Its name was Melcombe, and it came from the sea, that they might know it was dead." John and Brandon looked at one another.
The information was far too circumstantial to be forgotten by the children, who continued their confidences now without any more irreverent interruptions.

"Mrs.Melcombe gave Peter four half-crowns to give to nurse, and he had to say 'Thank you, nurse, for your kindness to me;' but nurse wasn't kind, she didn't like Peter, and she slapped him several times." "And Mrs.Melcombe gave some more shillings to Maria," said Bertie.
"Like the garden slug," observed Brandon, "leaving a trail of silver behind her." The said Maria, who was their little nursemaid, now came in to fetch away the children.
"Isn't this provoking," exclaimed John Mortimer, when they were gone.

"I had no notion that child had been neglected and left to pick up these pernicious superstitions, though I never liked his mother from the first moment I set my eyes on her." "Why did you ask her to stay at your house then ?" said Brandon, laughing.
"Giles, you know as well as I do." Thereupon, having finished their breakfast, they set forth to walk to the town, arguing together on some subject that interested them till they reached the bank.
Behind it, in a comfortable room fitted up with library tables, leather chairs, and cases for books and papers, sat old Augustus Mortimer.
"Grand," as he was always called by his descendants, that being easier to say than his full title of grandfather; and if John Mortimer had not taken Brandon into this room to see him, the talk about the ghost might have faded away altogether from the mind of the latter.
As it was, Grand asked after the little ones, and Brandon, standing on the rug and looking down on the fine stern features and white head, began to give him a graphic account of what little Peter Melcombe had been teaching them, John Mortimer, while he unlocked his desk and sorted out certain papers, now and then adding a touch or two in mimicry of his children's little voices.
Old Augustus said nothing, but Brandon, to his great surprise, noticed that as the narrative went on it produced a marked effect upon him; he listened with suppressed eagerness, and then with a cogitative air as if he was turning the thing over in his mind.
The conclusion of the story, how Janie had said the name of the ghost was Melcombe, John Mortimer related, for Brandon by that time was keenly alive to the certainty that they were disturbing the old man much.
A short silence followed.

John was still arranging his papers, then his father said deliberately,-- "This is the first hint I ever received of any presence being supposed to haunt the place." The ghost itself had never produced the slightest effect on John Mortimer.

All he thought of was the consequence of the tale on the minds of his children.
"I shall take care that little monkey does not come here again in a hurry," he remarked, at the same time proceeding to mend a quill pen; his father watching him rather keenly, Brandon thought, from under his bushy, white eyebrows.
"Now, of all men," thought Brandon, "I never could have supposed that Grand was superstitious.