WM. D. O'CONNOR. 
 
 WITH TWO ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOS. NAST. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 66 1 BROADWAY. 
 
 LONDON : SAMPSON LOW & CO. 
 1867.
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 
 T the West End of Boston 
 is a quarter of some fifty 
 streets, more or less, common 
 ly known as Beacon Hill! 
 
 It is a rich and respectable 
 quarter, sacred to the abodes of Our First 
 Citizens. The very houses have become sen 
 tient of its prevailing character of riches and 
 respectability ; and, when the twilight deep 
 ens on the place, or at high noon, if your 
 vision is gifted, you may see them as long 
 rows of Our First Giants, with very corpulent 
 or very broad fronts, with solid-set feet of 
 sidewalk ending in square-toed curbstone, 
 with an air about them as if they had thrust 
 their hard hands into their wealthy pockets 
 forever, with a character of arctic reserve, 
 and portly dignity, and a well-dressed, full-
 
 6 THE GHOST. 
 
 fed, self-satisfied, opulent, stony, repellant 
 aspect to each, which says plainly : "I be 
 long to a rich family, of the very highest 
 respectability." 
 
 History, having much to say of Beacon 
 Hill generally, has, on the present occasion, 
 something to say particularly of a certain 
 street which bends over the eminence, 
 sloping steeply down to its base. It is an 
 old street quaint, quiet, and somewhat 
 picturesque. It was young once, though 
 having been born before the Revolution, 
 and was then given to the city by its father, 
 Mr. Middlecott, who died without heirs, and 
 did this much for posterity. Posterity has 
 not been grateful to Mr. Middlecott. The 
 street bore his name till he was dust, and 
 then got the more aristocratic epithet of 
 Bowdoin. Posterity has paid him by 
 effacing what would have been his noblest 
 epitaph. We may expect, after this, to see 
 Faneuil Hall robbed of its name, and called 
 Smith Hall! Republics are proverbially 
 ungrateful. What safer claim to public 
 remembrance has the old Huguenot, Peter 
 Faneuil, than the old Englishman, Mr. 
 Middlecott ? Ghosts, it is said, have risen 
 from the grave to reveal wrongs done them
 
 THE GHOST. 7 
 
 by the living ; but it needs no ghost from the 
 grave to prove the proverb about republics. 
 Bowdoin street only differs from its 
 kindred, in a certain shady, grave, old-fogy, 
 fossil aspect, just touched with a pensive 
 solemnity, as if it thought to itself, " I 'm get 
 ting old but I 'm highly respectable ; that 's 
 a comfort." It has, moreover, a dejected, 
 injured air, as if it brooded solemnly on the 
 wrong done to it by taking away its original 
 name, and calling it Bowdoin ; but as if, 
 being a very conservative street, it was 
 resolved to keep a cautious silence on the 
 subject, lest the Union should go to pieces. 
 Sometimes it wears a profound and mysteri 
 ous look, as if it could tell something if it 
 had a mind to, but thought it best not. 
 Something of the ghost of its father it was 
 the only child he ever had ! walking there 
 all the night, pausing at the corners to look 
 up at the signs, which bear a strange name, 
 and wringing his ghostly hands in lam 
 entation at the wrong done his memory ! 
 Rumor told it in a whisper, many years ago. 
 Perhaps it was believed by a few of the 
 oldest inhabitants of the city ; but the 
 highly respectable quarter never heard of it ; 
 and, if it had, would not have been bribed
 
 8 THE GHOST. 
 
 to believe it, by any sum. Some one had 
 said that some very old person had seen a 
 phantom there. Nobody knew who some 
 one was. Nobody knew who the very old 
 person was. Nobody knew who. had seen 
 it ; nor when ; nor how. The very rumor 
 was spectral. 
 
 All this was many years ago. Since then 
 it has been reported that a ghost was seen 
 there one bitter Christmas eve, two or three 
 years back. The twilight was already in 
 the street ; but the evening lamps were not 
 yet lighted in the windows, and the roofs 
 and chimney-tops were still distinct in the 
 last clear light of the dropping day. It was 
 light enough, however, for one to read, 
 easily, from the opposite sidewalk, " Dr. C. 
 Renton," in black letters, on the silver plate 
 of a door, not far from the gothic portal of 
 the Swedenborgian church. Near this door 
 stood a misty figure, whose sad, spectral 
 eyes floated on vacancy, and whose long, 
 shadowy white hair, lifted like an airy weft 
 in the streaming wind. That was the ghost ! 
 It. stood near the door a long time, without 
 any other than a shuddering motion, as 
 though it felt the searching blast, which 
 swept furiously from the north up the
 
 THE GHOST. 9 
 
 declivity of the street, rattling the shutters 
 in its headlong passage. Once or twice, 
 when a passer-by, muffled warmly from, the 
 bitter air, hurried past, the phantom shrank 
 closer to the wall, till he was gone. Its 
 vague, mournful face seemed to watch for 
 some one. The twilight darkened, gradu 
 ally ; but.it did not flit away. Patiently it 
 kept its piteous look fixed in one direction 
 watching watching ; and, while the howl 
 ing wind swept frantically through the chill 
 air, it still seemed to shudder in the piercing 
 cold. 
 
 A light suddenly kindled in an opposite 
 window. As if touched by a gleam from 
 the lamp, or as if by some subtle interior 
 illumination, the spectre became faintly 
 luminous, and a thin smile seemed to quiver 
 over its features. At the same moment, a 
 strong, energetic figure Dr. Renton, him 
 self came in sight, striding down the slope 
 of the pavement to his own door, his over 
 coat thrown back, as if the icy air were a 
 tropical warmth to him, his hat set on 
 the back of his head, and the loose ends of 
 a 'kerchief about his throat, streaming in 
 the nor' wester. The wind set up a howl 
 the moment he came in sight, and swept
 
 10 THE GHOST. 
 
 upon him; and a curious agitation began 
 on the part of the phantom. It glided 
 rapidly to and fro, and moved in circles, 
 and then, with the same swift, silent mo 
 tion, sailed toward him, as if blown thither 
 by the gale. Its long, thin arms, with 
 something like a pale flame spiring from the 
 tips of the slender fingers, were stretched 
 out, as in greeting, while the wan smile 
 played over its face ; and when he rushed 
 by, unheedingly, it made a futile effort to 
 grasp the swinging arms with which he ap 
 peared to buffet back the buffeting gale. 
 Then it glided on by his side, looking 
 earnestly into his countenance, and moving 
 its pallid lips with agonized rapidity, as 
 if it said: "Look at me speak to me 
 speak to me see me ! " But he kept his 
 course with unconscious eyes, and a vexed 
 frown on his bold, white forehead, betoken 
 ing an irritated mind. The light that had 
 shone in the figure of the phantom, dark 
 ened slowly, till the form was only a pale 
 shadow. The wind had suddenly lulled, 
 and no longer lifted its white hair. It still 
 glided on with him, its head drooping on 
 its breast, and its long arms hanging by its 
 side ; but when he reached the door, it sud-
 
 THE GHOST. 11 
 
 denly sprang before him, gazing fixedly 
 into his eyes, while a convulsive motion 
 flashed over its grief-worn features, as if it 
 had shrieked out a word. He had his foot 
 on the step at the moment. "With a start, 
 he put his gloved hand to his forehead, 
 while the vexed look went out quickly on 
 his face. The ghost watched him breath 
 lessly. But the irritated expression came 
 back to his countenance more resolutely 
 than before, and he began to fumble in his 
 pocket for a latch-key, muttering petulantly, 
 " What the devil is the matter with me 
 now ! " It seemed to him that a voice had 
 cried, clearly, yet as from afar, " Charles 
 Renton ! " his own name. He had heard 
 it in his startled mind ; but, then, he knew 
 he was in a highly wrought state of nervous 
 excitement, and his medical science, with 
 that knowledge for a basis, could have 
 reared a formidable fortress ' of explanation 
 against any phenomenon, were it even 
 more wonderful than this. 
 
 He entered the house-; kicked the door 
 to ; pulled off his overcoat ; wrenched off 
 his outer -'kerchief; slammed them on a 
 branch of the clothes-tree ; banged his hat 
 on top of them ; wheeled about ; pushed in
 
 12 THE GHOST. 
 
 the door of his library ; strode in, and, leav 
 ing the door ajar, threw himself into an 
 easy chair, and sat there in the fire-reddened 
 dusk, with his white brows knit, and his 
 arms tightly locked on his breast. The 
 ghost had followed him, sadly, and now 
 stood motionless in a corner of the room, 
 its spectral hands crossed on its bosom, and 
 its white locks drooping down. 
 
 It was evident Dr. Renton was in a 
 bad humor. The very library caught con 
 tagion from him, and became grouty and 
 sombre. The furniture was grim, and sul 
 len, and sulky; it made ugly shadows on 
 the carpet and on the wall, in allopathic 
 quantity ; it took the red gleams from the 
 fire on its polished surfaces, in homoeopathic 
 globules, and got no good from them. The 
 fire itself peered out sulkily from the black 
 bars of the grate, and seemed resolved not 
 to burn the fresh deposit of black coals at 
 the top, but to take this as a good time to 
 remember that those coals had been bought 
 in the summer at five dollars a ton imder 
 price, mind you when poor people, who 
 cannot buy at advantage, but must get their 
 firing in the winter, would then have given 
 nine or ten dollars for them. And so (glowered
 
 THE GHOST. 13 
 
 the fire), I am determined to think of that 
 outrage, and not to light them, but to go 
 out myself, directly ! And the fire got into 
 such a spasm of glowing indignation over 
 the injury, that it lit a whole tier of black 
 coals with a series of little explosions, be 
 fore it could cool down, and sent a crimson 
 gleam over the moody figure of its owner in 
 the easy chair, and over the solemn furni 
 ture, and into the shadowy corner filled by 
 the ghost. 
 
 The spectre did not move when Dr. Ren- 
 ton arose and lit the chandelier. It stood 
 there, still and gray, in the flood of mejlow 
 light. The curtains were drawn, and the 
 twilight without had deepened into darkness. 
 The fire was now burning in despite of itself, 
 fanned by the wintry gusts, which found 
 their way down the chimney. Dr. Renton 
 stood with his back to it, his hands behind 
 him, his bold white forehead shaded by a 
 careless lock of black hair, and knit sternly ; 
 and the same frown in his handsome, open, 
 searching dark eyes. Tall and strong, 
 wi|h an erect port, and broad, firm shoul 
 ders, high, resolute features, a command 
 ing figure garbed in aristocratic black, and 
 not yet verging into the proportions of
 
 14 THE GHOST. 
 
 obesity take him for all in all, a very fine 
 and favorable specimen of the solid men of 
 Boston. And seen in contrast (oh ! could he 
 but have known it!) with the attenuated 
 figure of the poor, dim ghost ! 
 
 Hark ! a very light foot on the stairs a 
 rich rustle of silks. Everything still again 
 Dr. Kenton looking fixedly, with great 
 sternness, at the half-open door, from whence 
 a faint, delicious perfume floats into the 
 library. Somebody there, for certain. 
 Somebody peeping in with very bright, 
 arch eyes. Dr. Renton knew it, and pre 
 pared to maintain his ill-humor against the 
 invader. His face became triply armed 
 with severity for the encounter. That's 
 Netty, I know, he thought. His daughter. 
 So it was. In she bounded. Bright little 
 Netty! Gay little Netty! A dear and 
 sweet little creature, to be sure, with a deli 
 cate and pleasant beauty efface and figure, it 
 needed no costly silks to grace or heighten. 
 There she stood. Not a word from her 
 merry lips, but a smile which stole over all 
 the solitary grimness of the library, and 
 made everything better, and brighter, and 
 fairer, in a minute. It floated down into 
 the cavernous humor of Dr. Renton, and
 
 THE GHOST. 15 
 
 the gloom began to lighten directly though 
 he wo aid not own it, nor relax a single 
 feature. But the wan ghost in the corner 
 lifted its head to look at her, and slowly 
 brightened as to something worthy a spirit's 
 love, and a dim phantom's smiles. Now 
 then, Dr. Renton ! the lines are drawn, and 
 the foe is coming. Be martial, sir,'as when 
 you stand in the ranks of the cadets on 
 training-days ! Steady, and stand the 
 charge ! So he did. He kept an inflexible 
 front as she glided toward him, softly, 
 slowly, with her bright eyes smiling into 
 his, and doing dreadful execution. Then 
 she put her white arms around his neck, 
 laid her dear, fair head on his breast, and 
 peered up archly into his stern visage. 
 Spite of himself, he could not keep the 
 fixed lines on his face from breaking con 
 fusedly into a faint smile. Somehow or 
 other, his hands came from behind him, and 
 rested on her head. There! That's all. 
 Dr. Renton surrendered at discretion ! One 
 of the solid men of Boston was taken after 
 a desperate struggle internal, of course 
 for he kissed her, and said, "Dear little 
 Netty ! " And so she was. 
 
 The phantom watched her with a smile,
 
 16 THE GHOST. 
 
 and wavered and brightened 'as if about to 
 glide to her; but it grew still, and re 
 mained. 
 
 " Pa in the sulks to-night ? " she asked, 
 in the most winning, playful, silvery voice. 
 
