and a really wonderful amount of animal spirits.

Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Her eldest son, christened Washington by his parents in a moment of patriotism which he never ceased to regret, was a fair-haired, rather good-looking young man, who had qualified himself for American diplomacy by being well known as an excellent dancer. Gardenias and the peerage were his only weaknesses. Otherwise he was extremely sensible.