The Canterville Ghost

`That's no reason for existing, and you know you have been very wicked. Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here, that you had killed your wife.'

`Well, of course I did,' said the Ghost , `but that was completely a family affair. No one else was involved.'

`It is very wrong to kill anyone,' said Virginia, who sometimes had a sweet Puritan seriousness, which she must have got from some old New England ancestor.

`Oh, it's very easy to criticize things that don't involve you personally! My wife was not very pretty, never had my ruffs done properly, and knew nothing about cookery. Do you know, I shot a buck in Hogley Woods, a magnificent beast, and do you know what a mess she made of preparing it for the table? However, it is no matter now, for it is all over. But I don't think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death, though I did kill her.'

`Starve you to death? Oh, Mr. Ghost, I mean Sir Simon, are you hungry? I have a sandwich in my bag. Would you like it?'

`No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of you, all the same. You are much nicer than the rest of your horrible, rude, vulgar, dishonest family.'

Vocabulary:

Wicked: Bad, evil.
Puritan : A strictly religious group of American colonists.
Ruff: A large decorative collar.
Starch: a way of making cloth less flexible.
Buck: A male deer.
No matter: Not important.
All the same: Anyway.
Vulgar: Loud and unsophisticated.