 " Pa 's a fool," he answered in his deep 
 chest- tones, with a vexed good humor ; 
 " and you know it." 
 
 "What's the matter with pa? What 
 makes him be a great bear? Papa-sy, 
 dear," she continued, stroking his face with 
 her little hands, and patting him, very 
 much as Beauty might have patted the 
 Beast after she fell in love with him or, 
 as if he were a great baby. In fact, he 
 began to look then as if he were. 
 
 " Matter ? Oh ! everything 's the matter, 
 little Netty. The world goes round too 
 fast. My boots pinch. Somebody stole my 
 umbrella last year. And I've got a head 
 ache." He concluded this fanciful abstract 
 of his grievances by putting his arms around 
 her, and kissing her again. Then he sat 
 down in the easy-chair, and took her fondly 
 on his knee. 
 
 " Pa 's got a headache ! It is t-o-o bad, 
 BO it is," she continued in the same sooth 
 ing, winning way, caressing his bold, white
 
 THE GHOST. 17 
 
 brow with her tiny hands. " It 's a horrid 
 shame, so it is ! 'P-o-o-r pa. Where does 
 it ache, papa-sy, dear? In the forehead? 
 Cerebrum or cerebellum, papa-sy ? Occiput 
 or sinciput, deary ? " 
 
 " Bah ! you little quiz," he replied, 
 laughing and pinching her cheek, "none 
 of your nonsense! And what are you 
 dressed up in this way for, to-night ? Silks, 
 and laces, and essences, and what not! 
 "Where are you going, fairy ? " 
 
 " Going out with mother for the evening, 
 Dr. Renton," she replied briskly ; " Mrs. 
 Larrabee's party, papa-sy. Christmas "eve, 
 you know. And what are you going 
 to give me for a present, to-morrow, pa- 
 sy?" 
 
 " To-morrow will tell, little Netty." 
 
 " Good ! And what are you going to 
 give me, so that I can make my presents, 
 Beary ? " 
 
 " Ugh ! " but he growled it in fun, and 
 had a pocket-book out from his breast 
 pocket directly after. Fives tens twen 
 ties fifties all crisp, and nice, and new 
 bank-notes. 
 
 "Will that be enough, Netty?" He 
 held up a twenty. The smiling face 
 2
 
 18 THE GHOST. 
 
 nodded assent, and the bright eyes twin 
 kled. 
 
 "No, it won't. But that will," he con 
 tinued, giving her a fifty. 
 
 "Fifty dollars, Globe Bank, Boston!" 
 exclaimed Netty, making great eyes at him. 
 " But we must take all we can get, pa-sy ; 
 mustn't we ? It 's too much, though. Thank 
 you all the same, pa-sy, nevertheless." And 
 she kissed him, and put the bill in a little 
 bit of a portemonnaie with a gay laugh. 
 
 " Well done, I declare ! " he said, smil 
 ingly. " But you 're going to the party ? " 
 
 " Pretty soon, pa." 
 
 He made no answer ; but sat smiling at 
 her. The phantom watched them, silently. 
 
 ""What made pa so cross and grim, to 
 night ? Tell Netty do," she pleaded. 
 
 " Oh ! because ; everything went wrong 
 with me, to-day. There." And he looked 
 as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in 
 his life. 
 
 " No, no, pa-sy ; that won't do. I want 
 the particulars," continued Netty, shaking 
 her head, smilingly. 
 
 " Particulars ! Well, then, Miss Nathalie 
 Eenton," he began, with mock gravity, 
 " your professional father is losing some of
 
 THE GHOST. 19 
 
 his oldest patients. Everybody is in ruin 
 ous good health ; and the grass is growing 
 in the graveyards." 
 
 " In the winter-time, papa ? smart grass ! " 
 " ISTot that I want practice," he went on,. 
 getting into soliloquy ; " or patients, either. 
 A rich man who took to the profession sim 
 ply for the love of it, can't complain on that 
 score. But to. have an interloping, she-doctor 
 take a family I've attended ten years, out 
 of my hands, and to hear the hodge-podge 
 gabble about physiological laws, and wo 
 man's rights, and no taxation without 
 
 o / ^M 
 
 representation, .they learn from her well, 
 it's too bad!" 
 
 " Is that all, pa-sy ? Seems to me, / 'd 
 like to vote, too," was Netty's piquant 
 rejoinder. 
 
 " Hoh ! I'll warrant," growled her fether. 
 " Hope you '11 vote the Whig ticket, Netty, 
 when you get your rights." 
 
 " Will the Union be dissolved, then, pa- 
 sy when the Whigs are beaten ? "' 
 
 " Bah ! you little plague," he growled, 
 with a laugh. "But, then, you women 
 don't know anything about politics. So, 
 there. As I was saying, everything went 
 wrong with me to-day. I 've been speculat-
 
 w * 
 
 20 TEE GHOST. 
 
 ing in railroad st6ck, and singed my 
 fingers. Then, old Tom Hollis outbid me, 
 to-day, at Leonard's on a rare medical work 
 I had set my eyes upon having. Confound 
 him ! Then, again, two of my houses are 
 tenantless, and there are folks in two others 
 that won't pay their rent, and I can't get 
 them out. Out they '11 go, though, or I '11 
 know why. And, to crown all um-m. 
 And I wish the devil had him ! as he 
 will." 
 
 " Had who, Beary-papa ? " 
 
 "Him. I'll tell you. The street floor 
 of one of my houses in Hanover street lets 
 for an oyster-room. They keep a bar there, 
 and sell liquor. Last night they had a 
 grand row a drunken fight, and one man 
 was stabbed, it 's thought fatally." 
 
 "O, father!" Netty's bright eyes 
 dilated with horror. 
 
 " Yes. I hope he won't die. At any 
 rate, there 's likely to be a stir about the 
 matter, and my name will be called into 
 question, then, as I'm the landlord. And 
 folks will make a handle of it, and there '11 
 be the deuce to pay, generally." 
 
 He got back the stern, vexed frown, to 
 his face, with the anticipation, and beat the
 
 THE GHOST. 21 
 
 carpet with his foot. The ghost gtill 
 watched from the angle of the room, and 
 seemed to darken, while its features looked 
 troubled. 
 
 " But, father," said Netty, a little tremu 
 lously, " I would n't let my houses to such 
 people. It 's not right ; is it ? Why, it .'s 
 horrid to think of men getting drunk, and 
 killing each other ! " 
 
 Dr. Renton rubbed his hair into dis 
 order, with vexation, and then subsided 
 into solemnity. 
 
 " I know it 's not exactly right, Netty ; 
 but I can't help it. As I said before, I 
 wish the devil had that bar-keeper. I 
 ought to have ordered him out long ago, 
 and then this wouldn't have happened. 
 I 've increased his rent twice, hoping to get 
 rid of him so ; but he pays without a mur 
 mur ; and what am I to do ? You see, he 
 was an occupant when the building came 
 into my hands, and I let him stay. He 
 pays me a good, round rent; and, apart 
 from his cursed traffic, he 's a good tenant. 
 What can I do? It 's a good thing for him, 
 and it 's a good thing for me, pecuniarily. 
 Confound him. Here's a nice rumpus 
 brewing ! "
 
 
 22 THE GHOST. 
 
 ".Dear pa, I'm afraid it's not a good 
 thing for- you," said Netty, caressing him, 
 and smoothing his tumbled hair. " Nor for 
 him either. I would n't mind the rent he 
 pays you. I'd order him out. It's bad 
 money. There 's blood on it." 
 
 She had grown pale, and her voice 
 quivered. The phantom glided over to 
 them, and laid its spectral hand upon her 
 forehead. The shadowy eyes looked from 
 under the misty hair into the doctor's face, 
 and the pale lips moved as if speaking the 
 words heard only in the silence of his heart 
 " hear her, hear her ! " 
 
 " I must think of it," resumed Dr. Ken- 
 ton, coldly. " I 'm resolved, at all events, 
 to warn him that if anything of this kind 
 occurs again, he must quit at once. I dis 
 like to lose a profitable tenant ; for no other 
 business would bring me the sum his does. 
 Hang it, everybody does the best he can 
 with his property why should n't I ? " 
 
 The ghost, standing near them, drooped 
 its head again on its breast, and crossed its 
 arms. Netty was silent. Dr. Renton con 
 tinued, petulantly : 
 
 " A precious set of people I manage to 
 get into my premises. There 's a woman
 
 THE GHOST. 23 
 
 hires a couple of rooms for a dwelling, 
 overhead, in that same building, and for 
 three, months I haven't got a cent from 
 her. I know these people's tricks. Her 
 month's notice expires to-morrow, and out 
 she goes." 
 
 " Poor creature ! " sighed Netty. 
 
 He knit his brow, and beat the carpet 
 with his foot, in vexation. 
 
 " Perhaps she can't pay you, pa," trem 
 bled the sweet, silvery voice. "You 
 would n't turn her out in this cold winter, 
 when she can't pay you would you, pa ? " 
 
 " Why don't she get another house, and 
 swindle some one else ? " he replied, testily ; 
 " there 's plenty of rooms to let." 
 
 "Perhaps she can't find one, pa," answer 
 ed Netty. 
 
 " Humbug ! " retorted her father ; " I 
 know better." 
 
 " Pa, dear,, if I were you, I 'd turn out 
 that rumseller, and let the poor woman 
 stay a little longer ; just a little, pa." 
 
 "Shan't do it. Hah! that would be 
 scattering money out of both pockets. 
 Shan't do it. Out she shall go ; and as for 
 him well, he'd better turn over a new 
 leaf. There, let us leave the subject, dar-
 
 24 THE GHOST. 
 
 ling. It vexes me. How did we contrive 
 to get into this train. Bah ! " 
 
 He drew her closer to him, and kiss 
 ed her forehead. She sat quietly, with 
 her head on his shoulder, thinking very 
 gravely. 
 
 "I feel queerly to-day, little Netty," he 
 began, after a short pause. "My nerves 
 are all high-strung with the turn matters 
 have taken." 
 
 " How is it, papa ? The headache ? " she 
 answered. 
 
 " Y-e-s n-o not exactly ; I don't know," 
 he said dubiously ; then, in an absent way, 
 " it was that letter set me to think of him 
 all day, I suppose." 
 
 " Why, pa, I declare," cried Netty, start 
 ing up, " if I did n't forget all about it, and 
 I came down expressly to give it to you ! 
 Where is it ? Oh ! here it is." 
 
 She drew from her pocket an old letter, 
 faded to a pale yellow, and gave it to him. 
 The ghost started suddenly. 
 
 " Why, bless my soul ! it 's the very let 
 ter ! Where did you get that, Nathalie ? " 
 asked Dr. Eenton. 
 
 " I found it on the stairs after dinner, pa." 
 
 " Yes, I do remember taking it up with
 
 THE GHOST. 25 
 
 me ; I must have dropped it," he answered, 
 musingly, gazing at the superscription. 
 The ghost was gazing at it, too, with startled 
 interest. 
 
 " What beautiful writing it is, pa," mur 
 mured the young girl. " Who wrote it to- 
 you ? It looks yellow enough to have been 
 written a long time since." 
 
 "Fifteen years ago, Netty. When you 
 were a baby. And the hand that wrote it 
 has been cold for all that time." 
 
 He spoke with a solemn sadness, as if 
 memory lingered with the .heart of fifteen 
 years ago, on an old grave. The dim figure 
 by his side had bowed its head, and all was 
 still. 
 
 " It is strange," he resumed, speaking 
 vacantly and slowly, " I have not thought of 
 him for so long a time, and to-day especially 
 this evening I have felt as if he were con 
 stantly near me. It is a singular feeling." 
 
 He put his left hand to his forehead, and 
 mused his right clasped his daughter's 
 shoulder. The phantom slowly raised its 
 head, and gazed at him with a look of 
 unutterable tenderness. 
 
 " Who was he, father ? " she asked with a 
 hushed voice.
 
 26 THE GHOST. 
 
 " A young man an author a poet. He 
 had been my dearest friend, when we were 
 boys ; and, though I lost sight of him for 
 years he led an erratic life we were 
 friends when he died. Poor, poor fellow ! 
 Well, he is at peace." 
 
 The stern voice had saddened, and was 
 almost tremulous. The spectral form was 
 still. 
 
