vi] THE RED BARON. 329

 

‘His fancy was to dress himself always entirely in
red ; and if he could ever get anyone up to the old castle,
he would indulge himself with telling the most frightful
and improbable tales. His great delusion was that he
had lived many years ago and committed great crimes,
whereas a better little man, barring his eccentric habits,
never existed ; he gave away heaps to the poor and
no one had a word to say against him. Poor man!
he was his own enemy—he had but one fault, and
that was his love of wine, and I have been told that
this it was which carried him off at the last.’

As the host spoke, the lady could not avoid steal-
ing a sly glance at her companion, whose countenance
wore an expression so extremely comical that at last,
she burst into a fit of laughter which greatly discon-
certed the poor host. He begged ten thousand
pardons if he had said anything to offend the distin-
guished visitors—perhaps they were related to the
noble family of which he had been speaking—if so, he
trusted he had said nothing disrespectful of them :
such had been far, very far, from his intention, and he
hoped he might be forgiven. The lady and gentle-
man both assured him that he was entirely innocent
of having offended them in the slightest degree, and
that they were not fortunate enough to be able to
claim the most distant relationship with the family in
question. When they were alone, however, the lady
resumed her laughter, in which her husband was
forced to join in spite of himself.

‘There,’ said she with an air of triumph, ‘did I
not always tell you that your ghost story was like all
the rest of the same sort, and only required a little