"
At the time of the story they were as yet unmarried, and were awaiting
with the most laudable patience the advent of men of title. They were
delighted with their new home (which Ruth had persuaded her father to
christen "Donaldgowerie," after the house in a romantic novel she had
just been reading), and proud of their gilded premises and magnificent
tennis lawns; they had placed a gigantic and costly tray in the hall,
in confident assurance that it would speedily groan beneath the weight
of cards from all the gentry in Perthshire.
But please be it understood, that my one and only object in alluding
to these trifling details is to point out that the Whittingens, being
entirely engrossed in matters mundane, were the very last people in
the world to be termed superstitious, and although imaginative where
future husbands' calls and cards were concerned, prior to the events
about to be narrated had not an ounce of superstition in their
natures. Indeed, until then they had always smiled in a very
supercilious manner at even the smallest mention of a ghost.
September came, their first September in Donaldgowerie, and the family
welcomed with joy Ernest and his youthful bride.
The latter was not, as they had fondly hoped (and roundly announced in
Perth), the daughter of a Peer, but of a wealthy Bristol draper, the
owner of a house near the Downs, whose son had been one of Ernest's
many friends at Oxford. The coming of the newly-married pair to
Donaldgowerie brought with it a burst of bird-like gaiety.
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