 " How did he die, father ? " 
 
 "A long story, darling," he replied 
 gravely, " and a sad one. He was very poor 
 and proud. He was a genius that is, a 
 person without an atom of practical talent. 
 His parents died, the last, his mother, when 
 he was near manhood. I was in college 
 then. Thrown upon the world, he picked 
 up a scanty subsistence with his pen, for a 
 time. I could have got him a place in the 
 counting-house, but he would not take it ; 
 in fact, he was n't fit for it. You can't 
 harness Pegasus to the cart, you know. 
 Besides, he despised mercantile life without 
 reason, of course ; but he was always 
 notional. His love of literature was one of 
 the rocks he foundered on. He wasn't 
 successful ; his best compositions were too 
 delicate fanciful to please the popular
 
 THE GHOST. 27 
 
 taste ; and then he was full of the radical 
 and fanatical notions which infected so 
 many people at that time in New England, 
 and infect them now, for that matter ; and 
 his sublimated, impracticable ideas and 
 principles, which he kept till his dying day, 
 and which, I confess, alienated me from him, 
 always staved off his chances of success. 
 Consequently, he never rose above the 
 drudgery of some employment on news 
 papers. Then he was terribly passionate, 
 not without cause, I allow ; but it was ii't 
 wise. What I mean is this : if he saw, or if 
 he fancied he saw, any wrong or injury done 
 to any one, it was enough to throw him 
 into a frenzy ; he would get black in the 
 face and absolutely shriek out his denuncia 
 tions of the wrongdoer. I do believe he 
 would have visited his own brother with 
 the most unsparing invective, if that brother 
 had laid a harming finger on a street-beggar, 
 or a colored man, or a poor person of any 
 kind. I don't blame the feeling ; though 
 with a man like him, it was very apt to be 
 a false or mistaken one ; but, at any rate, 
 its exhibition wasn't sensible. Well, as I 
 was saying, he buffeted about in this world 
 a long time, poorly paid, fed, and clad;
 
 28 THE GHOST. 
 
 taking more care of other people than 
 he did of himself. Then mental suffer 
 ing, physical exposure, and want killed 
 him." 
 
 The stern voice had grown softer than a 
 child's. The same look of unutterable 
 tenderness brooded on the mournful face of 
 the phantom by his side ; but its thin, 
 shining hand was laid upon his head, and 
 its countenance had undergone a change. 
 The form was still undefined ; but the 
 features had become distinct. They were 
 those of a young man, beautiful and wan, 
 and marked with great suffering. 
 
 A pause had fallen on the conversation, 
 in which the father and daughter heard the 
 solemn sighing of the wintry wind around 
 the dwelling. The silence seemed scarcely 
 broken by the voice of the young girl. 
 
 "Dear father, this was very sad. Did 
 you say he died of want ? " 
 
 " Of want, my child, of hunger and cold. 
 I do n't doubt it. He had wandered about, 
 as I gather, houseless for a couple of days 
 and nights. It was in December, too. 
 Some one found him, on a rainy night, lying 
 in the street, drenched and burning with 
 fever, and had him taken to the hospital.
 
 THE GHOST. 29 
 
 It appears that he had always cherished a 
 strange affection for me, though I had grown 
 away from him ; and in his wild ravings he 
 constantly mentioned my name, and they 
 sent for me,. That was our first meeting 
 after two years. I found him in the hospital 
 dying. Heaven can witness that I felt 
 all my old love for him return then, but he 
 was delirious, and never recognized me. 
 And, Nathalie, his hair it had been coal- 
 black, and he wore it very long, he would n't* 
 let them cut it either ; and as they knew no 
 skill could save him, they let him have his 
 way his hair was then as white as snow ! 
 God alone knows what that brain must have 
 suffered to blanch hair which had been as 
 black as the wing of a raven ! " 
 
 He covered his eyes with his hand, and 
 sat silently. The fingers of the phantom 
 still shone dimly on his head, and its white 
 locks drooped above him, like a weft of 
 
 light. y$: 
 
 " What was his name, father ? " asked the 
 pitying girl. 
 
 " George Feval. The very name sounds 
 like fever. He died on Christmas eve, fifteen 
 years ago this night. It was on his death 
 bed, while his mind was tossing on a sea of
 
 30 THE GHOST. 
 
 delirious fancies, that he wrote me this long 
 letter for to the last, I was uppermost in 
 his thoughts. It is a wild, incoherent thing, 
 of course a strange mixture of sense and 
 madness. But I have kept it as a memorial 
 of him. I have not looked at it for years ; 
 but this morning I found it among my 
 papers, and somehow it has been in my 
 mind all day." 
 
 He slowly unfolded the faded sheets, and 
 sadly gazed at the writing. His daughter had 
 risen from her half-recumbent posture, and 
 now bent her graceful head over the leaves. 
 The phantom covered its face with its 
 hands. 
 
 " What a beautiful . manuscript it is, 
 father ! " she exclaimed. " The writing is 
 faultless." 
 
 " It is, indeed," he replied. " Would he 
 had written his life as fairly ! " 
 
 " Read it, father," said Nathalie. 
 
 " No but I'll read you a detached passage 
 here and there," he answered, after a pause. 
 " The rest you may read yourself some time, 
 if you wish. It is painful to me. Here 's 
 the beginning : 
 
 " ' My Dea/r Charles Renton : Adieu, 
 and adieu. It is Christmas eve, and I am
 
 THE GHOST. 31 
 
 going home. I am soon to exhale from my 
 flesh, like the spirit of a broken flower. 
 
 Exultemus forever ! ' 
 
 ***** 
 
 " It is very wild. His mind was in a 
 fever-craze. Here is a passage that seems 
 to refer to his own experience of life : 
 
 " ' Your friendship was dear to me. 
 I give you true love. Stocks and returns. 
 You are rich, but I did not wish to be your 
 bounty* s pauper. Could Ibeg f I had my 
 work to do for the world, but oh ! the world 
 has no place for souls that can only love 
 and suffer. How many miles to Babylon ? 
 Threescore and ten. Not so far not near 
 
 so far ! Ask starvelings they know. 
 ***** 
 
 / wanted to do the world good and the world 
 has Icilled me, Charles? " 
 
 "It frightens me," said Nathalie, as he 
 paused. 
 
 "We will read no more," he replied 
 sombrely. "It belongs to the psychology 
 of madness. To me, who knew him, there 
 are gleams of sense in it, and passages where 
 the delirium of the language is only a 
 transparent veil on the meaning. All the 
 remainder is devoted to what he thought
 
 32 THE GHOST. 
 
 important advice to me. But it 's all wild 
 and vague. Poor poor George ! " 
 
 The phantom still hid its face in its hands, 
 as the doctor slowly turned over the pages 
 of the letter. Nathalie, bending over the 
 leaves, laid her finger on the last, and asked 
 "What are those closing sentences, 
 father ? Read them." 
 
 "Oh! that is what he called his 'last 
 counsel ' to me. It 's as wild as the rest 
 tinctured with the prevailing ideas of his 
 career. First he says, farewell farewell ; ' 
 then he bids me take his ' counsel into 
 memory on Christmas day / ' then, after 
 enumerating all the wretched, classes he can 
 think of in the country, he says. ' These 
 are your sisters and your brothers love 
 them all? Here he says, ' O friend, strong 
 in wealth for so much good, take my last 
 counsel. In ihe name of the Saviour, I 
 charge.you be tfue-and tender to mankind? 
 He goes on to bid me ' live and labor for 
 . the fallen, the neglected, tlie suffering, and 
 the poor , ' and finally ends by advising me 
 to help upset any, or all, institutions, laws, 
 and so forth, that bear hardly on the 
 fag-ends of society ;-and tells me that what 
 he calls 'a service to humanity '-is worth
 
 THE GHOST. 33 
 
 more to the doer than a service to anything 
 else, or than anything we can gain from the 
 world. Ah, well ! poor George." 
 
 "But isn't all that true, father?" said 
 Netty ; " it seems so." 
 
 " H'm," he murmured through his closed 
 lips. Then, with a vague smile, folding up 
 the letter, meanwhile, he said, " Wild words, 
 Netty, wild words. I've no objection to 
 charity, judiciously given ; but poor George's 
 notions are not mine. Every man for him 
 self, is a good general rule. Every man for 
 humanity, as George has it, and in his ac 
 ceptation of the principle, would send us all 
 to the alms-house pretty soon. The greatest 
 good of the greatest number that 's my rule 
 of action. There are plenty of good insti 
 tutions for the distressed, and I 'in willing 
 to help support 'em, and do. But as for 
 making a martyr of one's self, or tilting 
 against the necessary evils of society, or turn 
 ing philanthropist at large, or any quixot 
 ism of that sort, I do n't believe in it. "We 
 did n't make the world, and we can't mend 
 it. Poor George. Well he 's at rest. The 
 world was n't the place for him." 
 
 They grew silent. The spectre glided 
 slowly to the wall, and stood as if it were 
 3
 
 34 THE GHOST. 
 
 thinking what, with Dr. Renton's rule of 
 action, was to become of the greatest good 
 of the smallest number. Nathalie sat on 
 her father's knee, thinking only of George 
 Feval, and of his having been starved and 
 grieved to death. 
 
 " Father," said Nathalie, softly, " I felt, 
 while you were reading the letter, as if he 
 were near us. Did n't you ? The room was 
 so light and still, and the wind sighed so." 
 
 " Netty, dear, I Ve felt that all day, I be 
 lieve," he replied. " Hark ! there is the door 
 bell. Off goes the spirit-world, and here 
 comes the actual. Confound it! Some one to 
 see me, I'll warrant, and I'm not in the mood." 
 
 He got into a fret at once. Netty was not 
 the Netty of an hour ago, or she would 
 have coaxed him out of it. But she did not 
 notice it now in her abstraction. She had 
 risen at the tinkle of the bell, and seated 
 herself in a chair. Presently a nose, with 
 a great pimple on the end of it, appeared 
 at the edge of the door, and a weak, piping 
 voice said, reckless of the proper tense, 
 " there was a woman wanted to see you, sir." 
 
 "Who is it, James? no matter, show 
 her in." 
 
 He got up with the vexed scowl on his
 
 THE GHOST. 35 
 
 face, and walked the room. In a minute 
 the library door opened again, and a pale, 
 thin, rigid, frozen-looking little woman, 
 scantily clad, the weather being considered, 
 entered, and dropped a curt, awkward bow 
 to Dr. Renton. 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Miller. Good evening, ma'am. 
 Sit down," he said, with a cold, constrained 
 civility. 
 
 The little woman faintly said, " Good 
 evening, Dr. Renton," and sat down stiffly, 
 with her hands crossed before her, in the 
 chair nearest the wall. This was the obdu 
 rate tenant, who had paid no rent for three 
 months, and had a notice to quit, expiring 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " Cold evening, ma'am," remarked Dr. 
 Renton, in his hard way. 
 
 " Yes, sir, it is," was the cowed, awkward 
 answer. 
 
 " Won't you sit near the fire, ma'am," said 
 Netty, gently ; " you look cold." 
 
 " No, miss, thank you. I 'm not cold," 
 was the faint reply. She was cold, though, 
 as well she might be with her poor, thin 
 shawl, and open bonnet, in such a bitter 
 night as it was ^outside. And there was a 
 rigid, sharp, suffering look in her pinched
 
 36 THE GHOST. 
 
 features that betokened she might have been 
 hungry, too. 
 
 " Poor people don't mind the cold weather, 
 miss," she said, with a weak smile, her voice 
 getting a little stronger. " They have to 
 bear it, and they get used to it." 
 
 She had not evidently borne it long 
 enough to effect the point of indifference. 
 Netty looked at her with a tender pity. 
 Dr. Renton thought to himself Hoh ! 
 blazoning her poverty manufacturing sym 
 pathy already the old trick and steeled 
 himself against any attacks of that kind, 
 looking jealously, meanwhile, at Netty. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Miller," he said, "what is it 
 this evening ? I suppose you've brought me 
 my rent." 
 
 The little woman grew paler, and her 
 voice seemed to fail on her quivering lips. 
 Netty cast a quick, beseeching look at her 
 father. 
 
 "Nathalie, please to leave the room." 
 We'll have no nonsense carried on here, he 
 thought, triumphantly, as Netty rose, and 
 obeyed the stern, decisive order, leaving 
 the door ajar behind her. 
 
 He seated himself in his chair, and reso 
 lutely put his right leg up to rest on his left
 
 THE GHOST. 37 
 
 knee. He did not look at his tenant's face, 
 determined that her piteous expressions (got 
 up for the occasion, of course) should be 
 wasted on him. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Miller," he said again. 
 
 " Dr. Renton," she began, faintly gather 
 ing her voice as she proceeded, "I have 
 come to see you about the rent. I am very 
 sorry, sir, to have made you wait, but we 
 have been unfortunate." 
 
 " Sorry, ma'am," he replied, knowing 
 what was coming ; " but your misfortunes 
 are not my affair. We all have misfortunes, 
 ma'am. But we must pay our debts, you 
 know." 
 
 " I expected to have got money from my 
 husband before this, sir," she resumed, " and 
 I wrote to him. I got a letter from him 
 to-day, sir, and it said that he sent me fifty 
 dollars a month ago, in a letter ; and it ap 
 pears that the post-office is to blame, or 
 somebody, for I never got it. It was nearly 
 three months' wages, sir, and it is very hard 
 to lose it. If it had n't been for that, your 
 rent would have been paid long ago, sir." 
 
 " Don't believe a word of that story," 
 thought Dr. Eenton, sententiously. 
 
 " I thought, sir," she continued, embold-
 
 38 TEE GHOST. 
 
 ened by his silence, " that if you would be 
 willing to wait a little longer, we would 
 manage to pay you soon, and not let it oc 
 cur again. It has been a hard winter with 
 us, sir ; firing is high, and provisions, and 
 everything ; and we 're only poor people, 
 you know, and it's difficult to get along." 
 
 The doctor made no reply. 
 
