Chapter 5

A BEGGAR'S PALACE.

That I had said something, in the act of waking, I felt sure: the
hoarse stifled cry was still ringing in my ears, even if the startled
look of my fellow-traveler had not been evidence enough: but what could
I possibly say by way of apology?

"I hope I didn't frighten you?" I stammered out at last.
"I have no idea what I said. I was dreaming."

"You said 'Uggug indeed!'" the young lady replied, with quivering lips
that would curve themselves into a smile, in spite of all her efforts
to look grave. "At least--you didn't say it--you shouted it!"

"I'm very sorry," was all I could say, feeling very penitent and
helpless. "She has Sylvie's eyes!" I thought to myself, half-doubting
whether, even now, I were fairly awake. "And that sweet look of
innocent wonder is all Sylvie's too. But Sylvie hasn't got that calm
resolute mouth nor that far-away look of dreamy sadness, like one that
has had some deep sorrow, very long ago--" And the thick-coming
fancies almost prevented my hearing the lady's next words.

"If you had had a 'Shilling Dreadful' in your hand," she proceeded,
"something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder--one could
understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give
one a Nightmare. But really--with only a medical treatise,
you know--" and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt,
at the book over which I had fallen asleep.

Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment;
yet there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child for
child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over
twenty--all was the innocent frankness of some angelic visitant,
new to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms or, if you will,
the barbarisms--of Society. "Even so," I mused, "will Sylvie look and
speak, in another ten years."

"You don't care for Ghosts, then," I ventured to suggest, unless they
are really terrifying?"

"Quite so," the lady assented. "The regular Railway-Ghosts--I mean
the Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature--are very poor affairs.
I feel inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, 'Their tameness is
shocking to me'! And they never do any Midnight Murders.
They couldn't 'welter in gore,' to save their lives!"

"'Weltering in gore' is a very expressive phrase, certainly.
Can it be done in any fluid, I wonder?"

"I think not," the lady readily replied--quite as if she had thought
it out, long ago. "It has to be something thick. For instance, you
might welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be