'As for the jewels being family property, they not mentioned in a will or legal document, because no-one knew that they existed. I have no more right to have them than your butler does. When Miss Virginia grows up I am sure she will be pleased to have pretty things to wear.

'Besides, you forget, Mr Otis, that you took the furniture and the ghost when you bought the house. So anything that belonged to the ghost immediately became yours. Whatever Sir Simon may was doing in the corridors at night, according to the law, he was dead, and you bought his property.'

Mr Otis was a very distressed at Lord Canterville's refusal, and begged him to change his mind, but the good-natured peer was quite firm.

In the end he persuaded the ambassador to allow his daughter to retain the gift the ghost had given her. Later, in the spring of 1890, the young Duchess of Cheshire had just been married when she was presented to the Queen. At the presentation her jewels were admired by everyone.

Virginia became a Duchess, which is the reward of all good little American girls, because she married her Duke as soon as he came of age. They were both so charming, and they loved each other so much, that every one was delighted that they had got married.

(Except the old Marchioness of Dumbleton, who had tried to catch the Duke for one of her seven unmarried daughters, and had given no less than three expensive dinner-parties for that purpose.) Another person who was not pleased with the marriage was Mr Otis himself.