 " My husband was unfortunate, sir, in not 
 being able to get employment here," she 
 resumed ; "his being out of work, in the 
 autumn, threw us all back, and we 've got 
 nothing to depend on but his earnings. The 
 family that he 's in now, sir, do n't give him 
 very good pay only twenty dollars a month, 
 and his board but it was the best chance he 
 could get, and it was either go to Baltimore 
 with them, or stay at home and starve, and 
 so he went, sir. It 's been a hard time with 
 us, and one of the children is sick, now, 
 with a fever, and we do n't hardly know how 
 to make out a living. And so, sir, I have 
 come here this evening, leaving the chil 
 dren alone, to ask you if you would n't be 
 kind enough to wait a little longer, and we '11 
 hope to make it right with you in the end." 
 
 "Mrs. Miller," said Dr. Benton, with 
 stern composure, " I have no wish to ques-
 
 THE GHOST. 39 
 
 tion the truth of any statement you may 
 make ; but I must tell you plainly, that I 
 can't afford to let my houses for nothing. I 
 told you a month ago, that if you couldn't pay 
 me my rent, you must vacate the premises. 
 You know very well that there are plenty of 
 tenants who are able and willing to pay when 
 the money comes due. You know that." 
 
 He paused as he said this, and, glancing 
 at her, saw her pale lips falter. It shook 
 the cruelty of his purpose a little, and he 
 had a vague feeling that he was doing wrong. 
 Not without a proud struggle, during which 
 no word was spoken, could he beat it down. 
 Meanwhile, the phantom had advanced a 
 pace toward the centre of the room. 
 
 " That is 'the state of the matter, ma'am," 
 he resumed, coldly. " People who will not 
 pay me my rent must not live in my tene 
 ments. You must move out. I have no 
 more to say." 
 
 " Dr. Renton," she said faintly, " I have 
 a sick child how can I move now ? Oh ! sir, 
 it 's Christmas eve don 't be hard with us !" 
 
 Instead of touching him, this speech irri 
 tated him beyond measure. Passing all 
 considerations of her difficult position in 
 volved in her piteous statement, his anger
 
 40 THE GHOST. 
 
 flashed at once on her implication that he 
 was unjust and unkind. So violent was his 
 excitement that it whirled away the words 
 that rushed to his lips, and only fanned the 
 fury that sparkled from the whiteness of his 
 face in his eyes. 
 
 " Be patient with us, sir," she continued ; 
 " we are poor, but we mean to pay you ; and 
 we can't move now in this cold weather ; 
 please, don't be hard with us, sir." 
 
 The fury now burst out on his face in a 
 red and angry glow, and the words came. 
 
 " Now, attend to me ! " He rose to his 
 feet. " I will not hear any more from you. 
 I know nothing of your poverty, nor of the 
 condition of your family. All I know is 
 that you owe me three months' rent, and 
 that you can't or won't pay me. I say, there 
 fore, leave the premises to people who can 
 and will. You have had your legal notice ; 
 quit my house to-morrow ; if you do n't, 
 your furniture shall be put in the street. 
 Mark me to-morrow ! " 
 
 The phantom had rushed into the centre 
 of the room. Standing, face to face wdth 
 him dilating blackening its whole form 
 shuddering witji a fury to which his own 
 was tame the semblance of a shriek upon
 
 THE GHOST. 41 
 
 its flashing lips, and on its writhing features, 
 and an unearthly anger streaming from its 
 bright and terrible eyes it seemed to throw 
 down, with its tossing arms, mountains of 
 hate and malediction on the head of him 
 whose words had smitten poverty and suf 
 fering, and whose heavy hand was breaking 
 up the barriers of a home. 
 
 Dr. Renton sank again into his chair. 
 His tenant not a woman ! not a sister in 
 humanity ! but only his tenant ; she sat 
 crushed and frightened by the wall. He 
 knew it vaguely. Conscience was battling 
 in his heart with the stubborn devils that 
 had entered there. The phantom stood be 
 fore him, like a dark cloud in the image of a 
 man. But its darkness was lightening slow 
 ly, and its ghostly anger had passed away. 
 
 The poor woman, paler than before, had 
 sat mute and trembling, with all her hopes 
 ruined. Yet her desperation forbade her 
 to abandon the chances of his mercy, and 
 she now said : 
 
 " Dr. Eenton, you surely do n't mean what 
 you have told me. Won't you bear with 
 me a little longer, and we will yet make it 
 all right with you ? " 
 
 " I have given you my answer," he
 
 42 THE GHOST. 
 
 returned, coldly ; "I have no more to add. 
 I never take back anything I say never ! " 
 
 It was true. He never did never ! She 
 half rose from her seat as if to go ; but 
 weak and sickened with the bitter result of 
 her visit, she sunk down again with her 
 head bowed. There was a pause. Then, 
 solemnly gliding across the lighted room, the 
 phantom 'stole to her side with a glory of 
 compassion on its wasted features. Tender 
 ly, as a son to a mother, it bent over her ; 
 its spectral hands of light rested upon her 
 in caressing and benediction ; its shadowy 
 fall of hair, once blanched by the anguish 
 of living and loving, floated on her throb 
 bing brow; and resignation and comfort 
 not of this world, sank upon her spirit, and 
 consciousness grew dim within her, and care 
 and sorrow seemed to die. 
 
 He who had been so cruel and so hard, sat 
 silent in black gloom. The stern and sullen 
 mood from which had dropped but one fierce 
 flash of anger, still hung above the heat of 
 his mind, like a dark rack of thunder-cloud. 
 It would have burst anew into a fury of 
 rebuke, had he but known his daughter 
 was listening at the door, while the colloquy 
 went on. It might have flamed violently,
 
 THE GHOST. 43 
 
 had his tenant made any further attempt to 
 change his purpose. She had not. She had 
 left the room meekly, with the same curt, 
 awkward bow that marked her entrance. 
 He recalled her manner very indistinctly ; 
 for a feeling, like a mist, began to gather in 
 his mind, and make the occurrences of 
 moments before uncertain. 
 
 Alone, now, he was yet oppressed with 
 a sensation that something was near him. 
 Was it a spiritual instinct ? for the phantom 
 stood by his side. It stood silently, with 
 one hand raised above his head, from which 
 a pale flame seemed to flow downward to 
 his brain; its other hand pointed move- 
 lessly to the open letter on the table beside 
 him. 
 
 He took the sheets from the table, think 
 ing, at the moment, only of George Feval ; 
 but the first line on which his eye rested 
 was, " In the name of the Saviour, I charge 
 you, be true and tender to mankind ! " and 
 the words touched him like a low voice from 
 the grave. Their penetrant reproach pierced 
 the hardness of his heart. He tossed the let 
 ter back on the table. The very manner of 
 the act accused him of an insult to the dead. 
 In a moment he took up the faded sheets
 
 44: THE GHOST. 
 
 more reverently, but only to lay them down 
 again. 
 
 He had not been well that day, arid he 
 now felt worse than before. The pain in 
 his head had given place to a strange sense 
 of dilation, and there was a silent, confused 
 riot in his fevered brain, which seemed to 
 him like the incipience of insanity. Striv 
 ing to divert his mind from what had passed, 
 by reflection on other themes, he could not 
 hold his thoughts ; they came teeming but 
 dim, and slipped and fell away ; and only 
 the one circumstance of his recent cruelty, 
 mixed with remembrance of George Feval, 
 recurred and clung with vivid persistence. 
 This tortured him. Sitting there, with 
 arms tightly interlocked, he resolved to 
 wrench his mind down by sheer will upon 
 other things ; and a savage pleasure at what 
 at once seemed success, took possession of 
 him. In this mood, he heard soft footsteps 
 and the rustle of festal garments on the 
 stairs, and had a fierce complacency in being 
 able to clearly apprehend that it was his 
 wife and daughter going out to the party. 
 In a moment, he heard the controlled and 
 even voice of Mrs. Renton a serene and 
 polished lady with whom he had lived for
 
 THE GHOST. 45 
 
 years in cold and civil alienation, both, see 
 ing as little of each other as possible. With 
 a scowl of will upon his brow, he received 
 her image distinctly into his mind, even to 
 the minutia of the dress and ornaments he 
 knew she wore, and felt an absolutely savage 
 exultation in his ability to retain it. Then 
 came the sound of the closing of the hall 
 door and the rattle of receding wheels, and 
 somehow it was Nathalie and not his wife 
 that he was holding so grimly in his 
 thought, and with her, salient and vivid as 
 before, the tormenting remembrance of his 
 tenant, connected with the memory of 
 George Feval. Springing to his feet, he 
 walked the room. 
 
 He had thrown himself on a sofa, still 
 striving to be rid of his remorseful visita 
 tions, when the library door opened, and the 
 inside man appeared, with his hand held 
 bashfully over his nose. It flashed on him 
 at once, that his tenant's husband was the 
 servant of a family like this fellow ; and, irri 
 tated that the whole matter should be thus 
 broadly forced upon him in another way, 
 he harshly asked him what he wanted. 
 The man only came in to say that Mrs. Ken- 
 ton and the young lady had gone out for the
 
 46 THE GHOST. 
 
 evening, but that tea was laid for him 
 in the dining-room. He did not want 
 any tea, and if anybody called, he was 
 not at home. With this charge, the man 
 left the room, closing the door behind 
 him. 
 
 If he could but sleep a little ! Rising 
 from the sofa, he turned the lights of the 
 chandelier low, and screened the fire. The 
 room was still. The ghost stood, faintly 
 radiant, in a remote corner. Dr. Rentori 
 lay down again, but not to repose. Things 
 he had forgotten of his dead friend, now 
 started up again in remembrance, fresh from 
 the grave of many years ; and not one of 
 them but- linked itself by some mysterious 
 bond to something connected with his ten 
 ant, and became an accusation. 
 
 He had lain thus for more than an hour, 
 feeling more and more unmanned by illness, 
 and his mental excitement fast becoming in 
 tolerable, when he heard a low strain of mu 
 sic, from the Swedenborgian chapel, hard 
 by. Its first impression was one of solemnity 
 and rest, and its first sense, in his mind, 
 was of relief. Perhaps it was the music of 
 an evening meeting; or it might be that 
 the organist and choir had met for practice.
 
 THE GHOST. 47 
 
 "Whatever its purpose, it breathed through 
 his heated fancy like a cool and fragrant 
 wind. It was vague and sweet and wan 
 dering at first, straying on into a strain more 
 mysterious and melancholy, but very shad 
 owy and subdued, and evoking the innocent 
 and tender moods of early youth before 
 worldliness had hardened around his heart. 
 Gradually, as he listened to it, the fires in 
 his brain were allayed, and all yielded to a 
 sense of coolness and repose. He seemed 
 to sink from trance to trance of utter rest, 
 and yet was dimly aware that either some 
 thing in his own condition, or some super 
 natural accession of tone, was changing the 
 music from its proper quality to a harmony 
 more infinite and awful. It was still low 
 and indeterminate and sweet, but had un 
 accountably and strangely swelled into a 
 gentle and sombre dirge, incommunicably 
 mournful, and filled with a dark significance 
 that touched him in his depth of rest with 
 a secret tremor and awe. As he listened, 
 rapt and vaguely wondering, the sense of 
 his tranced sinking seemed to come to an 
 end, and with the feeling of one who had 
 been descending for many hours, and at 
 length lay motionless at the bottom of a
 
 48 THE GHOST. 
 
 deep, dark chasm, lie heard the music fail 
 and cease. 
 
 A pause, and then it rose again, blended 
 with the solemn voices of the choir, sublimed 
 and dilated now, reaching him as though 
 from weird night gulfs of the upper air, and 
 charged with an overmastering pathos as of 
 the lamentations of angels. In the dimness 
 and silence, in the aroused and exalted con 
 dition of his being, the strains seemed un 
 earthly in their immense and desolate 
 grandeur of sorrow, and their mournful and 
 dark significance was now for him. Work 
 ing within him the impression of vast, in 
 numerable, fleeing shadows, thick-crowding 
 memories of all the ways and deeds of an 
 existence fallen from its early dreams and 
 aims, poured across the midnight of his soul, 
 and under the streaming melancholy of the 
 dirge, his life showed like some monstrous 
 treason. It did not terrify or madden him ; 
 he listened to it rapt utterly as in some 
 deadening ether of dream ; yet feeling to his 
 inmost core all its powerful grief and accu 
 sation, and quietly aghast at the sinister 
 consciousness it gave him. Still it swelled, 
 gathering and sounding on into yet mightier 
 pathos, till all at once it darkened and spread
 
 THE GHOST. 49 
 
 wide in wild despair, and aspiring again into 
 a pealing agony of supplication, quivered 
 and died away in a low and funereal sigh. 
 
 The 'tears streamed suddenly upon his 
 face; his soul lightened and turned dark 
 within him ; and as one faints away, so con 
 sciousness swooned, and he fell suddenly 
 down a precipice of sleep. The music rose 
 again, a pensive and holy chant, and sounded 
 on to its close, unaffected by the action of 
 his brain, for he slept and heard it no more. 
 He lay tranquilly, hardly seeming to breathe, 
 in motionless repose. The room was dim 
 and silent, and the furniture took uncouth 
 shapes around him. The red glow upon 
 the ceiling, from the screened fire, showed 
 the misty figure of the phantom kneeling 
 by his side. All light had gone from the 
 spectral form. It knelt beside him, mutely, 
 as in prayer. Once it gazed at his quiet 
 face with a mournful tenderness, and its 
 shadowy hands caressed his forehead. Then 
 it resumed its former attitude, and the slow 
 hours crept by. 
 
 At last it rose and glided to the table, 
 
 on which lay the open letter. It seemed to 
 
 try to lift the sheets with its misty hands 
 
 but vainly. Next it essayed the lifting of 
 
 4
 
 50 THE GHOST. 
 
 a pen which lay there but failed. It was 
 a piteous sight, to see its idle efforts on 
 these shapes of grosser matter, which ap 
 peared now to have to it but the existence 
 of illusions. "Wandering about the shad 
 owy room, it wrung its phantom hands as 
 in despair. 
 
 Presently it grew still. Then it passed 
 quickly to his side, and stood before him. 
 He slept calmly. It placed one ghostly 
 hand above his forehead, and, with the 
 other pointed to the open letter. In this 
 attitude its shape grew momentarily more 
 distinct. It began to kindle into bright 
 ness. The pale flame again flowed from 
 its hand, streaming downward to his brain. 
 A look of trouble darkened the sleeping face. 
 Stronger stronger ; brighter brighter ; 
 until, at last, it stood before him, a glorious 
 shape of light, with an awful look of com 
 manding love in its shining features and 
 the sleeper sprang to his feet with a cry ! 
 
 The phantom had vanished. He saw 
 nothing. His first impression was, not 
 that he had dreamed, but that, awaking in 
 the familiar room, he had seen the spirit of 
 his dead friend, bright and awful by his 
 side, and that it had gone ! In the flash of
 
 THE GHOST. 51 
 
 that quick change, from sleeping to waking, 
 he had detected, he thought, the unearthly 
 being that, he now felt, watched him from 
 behind the air, and it had vanished ! The 
 library was the same as in the moment of 
 that supernatural revealing ; the open letter 
 lay upon the table still ; only that was gone 
 whicli had made these common aspects ter 
 rible. Then, all the hard, strong skepticism 
 of his nature, which had been driven back 
 ward by the shock of his first conviction, 
 recoiled, and rushed within him, violently 
 struggling for its former vantage ground ; 
 till, at length, it achieved the foothold for 
 a doubt. Could he have dreamed? The 
 ghost, invisible, still watched him. Yes 
 a dream only a dream ; but, how vivid 
 how strange ! With a slow thrill creep 
 ing through his veins the blood curdling 
 at his heart a cold sweat starting on his 
 forehead, he stared through the dimness of 
 the room. All was vacancy. 
 
 With a strong shudder, he strode forward, 
 and turned up the flames of the chandelier. 
 A flood of garish light filled -the apartment. 
 In a moment, remembering the letter to 
 which the phantom of his dream had 
 pointed, he turned and took it from the table.
 
 52 THE GHOST. 
 
 The last page lay upward, and every word 
 of the solemn counsel at the end seemed to 
 dilate on the paper, and all its mighty mean 
 ing rushed upon his soul. Trembling in 
 his own despite, he laid it down and moved 
 away. A physician, he remembered that he 
 was in a state of violent nervous excitement, 
 and thought that when he grew calmer its 
 effects would pass from him. But the hand 
 that had touched him had gone down deeper 
 than the physician, and reached what God 
 had made. 
 
 He strove in vain. The very room, in its 
 light and silence, and the lurking sentiment 
 of something watching him, became terrible. 
 He could not endure it. The devils in his 
 heart, grown pusillanimous, cowered be 
 neath the flashing strokes of his aroused 
 and terrible conscience. He could not en 
 dure it. He must go out. He will walk 
 the streets. It is not late it is but ten 
 o'clock. He will go. 
 
 The air of his dream still hung heavily 
 about him. He was in the street he hard 
 ly remembered how he had got there, or 
 when ; but there he was, wrapped up from 
 the searching cold, thinking, with a quiet 
 horror in his mind, of the darkened room
 
 THE GHOST. 53 
 
 he had left behind, and haunted by the 
 sense that something was groping about 
 there in the darkness, searching for him. 
 The night was still and cold. The full 
 moon was in the zenith. Its icy splendor 
 lay on the bare streets, and on the walls of 
 the dwellings. The lighted oblong squares 
 of curtained windows, here and there, 
 seemed dim and waxen in the frigid glory. 
 The familiar aspect of the quarter had 
 passed away, leaving behind only a corpse- 
 like neighborhood, whose huge, dead feat 
 ures, staring rigidly through the thin, white 
 shroud of moonlight that covered all, left 
 no breath upon the stainless skies. Through 
 the vast silence of the night he passed 
 along; the very sound of his footfalls was 
 remote to his muffled sense. 
 
 Gradually, as he reached the first corner, 
 he had an uneasy feeling that a thing a 
 formless, unimaginable thing was dogging 
 him. He had thought of going down to 
 his club-room ; but he now shrank from en 
 tering, with this thing near him, the lighted 
 rooms where his set were busy with cards 
 and billiards, over their liquors and cigars, 
 and where the heated air was full of their 
 idle faces and careless chatter, lest some one
 
 54 THE GHOST. 
 
 should bawl out that he was pale, and ask 
 him what was the matter, and he should 
 answer, tremblingly, that something was 
 following him, and was near him then! 
 He must get rid of it first ; he must walk 
 quickly, and baffle its pursuit by turning 
 sharp corners, and plunging into devious 
 streets and crooked lanes, and so lose it ! 
 
 It was difficult to reach through memory 
 to the crazy chaos of his mind on that 
 night, and recall the route he took while 
 haunted by this feeling ; but he afterward 
 remembered that, without any other pur 
 pose than to baffle his imaginary pursuer, 
 he traversed at a rapid pace a large portion 
 of the moonlit city ; always (he knew not 
 why) avoiding the more populous thorough 
 fares, and choosing unfrequented and tortu 
 ous byways, but never ridding himself of 
 that horrible confusion of mind in which 
 the faces of his dead friend and the pale 
 woman were strangely blended, nor of the 
 fancy that he was followed. Once, as he 
 passed the hospital where Feval died, a 
 faint hint seemed to flash and vanish from 
 the clouds of his lunacy, and almost identify 
 the dogging goblin with the figure of his 
 dream ; but the conception instantly mixed
 
 THE GHOST. 55 
 
 with a disconnected remembrance that this 
 was Christmas eve, and then slipped from 
 him, and was lost. He did not pause there, 
 but strode on. But just there, what had 
 been frightful became hideous. For at once 
 he was possessed with the conviction that 
 the thing that lurked at a distance behind 
 him, was quickening its movement, and 
 coming up to seize him. The dreadful fancy 
 stung him like a goad, and, with a start, he 
 accelerated his flight, horribly conscious that 
 what he feared was slinking along in the 
 shadow, close to the dark bulks of the houses, 
 resolutely pursuing, and bent on overtaking 
 him. Faster ! His footfalls rang hollowly 
 and loud on the moonlit pavement, and in 
 contrast with their rapid thuds he felt it as 
 something peculiarly terrible that the furtive 
 thing behind, slunk after him with soundless 
 feet. Faster, faster! Traversing only the 
 most unfrequented streets, and at that late 
 hour of a cold winter night, he met no one, 
 and with a terrifying consciousness that his 
 pursuer was gaining on him, he desperately 
 strode on. He did not dare to look behind, 
 dreading less what he might see, than the 
 momentary loss of speed the action might 
 occasion. Faster, faster, faster ! And all at
 
 56 THE GHOST. 
 
 once he knew that the dogging thing had 
 dropped its stealthy pace and was racing up 
 to him. With a bound he broke into a run, 
 seeing, hearing, heeding nothing, aware only 
 that the other was silently louping on his 
 track two steps to his one ; and with that 
 frantic apprehension upon him, he gained 
 the next street, flung himself around the 
 corner with his back to the wall, and his 
 arms convulsively drawn up for a grapple ; 
 and felt something rush whirring past his 
 flank, striking him on the shoulder as it went 
 by, with a buffet that made a shock break 
 through his frame. That shock restored 
 him to his senses. His delusion was sud 
 denly shattered. The goblin was gone. He 
 was free. 
 
 He stood panting, like one just roused 
 from some terrible dream, wiping the reek 
 ing perspiration from his forehead and 
 thinking confusedly and wearily what a 
 fool he had been. He felt he had wan 
 dered a long distance from his house, 
 but had no distinct perception of his 
 whereabouts. He only knew he was in 
 some thinly-peopled street, whose familiar 
 aspect seemed lost to him in the magical 
 disguise the superb moonlight had thrown
 
 THE GHOST. 57 
 
 over all. Suddenly a film seemed to drop 
 from his eyes, as they became riveted on a 
 lighted window, on the opposite side of the 
 way. He started, and a secret terror crept 
 over him, vaguely mixed with the memory 
 of the shock he had felt as he turned the 
 last corner, and his distinct, awful feeling 
 that something invisible had passed him. 
 At the same instant he felt, and thrilled to 
 feel, a touch, as of a light finger, on his 
 cheek. He was in Hanover street. Before 
 him was the house the oyster-room staring 
 at him through the lighted transparencies 
 of its two windows, like two square eyes, 
 below ; and his tenant's light in a chamber 
 above ! The added shock which this dis 
 covery gave to the heaving of his heart, 
 made him gasp for breath. Could it be? 
 Did he still dream ? While he stood pant 
 ing and staring at the building, the city 
 clocks began to strike. Eleven o'clock ; it 
 was ten when he came away ; how he must 
 have driven ! His thoughts caught up the 
 word. Driven by what ? Driven from 
 his house in horror, through street and lane, 
 over half the city driven hunted in ter 
 ror, and smitten by a shock here ! Driven 
 driven ! He could not rid his mind of the
 
 58 THE GHOST. 
 
 word, nor of the meaning it suggested. 
 The pavements about him began to ring 
 and echo with the tramp of many feet, 
 and the cold, brittle air was shivered with 
 the noisy voices that had roared and 
 bawled applause and laughter at the Na 
 tional Theatre all the evening, and were 
 now singing and howling homeward. 
 Groups of rude men, and ruder boys, their 
 breaths steaming in the icy air, began to 
 tramp by, jostling him as they passed, till 
 he was forced to draw back to the wall, and 
 give them the sidewalk. Dazed and gid 
 dy, in cold fear, and with the returning 
 sense of something near him, he stood and 
 watched the groups that pushed and tum 
 bled in through the entrance of the oyster- 
 room, whistling and chattering as they 
 went, and banging the door behind them. 
 He noticed that some came out presently, 
 banging the door harder, and went, smok 
 ing and shouting, down the street. Still 
 they poured in and out, while the street was 
 startled with their stimulated riot, and the 
 bar-room within echoed their trampling feet 
 and hoarse voices. Then, as his glance wan 
 dered upward to his tenant's window, he 
 thought of the sick child, mixing this hid-
 
 THE GHOST. 59 
 
 eous discord in the dreams of fever. The 
 word brought up the name and the thought 
 of his dead friend. " In the name of the 
 Saviour, I charge you be true and tender 
 to mankind ! " The memory of these words 
 seemed to ring clearly, as if a voice had 
 spoken them, above the roar that suddenly 
 rose in his mind. In that moment he felt 
 himself a wretched and most guilty man. 
 He felt that his cruel words had entered 
 that humble home, to make desperate pov 
 erty more desperate, to sicken sickness, and 
 to sadden sorrow. Before him was the 
 dram-shop, let and licensed to nourish the 
 worst and most brutal appetites and in 
 stincts of human natures, at the sacrifice 
 of all their highest and holiest tendencies. 
 The throng of tipplers and drunkards was 
 swarming through its hopeless door, to gulp 
 the fiery liquor whose fumes give all shames, 
 vices, miseries, and crimes, a lawless strength 
 and life, and change the man into the pig 
 or tiger. Murder was done, or nearly done, 
 within those walls last night. Within those 
 walls no good was ever done; but, daily, 
 unmitigated evil, whose results were reach 
 ing on to torture unborn generations. He 
 had consented to it all! He could not
 
 60 THE GHOST. 
 
 falter, or equivocate, or evade, or excuse. 
 His dead friend's words rang in his con 
 science like the trump of the judgment 
 angel. He was conquered. 
 
 Slowly, the resolve to instantly go in up 
 rose within him, and with it a change came 
 upon his spirit, and the natural world, 
 sadder than before, but sweeter, seemed 
 to come back to him. A great feeling of 
 relief flowed upon his mind. Pale and 
 trembling still, he crossed the street with 
 a quick, unsteady step, entered a yard at 
 the side of the house, and, brushing by a 
 host of white, rattling spectres of frozen 
 clothes, which dangled from lines in the in- 
 closure, mounted some wooden steps, and 
 rang the bell. In a minute he heard foot 
 steps within, and saw the gleam of a 
 lamp. His heart palpitated violently as 
 he heard the t lock turning, lest the answerer 
 of his summons might be his tenant. 
 The door opened, and, to his relief, he 
 stood before a rather decent-looking Irish 
 man, bending forward in his stocking feet, 
 with one boot and a lamp in his hand. 
 The man stared at him from a wild head 
 of tumbled red hair, with a half smile 
 round his loose open mouth, and said,
 
 THE GHOST. 61 
 
 " Begorra ! " This was a second floor 
 tenant. 
 
 Dr. Renton was relieved at the sight of 
 him ; but he rather failed in an attempt at 
 his rent-day suavity of manner, when he 
 said : 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Flanagan. Do you 
 think I can see Mrs. Miller to-night ? " 
 
 " She 's up there, docther, anyway." Mr. 
 Flanagan made a sudden start for the stairs, 
 with the boot and lamp at arm's length be 
 fore him, and stopped as suddenly. " Yull 
 go up ? or wud she come down to ye ? " 
 There was as much anxious indecision in 
 Mr. Flanagan's general aspect, pending the 
 reply, as if he had to answer the question 
 himself. 
 
 " I '11 go up, Mr. Flanagan," returned Dr. 
 Renton, stepping in, after a pause, and 
 shutting the door. " But I 'm afraid she 's 
 in bed." 
 
 "Naw she 's not, sur." Mr. Flana 
 gan made another feint with the boot 
 and lamp at the stairs, but stopped again 
 in curious bewilderment, and rubbed his 
 head. Then, with another inspiration, and 
 speaking with such velocity that his words 
 ran into each other, pell-mell, he continued :
 
 62 THE GHOST. 
 
 " Th' small girl's sick, sur. Begorra, I wov 
 just pullin' on th' boots tuh gaw for the 
 docther, in th' nixt streth, an' summons him 
 to her relehf, fur it's bad she is. A'id bet- 
 ther be goan." Another start, and a move 
 ment to put on the boot instantly, baffled 
 by his getting the lamp into the leg of it, 
 and involving himself in difficulties in try 
 ing to get it out again without dropping 
 either, and stopped finally by Dr. Renton. 
 
 "You needn't go, Mr. Flanagan. I'll 
 see to the child. Do n't go." 
 
 He stepped slowly up the stairs, followed 
 by the bewildered Flanagan. All this time 
 Dr. Renton was listening to the racket from 
 the bar-room. Clinking of glasses, rattling 
 of dishes, trampling of feet, oaths and 
 laughter, and a confused din of coarse voices, 
 mingling with boisterous calls for oysters 
 and drink, came, hardly deadened by the 
 partition walls, from the haunt below, and 
 echoed through the corridors. Loud enough 
 within louder in the street without, where 
 the oysters and drink were reeling and roar 
 ing off to brutal dreams. People trying to 
 sleep here ; a sick child up stairs. Listen ! 
 " Two stew ! One roast ! Four ale ! Hurry 
 'em up ! Tliree stew ! In number six !
 
 THE GHOST. 63 
 
 One fancy two roast ! One sling ! Three 
 brandy hot ! Two stew ! One whisk' 
 skin ! Hurry 'em up ! What yeh 'bout ! 
 Three brand' punch hot! Four stew! 
 What-je-e-h 'BOUT ! Two gin-cock-t'il ! One 
 stew ! Hu-r-r-y 'em up ! " Clashing, rat 
 tling, cursing, swearing, laughing, shouting, 
 trampling, stumbling, driving, slamming, 
 of doors. " Hu-r-ry 'em UP." 
 
 "Flanagan," said Dr. Renton, stopping 
 at the first landing, " do you have this noise 
 every night ? " 
 
 " Kaise ? Hoo ! Divil a night, docther, 
 but I'm wehked out ov me bed wid 'em, 
 Sundays an' all. Sure didn't they murdher 
 wan of 'em, out an' out, last night ! " 
 
 " Is the man dead ? " 
 
 " Dead ? Troth he is. An' cowld." 
 
 "H'm" through his compressed lips. 
 " Flanagan, you needn't come up. I know 
 the door. Just hold the light for me here. 
 There, that '11 do. Thank you." He whis 
 pered the last words from the top of the 
 second flight. 
 
 "Are ye there, docther?" Flanagan 
 anxious to the last, and trying to peer up 
 at him with the lamp-light in his eyes. 
 
 " Yes. That '11 do. Thank you ! " in the
 
 64 THE GHOST. 
 
 same whisper. Before he could tap at the 
 door, then darkening in the receding light, 
 it opened suddenly, and a big Irish woman 
 bounced out, and then whisked in again, 
 calling to some one in an inner room : 
 " Here he is, Mrs. Mill'r," and then bounced 
 out again, with a "Walk royt in, if you 
 plaze ; here's the choild " and whisked in 
 again, with a " Sure an' Jehms was quick ; " 
 never once looking at him, and utterly un 
 conscious of the presence of her landlord. 
 He had hardly stepped into the room and 
 taken off his hat, when Mrs. Miller came 
 from the inner chamber with a lamp in her 
 hand. How she started! "With her pale 
 face grown suddenly paler, and her hand 
 on her bosom, she could only exclaim : 
 " Why, it's Dr. Eenton ! " and stand, still 
 and dumb, gazing with a frightened look at 
 his face, whiter than her own. Whereupon 
 Mrs. Flanagan came bolting out again, 
 with wild eyes and a sort of stupefied horror 
 in her good, coarse, Irish features ; and 
 then, with some uncouth ejaculation, ran 
 back, and was heard to tumble over some 
 thing within, and tumble something else 
 over in her fall, and gather herself up with 
 a subdued howl, and subside.
 
 THE GHOST. 65 
 
 " Mrs. Miller," began Dr. Renton, in a 
 low, husky voice, glancing at her frightened 
 face, " I hope you '11 be composed. I spoke 
 to you very harshly and rudely to-night ; 
 but I really was not myself I was in anger 
 and I ask your pardon. Please to over 
 look it all, and but I will speak of this 
 presently; now I am a physician; will 
 you let me look now at your sick child ? " 
 
 He spoke hurriedly, but with evident 
 sincerity. For a moment her lips faltered ; 
 then a slow flush came up, with a quick 
 change of expression on her thin, worn 
 face, and, reddening to painful scarlet,, died 
 away in a deeper pallor. 
 
 " Dr. Renton," she said, hastily, " I have 
 no ill-feeling for you, sir, and I know you 
 were hurt and vexed and I know you 
 have tried to make it up to me again, sir 
 secretly. I know who it was, now ; but I 
 can't take it, sir. You must take it back. 
 You know it was you sent it, sir ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Miller," he replied, puzzled be 
 yond measure, " I do n't understand you. 
 What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Do n't deny it, sir. Please not to," 
 she said imploringly, the tears starting to 
 her eyes. " I am very grateful indeed I 
 5
 
 66 THE GHOST. 
 
 am. But I can't accept it. Do take it 
 again." 
 
 "Mrs. Miller," he replied, in a hasty 
 voice, " what do you mean ? I have sent 
 you nothing nothing at all. I have, there 
 fore, nothing to receive again." 
 
 She looked at him fixedly, evidently 
 impressed by the fervor of his denial. 
 
 " You sent me' nothing to-night, sir ? " 
 she asked, doubtfully. 
 
 "Nothing at any time nothing," he 
 answered, firmly. 
 
 It would have been folly to have dis 
 believed the truthful look of his wondering 
 face, and she turned away in amazement 
 and confusion. There was a long pause. 
 
 " I hope, Mrs. Miller, you will not refuse 
 any assistance I can render to your child," 
 he said, at length. 
 
 She started, and replied, tremblingly and 
 confusedly, " ISTo, sir ; we shall be grateful 
 to you, if you can save her" and went 
 quickly, with a strange abstraction on her 
 white face, into the inner room. He fol 
 lowed her at once, and, hardly glancing at 
 Mrs. Flanagan, who sat there in stupefac 
 tion, with her apron over her head and face, 
 he laid his hat on a table, went to the bed-
 
 THE GHOST. 67 
 
 side of the little girl, and felt her head and 
 pulse. He soon satisfied himself that the 
 little sufferer was in no danger, under prop 
 er remedies, and now dashed down a pre 
 scription on a leaf from his pocket-book. 
 Mrs. Flanagan, who had come out from the 
 retirement of her apron, to stare stupidly 
 at him during the examination, suddenly 
 bobbed up on her legs, with enlightened 
 alacrity, when he asked if there was any 
 one that could go out to the apothecary's, 
 and said, " sure I wull ! " He had a little 
 trouble to make her understand that the 
 prescription, which she took by the corner, 
 holding it away from her, as if it were going 
 to explode presently, and staring at it up 
 side down was to be left " left, mind 
 you, Mrs. Flanagan -with the apothecary 
 Mr. Flint at the nearest corner and he 
 will give you some things, which you are 
 to bring here." But she had shuffled off at 
 last with a confident, "yis, sur aw, I 
 knoo," her head nodding satisfied assent, 
 and her big thumb covering the note on the 
 margin, " charge to Dr. 0. Renton, Bow- 
 doin street," (which /know, could not keep 
 it from the eyes of the angels !) and he sat 
 down to await her return.
 
 68 THE GHOST. 
 
 " Mrs. Miller," he said, kindly, " do n't be 
 alarmed about your child. She is doing 
 well ; and, after you have given her the 
 medicine Mrs. Flanagan will bring, you '11 
 find her much better, to-morrow. She must 
 be kept cool and quiet, you know, and she '11 
 be all right soon." 
 
 " Oh ! Dr. Renton, I am very grateful," 
 was the tremulous reply ; " and we will fol 
 low all directions, sir. It is hard to keep 
 her quiet, sir ; we keep as still as we can, 
 and the other children are very still ; but 
 the street is very .noisy all the daytime and 
 evening, sir, and " 
 
 " I know it, Mrs. Miller. And 1 'in afraid 
 those people down-stairs disturb you some 
 what." 
 
 " They make some stir in the evening, 
 sir ; and it 's rather loud in the street some 
 times, at night. The folks on the lower 
 floors are troubled a good deal, they say." 
 
 Well they may be. Listen to the bawl 
 ing outside, now, cold as it is. Hark ! 
 A hoarse group on the opposite side 
 walk beginning a song. " Ro-o-1 on, sil-ver 
 mo-o-n " . The silver moon ceases to roll 
 in a sudden explosion of yells and laughter, 
 sending up broken fragments of curses,
 
 THE GHOST. 69 
 
 ribald jeers, whoopings, and cat-calls, high 
 into the night air. " Ga-1-a-ng ! Hi-hi ! 
 What ye-e-h 'lout ! " 
 
 " This is outrageous, Mrs. Miller. Where's 
 the watchman ? " 
 
 She smiled faintly. "He takes one of 
 them off occasionally, sir ; but he 's afraid ; 
 they beat him sometimes." A long pause. 
 
 " Is n't your room rather cold, Mrs. Mil 
 ler?" He glanced at the black stove, 
 dimly seen in the outer room. " It is 
 necessary to keep the rooms cool just now, 
 but this air seems to me cold." 
 
 Receiving no answer, he looked at her, 
 and saw the sad truth in her averted face. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said quickly, 
 flushing to the roots of his hair. " I might 
 have known, after what you said to me this 
 evening." 
 
 "We had a little fire here to-day, sir," 
 she said, struggling with the pride and 
 shame of poverty ; " but we have been out 
 of firing for two or three days, and we owe 
 the wharfman something now. The two 
 boys picked up a few chips ; but the poor 
 children find it hard to get them, sir. Times 
 are very hard with us, sir ; indeed they are. 
 We 'd have got along better, if my husband's
 
 70 THE GHOST. 
 
 money bad come, and your rent would have 
 been paid " 
 
 " Never mind the rent ! don't speak of 
 that ! " he broke in, with his face all aglow. 
 " Mrs. Miller, I have n't done right by you 
 I know it. Be frank with me. Are you 
 in want of have you need of food ? " 
 
 No need of answer to that faintly stam 
 mered question. The thin, rigid face was 
 covered from his sight by the w r orn, wan 
 hands, and all the pride and shame of pov 
 erty, and all the frigid truth of cold, hunger, 
 anxiety, and sickened sorrow they had con 
 cealed, had given way at last in a rush of 
 tears. He could not speak. With a smit 
 ten heart, he knew it all now. Ah ! Dr. 
 Kenton, you know these people's tricks? 
 you know their lying blazon of poverty, to 
 gather sympathy ? 
 
 " Mrs. Miller " she had ceased weeping, 
 and as he spoke, she looked at him, with 
 the tear-stains still on her agitated face, half 
 ashamed that he had seen her "Mrs. Mil 
 ler, I am sorry. This shall be remedied. 
 Do n't tell me it shan't ! Do n't ! I say it 
 shall ! Mrs. Miller, I'm I'm ashamed of 
 myself. I am, indeed." 
 
 " I am very grateful, sir, I 'in sure," said
 
 THE GHOST. 71 
 
 she ; " but we do n't like to take charity 
 though we need help ; but we can get along 
 now, sir for, I suppose I must keep it, as 
 you say you did n't send it, and use it for 
 the children's sake, and thank God for his 
 good mercy since I do n't know, and never 
 shall, where it came from, now." 
 
 " Mrs. Miller," he said quickly, " you 
 spoke in this way before ; and I do n't know 
 what you refer to. What do you mean by 
 -4t? ' .. 
 
 " Oh ! I forgot sir : it puzzles me so. You 
 see, sir, I was sitting here after I got home 
 from your house, thinking what I should do, 
 when Mrs. Flanagan came up-stairs with a 
 letter for me, that she said a strange man 
 left at the door for Mrs. Miller ; and Mrs. 
 Flanagan could n't describe him well, or un- 
 destandingly ; and it had no direction at all, 
 only the man inquired who was the land 
 lord, and if Mrs. Miller had a sick child, and 
 then said the letter was for me ; and there 
 was no writing inside the letter, but there 
 was fifty dollars. That 's all, sir. It gave 
 me a great shock, sir ; and I could n't think 
 who sent it, only when you came to-night, 
 I thought it was you ; but you said it was n't, 
 and I never shall know who it was, now. It
 
 72 THE GHOST: 
 
 seems as if the hand of God was in it, sir, 
 for it came when everything was darkest, 
 and I was in despair." 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Miller," he slowly answered, 
 " this is very mysterious. The man inquir 
 ed if I was the owner of the house oh ! no 
 he only inquired who was but then he 
 knew I was the oh ! bother ! I 'm getting 
 nowhere. Let 's see. Why, it must be some 
 one you know, or that knows your circum 
 stances." 
 
 " But there 's no one knows them but 
 yourself; and I told you," she replied ; "no 
 one else but the people in the house. It 
 must have been some rich person, for the 
 letter was a gilt-edge sheet, and there was 
 perfume in it, sir." 
 
 " Strange," he murmured. " Well, I give 
 it up. All is, I advise you to keep it, and 
 I 'm very glad some one did his duty by you 
 in your hour of need, though I 'm sorry it 
 was not myself. Here 's Mrs. Flanagan." 
 
 There was a good deal done, and a great 
 burden lifted off an humble heart nay, two ! 
 before Dr. Renton thought of going home. 
 There was a patient gained, likely to do Dr. 
 Eenton more good than any patient he had 
 lost. There was a kettle singing on the
 
 THE GHOST. 73 
 
 stove, and blowing off a happier steam than 
 any engine ever blew on that railroad, 
 whose unmarketable stock had singed Dr. 
 Renton's fingers. There was a yellow gleam 
 nickering from the blazing fire on the sober 
 binding of a good old Book upon a shelf 
 with others, a rarer medical work than ever 
 slipped at auction from Dr. Renton's hands, 
 since it kept the sacred lore of Him who 
 healed the sick, and fed the hungry, and 
 comforted the poor, and who was also the 
 Physician of souls. 
 
 And there were other oifices performed, 
 of lesser range than these, before he rose to 
 go. There were cooling mixtures blended 
 for the sick child ; medicines arranged ; di 
 rections given; and all the items of her 
 tendance orderly foreseen, and put in pigeon 
 holes of When and How, for service. 
 
 At last he rose to go. " And now, Mrs. 
 Miller," he said, " I '11 come here at ten in 
 the morning, and see to our patient. She '11 
 be nicely by that time. And (listen to 
 those brutes in the street ! twelve o'clock, 
 too ah ! there's the bell), as I was saying, 
 my offence to you being occasioned by your 
 debt to me, I feel my receipt for your debt 
 should commence my reparation to you;
 
 74 THE GHOST. 
 
 and I'll bring it to-morrow. Mrs. Miller 
 you do n't quite come at me what I 
 mean is you owe me, under a notice to quit, 
 three months' rent. Consider that paid in 
 full. I never will take a cent of it from 
 you not a copper. And I take back the 
 notice. Stay in my house as long as you 
 like; the longer the better. But, up to 
 this date, your rent 's paid. There. I hope 
 you '11 have as happy a Christmas as circum 
 stances will allow, and I mean you shall." 
 
 A flush of astonishment of indefinable 
 emotion, overspread her face. 
 
 " Dr. Renton, stop, sir ! " He was mov 
 ing to the door. " Please, sir, do hear me ! 
 You are very good but I can't allow you 
 to Dr. Renton, we are able to pay you the 
 rent, and we will, and we must here 
 now. Oh ! sir, my gratefulness will never 
 fail to you but here here be fair with 
 me, sir, and do take it ! " 
 
 She had hurried to a chest of drawers, 
 and came back with the letter which she 
 had rustled apart with eager, trembling 
 hands, and now, unfolding the single bank 
 note it had contained, she thrust it into his 
 fingers as they closed. 
 
 " Here, Mrs. Miller " she had drawn
 
 THE GHOST. 75 
 
 back with her arms locked on her bosom, 
 and he stepped forward "no. no. This 
 shan't be. Come, come, you must take it 
 back. Good heavens ! " he spoke low, but 
 his eyes blazed in the red glow which broke 
 out on his face, and the crisp note in his ex 
 tended hand shook violently at her " Soon 
 er than take this money from you, I would 
 perish in the street ! What ! Do you think 
 I will rob you of the gift sent you by some 
 one who had a human heart for the dis 
 tresses I was aggravating? Sooner than 
 here, take it ! O my God ! what 's this ? " 
 
 The red glow on his face went out, with 
 this exclamation, in a pallor like marble, 
 and he jerked back the note to his starting 
 eyes ; Globe Bank Boston Fifty Dollars. 
 For a minute he gazed at the motionless 
 bill in his hand. Then, with his hueless 
 lips compressed, he seized the blank letter 
 from his astonished tenant, and looked at it, 
 turning it over and over. Grained letter- 
 paper gilt-edged with a favorite perfume 
 in it. Where 's Mrs. Flanagan ? Outside 
 the door, sitting on the top of the stairs, 
 with her apron over her head, crying. Mrs. 
 Flanagan ! Here ! In she tumbled, her 
 big feet kicking her skirts before her, and 
 her eyes and face as red as a beet.
 
 76 THE GHOST. 
 
 " Mrs. Flanagan, what kind of a looking 
 man gave you this letter at the door to 
 night ? " 
 
 " A-w, Docther Einton, daw n't ax me ! 
 Bother, an' all, an' sure an' I cudn't see him 
 wud his fur-r hat, an' he a-11 boondled oop 
 wud his co-at oop on his e-ars, an' his big 
 han'kershuf smotherin' thuh mouth uv him, 
 an' sorra a bit uv him tuh be looked at, 
 sehvin' thuh poomple on thuh ind uv his 
 naws." 
 
 " The what on the end of his nose ? " 
 
 " Thuh poomple, sur." 
 
 "What does she mean, Mrs. Miller?" 
 said the puzzled questioner, turning to his 
 tenant. 
 
 " I don't know, sir, indeed," was the re 
 ply; "she said that to me, and I could n't 
 understand her." 
 
 "It's thuh poomple, docther. Daw n't 
 ye knoo ? Thuh big, flehmin poomple oop 
 there." She indicated the locality, by flat 
 tening the rude tip of her own nose with 
 her broad forefinger. 
 
 " Oh ! the pimple ! I have it." So he 
 had. Netty, Netty I 
 
 He said nothing, but sat down in a chair, 
 with his bold, white brow knitted, and the 
 warm tears in his dark eyes.
 
 THE GHOST. 77 
 
 " You know who sent it, sir, don't you ? " 
 asked his wondering tenant, catching the 
 meaning of all this. 
 
 " Mrs. Miller, I do. But I cannot tell 
 you. Take it, now, and use it. It is doubly 
 yours. There. Thank you." 
 
 She had taken it with an emotion in her 
 face that gave a quicker motion to his throb 
 bing heart. He rose to his feet, hat in hand, 
 and turned away. The noise of a passing 
 group of roysterers in the street without, 
 came strangely loud into the silence of that 
 room. 
 
 " Good night, Mrs. Miller. I'll be here in 
 the morning. Good night." 
 
 " Good night, sir. God bless you, sir ! " 
 
 He turned around quickly. The warm 
 tears in his dark eyes had flowed on his face, 
 which was pale ; and his firm lip quivered. 
 
 " I hope He will, Mrs. Miller I hope He 
 will. It should have been said oftener." 
 
 He was on the outer threshold. Mrs. 
 Flanagan had, somehow, got there before 
 him, with a lamp, and he followed her down 
 through the dancing shadows, with blurred 
 eyes. On the lower landing he stopped to 
 hear the jar of some noisy wrangle, thick 
 with oaths, from the bar-room. He listened
 
 78 THE GHOST. 
 
 for a moment, and then turned to the star 
 ing stupor of Mrs. Flanagan's rugged Ads- 
 age. 
 
 " Sure, they're at ut, docther, wud a wull," 
 she said, smiling. 
 
 " Yes. Mrs. Flanagan, you '11 stay up 
 with Mrs. Miller to-night, won 't you ? " 
 
 " Bade an' I wull, sur." 
 
 " That 's right. Do. And make her try 
 and sleep, for she must be tired. Keep up 
 a fire not too warm, you understand. 
 There '11 be wood and coal coming to-mor 
 row, and she '11 pay you back." 
 
 " A-w, docther, daw n't noo ! " 
 
 " Well, well. And look here ; have you 
 got anything to eat in the house ? Yes ; 
 well; take it up-stairs. Wake up those 
 two boys, and give them something to eat. 
 Don 't let Mrs. Miller stop you. Make her 
 eat something. Tell her I said she must. 
 And, first of all, get your bonnet, and go to 
 that apothecary's Flint's for a bottle of 
 port wine, for Mrs. Miller. Hold on. There 's 
 the order." (He had a leaf out of his pocket- 
 book in a minute, and wrote it down.) " Go 
 with this, the first thing. Ring Flint's bell, 
 and he '11 wake up. And here 's something 
 for your own Christmas dinner, to-morrow."
 
 THE GHOST. 79 
 
 Out of the roll of bills, he drew one of the 
 tens Globe Bank Boston and gave it to 
 Mrs. Flanagan. 
 
 " A-w, daw n't noo, docther." 
 
 " Bother ! It's for yourself, mind. Take 
 it. There. And now unlock the door. 
 That 's it. Good night, Mrs. Flanagan." 
 
 "An' meh thuh Hawly Yurgin hape 
 blessn's on ye, Docther Binton, wud a-11 
 thuh compliments uv thuh sehzin, for yur 
 thuh" 
 
 He lost the end of Mrs. Flanagan's part 
 ing benedictions in the moonlit street. He 
 did not pause till he was at the door of the 
 oyster-room. He paused then, to make 
 way for a tipsy company of four, who reeled 
 out the gaslight from the barroom on the 
 edges of their sodden, distorted faces giv 
 ing three shouts and a yell, as they slam 
 med the door behind them. 
 
 He pushed after a party that was just en 
 tering. They went at once for drink to the 
 upper end of the room, where a rowdy 
 crew, with cigars in their mouths, and liquor 
 in their hands, stood before the bar, in a 
 knotty wrangle concerning some one who 
 was killed. "Where is the keeper ? Oh ! there 
 he is, mixing hot brandy punch for two.
 
 80 THE GHOST. 
 
 Here, you, sir, go up quietly, and tell Mr. 
 Rollins Dr. Renton wants to see him. The 
 waiter came back presently to say Mr. Rol 
 lins would be right along. Twenty-five 
 minutes past twelve. Oyster trade nearly 
 over. Gaudy-curtained booths on the left 
 all empty but two. Oyster-openers and 
 waiters three of them in all nearly done 
 for the night, and two of them sparring and 
 scuffling behind a pile of oysters on the 
 trough, with the colored print of the great 
 prize fight between Tom Hyer and Yankee 
 Sullivan, in a veneered frame above them 
 on the wall. Blower up from the fire oppo 
 site the bar, and stewpans and griddles 
 empty and idle on the bench beside it, 
 among the unwashed bowls and dishes. Oys 
 ter trade nearly over. Bar still busy. 
 
 Here comes Rollins in his shirt sleeves, 
 with an apron on. Thick-set, muscular 
 man frizzled head, low forehead, sharp, 
 black eyes, flabby face, with a false, greasy 
 smile on it now, oiling over a curious, steal 
 thy expression of mingled surprise and in 
 quiry, as he sees his landlord here at this 
 unusual hour. 
 
 " Come in here, Mr. Rollins ; I want to 
 speak to you."
 
 THE OHO ST. 81 
 
 " Yes, sir. Jim" (to the waiter), " go and 
 tend bar." They sat down in one of the 
 booths, and lowered the curtain. Dr. Ren- 
 ton, at one side of the table within, looking 
 at Rollins, sitting leaning on his folded 
 arms, at the other side. 
 
 "Mr. Rollins, I am told the man who 
 was stabbed here last night is dead. Is that 
 so?" 
 
 " Well, he is, Dr. Renton. Died this af 
 ternoon." 
 
 "Mr. Rollins, this is a serious matter; 
 what are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 "Can't help it, sir. Who's a-goin' to 
 touch me f Called in a watchman. Whole 
 mess of 'em had cut. Who knows 'em? 
 Nobody knows 'em. Man that was stuck 
 never see the fellers as stuck him in all his 
 life till then. Didn't know which one of 
 'em did it. Didn 't know nothing. Do n't 
 now, an' never will, 'nless he meets 'em in 
 hell. That 's all. Feller's dead, an' who 's 
 a-goin' to touch me ? Can't do it. Ca-n-'t 
 do it." 
 
 "Mr. Rollins," said Dr. Renton, thor 
 oughly disgusted with this man's brutal in 
 difference," your lease expires in three days." 
 
 " Well, it does. Hope to make a renewal 
 6
 
 82 THE GHOST. 
 
 with you, Dr. Renton. Trade 's good here. 
 Should n't mind more rent on, if you insist 
 hope you won't if it 's anything in reason. 
 Promise sollum, I shan't have no more 
 fightin' in here. Could n't help this. Ac 
 cidents will happen, yo' know." 
 
 "Mr. Rollins, the case is this: if you 
 did n't sell liquor here, you 'd have no mur 
 der done in your place murder, sir. That 
 man was murdered. It 's your fault, and it 's 
 mine, too. I ought not to have let you the 
 place for your business. It is a cursed traf 
 fic, and you and I ought to have found it 
 out long ago. / have. I hope you will. 
 Now, I advise you, as a friend, to give up 
 selling rum for the future : you see what it 
 comes to do n't you ? At any rate, I will 
 not be responsible for the outrages that are 
 perpetrated in my building any more I 
 will not have liquor sold here. I refuse to 
 renew your lease. In three days you must 
 move." 
 
 " Dr Renton, you hurt my feelin's. Now, 
 how would you 
 
 " Mr. Rollins, I have spoken to you as a 
 friend, and you have no cause for pain. 
 Tou must quit these premises when your 
 lease expires. I 'm sorry I can't make you go
 
 THE GHOST. 83 
 
 before that. Make no appeals to me, if you 
 please. I am fixed. Now, sir, good night.' 
 
 The curtain was pulled up, and Rollins 
 rolled over to his beloved bar, soothing his 
 lacerated feelings by swearing like a pirate, 
 while Dr. Renton strode to the door, and 
 went into the street, homeward. 
 
 He walked fast through the magical moon 
 light, with a strange feeling of sternness, 
 and tenderness, and weariness, in his mind. 
 In this mood, the sensation of spiritual and 
 physical fatigue gaining on him, but a quiet 
 moonlight in all his reveries, he reached his 
 house. He was just putting his latch-key 
 in the door, when it was opened by James, 
 who stared at him for a second, and then 
 dropped his eyes, and put his hand before 
 his nose. Dr. Renton compressed his lips 
 on an involuntary smile. 
 
 " Ah ! James, you 're up late. It 's near 
 one." 
 
 " I sat up for Mrs. Renton and the young 
 lady, sir. They 're just come, and gone up 
 stairs." 
 
 " All right, James. Take your lamp and 
 come in here. I 've got something to say to 
 you." The man followed him into the li 
 brary at once, with some wonder on his 
 sleepy face.
 
 84 TEE GHOST. 
 
 " First, put some coal on that fire, and 
 light the chandelier. I shall not go up 
 stairs to-night." The man obeyed. " Now. 
 James, sit down in that chair." He did so, 
 beginning to look frightened at Dr. Keiiton's 
 grave manner. 
 
 " James " a long pause " I want you to 
 tell me the truth. Where did you go to-night ? 
 Come, I have found you out. Speak." 
 
 The man turned as white as a sheet, and 
 looked wretched with the whites of his bulg 
 ing eyes, and the great pimple on his nose 
 awfully distinct in the livid hue of his feat 
 ures. He was a rather slavish fellow, and 
 thought he was going to lose his situation. 
 Please not to blame him, for he, too, was 
 one of the poor. 
 
 " Oh ! Dr. Renton, excuse me, sir ; I did n't 
 mean doing any harm." 
 
 " James, my daughter gave you an undi 
 rected letter this evening ; you carried it to 
 one of my houses in Hanover street. Is 
 that true ? " 
 
 " Ye-yes, sir. I couldn't help it. I only 
 did what she told me, sir." 
 
 " James, if my daughter told you to set 
 fire to this house, what would you do ? " 
 
 "I wouldn't do it, sir," he stammered, 
 after some hesitation.
 
 THE GHOST. 85 
 
 " You wouldn't ? James, if my daughter 
 ever tells you to set fire to this house, do it, 
 sir ! Do it. At once. Do whatever she 
 tells you. Promptly. And I '11 back you." 
 
 The man stared wildly at him, as he re 
 ceived this astonishing command. Dr. Ren- 
 ton was perfectly grave, and had spoken 
 slowly and seriously. The man was at his 
 wits' end. 
 
 " You'll do it James will you? " 
 
 "Ye-yes, sir, certainly." 
 
 " That 's right. James, you 're a good 
 fellow. James, you Ve got a family a 
 wife and children hav'n't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I have ; living in the country, 
 sir. In Chelsea, over the ferry. For cheap 
 ness, sir." 
 
 " For cheapness, eh ? Hard times, James ? 
 How is it?" 
 
 "Pretty hard, sir. Close, but toler'ble 
 comfortable. Rub and go, sir." 
 
 "Rub and go. Ye-r-y well. Rub and 
 go. James, I'm going to raise your wages 
 to-morrow. Generally, because you 're a 
 good servant. Principally, because you car 
 ried that letter to-night, when my daughter 
 asked you. I shan't forget it. To-morrow, 
 mind. And if I can do anything for you,
 
 86 THE GHOST. 
 
 James, at any time, just tell me. That 's 
 all. Now, you'd better go to bed. And a 
 happy Christmas to you ! " 
 
 " Much obliged to you, sir. Same to you 
 and many of 'em. Good-night, sir." And 
 with Dr. Renton's "good-night" he stole 
 up to bed, thoroughly happy, and determined 
 to obey Miss Renton's future instructions 
 to the letter. The shower of golden light 
 which had been raining for the last two 
 hours, had fallen, even on him. It would 
 fall all day to-morrow in many places, and 
 the day after, and for long years to come. 
 Would that it could broaden and increase 
 to a general deluge, and submerge the 
 world ! 
 
 'Now the whole house was still, and its 
 master was weary. He sat there, quietly 
 musing, feeling the sweet and tranquil 
 presence near him. Now the fire was 
 screened, the lights were out, save one dim 
 glimmer, and he had lain down on the 
 couch with the letter in his hand, and slept 
 the dreamless sleep of a child. 
 
 He slept until the gray dawn of Christ 
 mas day stole into the room, and showed 
 him the figure of his friend, a shape of glo 
 rious light, standing by his side, and gazing
 
 THE GHOST. 87 
 
 at him with large and tender eyes ! He 
 had no fear. All was deep, serene, and 
 happy with the happiness of heaven. Look 
 ing up into that beautiful, wan face so 
 tranquil so radiant; watching, with a 
 child-like awe, the star-fire in those shadowy 
 eyes ; smiling faintly, with a great, unuttera 
 ble love thrilling slowly through his frame, 
 in answer to the smile of light that shone 
 upon the phantom countenance ; so he 
 passed a space of time which seemed a calm 
 eternity, till, at last, the communion of spirit 
 with spirit of mortal love with love im 
 mortal was perfected, and the shining 
 hands were laid on his forehead, as with a 
 touch of air. Then the phantom smiled, 
 and, as its shining hands were withdrawn, 
 the thought of his daughter mingled in the 
 vision. She was bending over him ! The 
 dawn the room, were the same. But the 
 ghost of Feval had gone out from earth, 
 away to its own land ! 
 
 " Father, dear father ! Your eyes were 
 open, and they did not look at me. There 
 is a light on your face, and your features 
 are changed ! What is it what have you 
 seen ? " 
 
 " Hush, darling : here kneel by me, for
 
 88 THE GHOST. 
 
 a little while, and be still. I have seen the 
 dead." 
 
 She knelt by him, burying her awe 
 struck face in his bosom, and clung to him 
 with all the fervor of her soul. He clasped 
 her to his breast, and for minutes all was 
 still. 
 
 " Dear child good and dear child ! " 
 
 The voice was tremulous and low. She 
 lifted her fair, bright countenance, now con 
 vulsed with a secret trouble, and dimmed 
 with streaming tears, to his, and gazed on 
 him. His eyes were shining ; but his pallid 
 cheeks, like hers, were wet with tears. How 
 still the room was ! How like a thought of 
 solemn tenderness, the pale gray dawn! 
 The world was far away, and his soul still 
 wandered in the peaceful awe of his dream. 
 The world was coming back to him but 
 oh ! how changed ! in the trouble of his 
 daughter's face. 
 
 " Darling, what is it ? "Why are you 
 here ? Why are you weeping ? Dear child, 
 the friend of my better days of the boy 
 hood when I had noble aims, and life was 
 beautiful before me he has been here ! I 
 have seen him. He has been with me oh ! 
 for a good I cannot tell ! "
 
 THE GHOST. &9 
 
 "Father, dear father!" he had risen, 
 and sat upon the couch, but she still knelt 
 before him, weeping, and clasped his hands 
 in hers " I thought of you and of this let 
 ter, all the time. All last night till I slept, 
 and then I dreamed you were tearing it to 
 pieces, and trampling on it. I awoke, and 
 
 lay thinking of you, and of . And I 
 
 thought I heard you come down-stairs, and 
 I came here to find you. But you were 
 lying here so quietly, with your eyes open, 
 and so strange a light on your face. And 
 I knew I knew you were dreaming of him, 
 and that you saw him, for the letter lay be 
 side you. O father! forgive me, but do 
 hear me ! In the name of this day it 's 
 Christmas day, father in the name of the 
 tune when we must both die in the name 
 of that time, father, hear me ! That poor 
 woman last night O father ! forgive me, 
 but don't tear that letter in pieces and 
 trample it under foot ! You know what I 
 mean you know you know. Do n't tear 
 it, and tread it under foot ! " 
 
 She clung to him, sobbing violently, her 
 face buried in his hands. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! It 's all well it 's all well. 
 Here, sit by me. So. I have " his voice
 
 90 THE GHOST. 
 
 failed him, and he paused. But sitting by 
 him clinging to him her face hidden in 
 his bosom she heard the strong beating of 
 his disenchanted heart ! 
 
 "My child, I know your meaning. I 
 will not tear the letter to pieces and trample 
 it under foot. God forgive me my life's 
 slight to those words. But I learned their 
 value last night, in the house where your 
 blank letter had entered before me." 
 
 She started, and looked into his face 
 steadfastly, while a bright scarlet shot into 
 her own. 
 
 "I know all, Netty all. Tour secret 
 was well kept, but it is yours and mine 
 now. It was well done, darling well done. 
 Oh ! I have been through strange mysteries 
 of thought and life since that starving wo 
 man sat here ! Well thank God ! " 
 
 " Father, what have you done \ " The 
 flush had failed, but a glad color still 
 brightened her face, while the tears stood 
 trembling in her eyes. 
 
 "All that you wished yesterday," he 
 answered. " And all that you ever could 
 have wished, henceforth I will do." 
 
 " O father ! "She stopped. The bright 
 scarlet shot again into her face, but with an
 
 THE GHOST. 91 
 
 April shower of tears, and the rainbow of 
 a smile. 
 
 " Listen to me, Netty, and I will tell'you, 
 and only you, what I have done." Then, 
 while she mutely listened, sitting by his 
 side, and the dawn of Christmas broadened 
 into Christmas-day, he told her all. 
 
 And when he had told all, and emotion 
 was stilled, they sat together in silence for a 
 time, she with her innocent head drooped 
 upon his shoulder, and her eyes closed, lost in 
 tender and mystic reveries ; and he musing 
 with a contrite heart. Till at last, the stir 
 of daily life began to waken in the quiet 
 dwelling, and without, from steeples in the 
 frosty air, there was a sound of bells. 
 
 They rose silently, and stood, clinging to 
 each other, side by side. 
 
 " Love, we must part," he said, gravely 
 and tenderly. "Read me, before we go, 
 the closing lines of George Feval's letter. 
 In the spirit of this let me strive to live. 
 Let it be for me the lesson of the day. Let 
 it also be the lesson of my life." 
 
 Her face was pale and lit with exalta 
 tion as she took the letter from his hand. 
 There was a pause and then upon the 
 thrilling and tender silver of her voice, the 
 words arose like solemn music :
 
 92 THE GHOST. 
 
 " Farewell farewell ! But, oh! take my 
 counsel into memory on Christmas Day, 
 and forever. Once again, the ancient pro 
 phecy of peace and good-will shines on a 
 world of wars and wrongs and woes. Its 
 soft ray shines into the darkness of a land 
 wherein swarm slaves, poor laborers, social 
 pariahs, weeping women, homeless exiles, 
 hunted fugitives, despised aliens, drunkards, 
 convicts, wicked children, and Magdalens 
 unredeemed. These are but the ghastliest 
 figures in that sad army of humanity which 
 advances, l)y a dreadful road, to the Golden 
 Age of the poets' dream. These are your 
 sisters and your brothers. Love them all. 
 Beware of wronging one of them by word 
 or deed. friend ! strong in wealth for 
 so much good take my last counsel. In the 
 name of the Saviour, I charge you, be true 
 and tender to mankind ! Come out from 
 Babylon into manhood, and live and labor 
 for the fallen, the neglected, the suffering, 
 and the poor. Lover of arts, customs, laws, 
 institutions, and forms of society, love these 
 things only as they help mankind ! With 
 stern love, overturn them, or help to over 
 turn them, when they become cruel to a sin 
 gle the humblest human being. In the
 
 THE GHOST. 93 
 
 scale, social position, influence, pub 
 lic power, the applause of majorities, heaps 
 of funded gold, services rendered to creeds, 
 codes, sects, pa/rties, or federations they 
 weigh weight ; but in God's scale remem^ 
 tier ! on the day of hope, remember ! your 
 least service to Humanity, outweighs them 
 all!"
 
 1 8 PA