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"I found it on the stairs after dinner, pa."

"Yes, I do remember taking it up with 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," murmured 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 constantly 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.

A young man-an author-a poet. He had been my 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 wasn'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 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, always staved off his chances of success. Consequently, he never rose above the drudgery of some employment on newspapers. Then, he was terribly passionate, not without cause, I confess; but it wasn'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 denunciations of the wrong-doer. 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 a 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; taking more care of other people than he did of himself. Then mental suffering, 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 don'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. In his wild ravings he mentioned my name, and they sent for me. That was our first meeting after two years. I found him in the hospital-dying. He was delirious, and never recognized me. And, Nathalie, his hair-it had been coal-black, and he wore it very long, he wouldn'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.

"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 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 senso 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 recumbent posture, and now bent her graceful head over the leaves. The phantom covered its face with its hands.

I wanted to do the world good, and the world has killed 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 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."

"O, 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

6

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 the name of the Saviour, I charge you, be true and tender to all men.' He goes on to bid me live and labor for the fallen, the neglected, the 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 mo that what he calls a service to humanity' is worth 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 himself, is a good general rule. Every man for humanity, as George has it, and in his acceptation 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 institutions for the distressed, and I'm 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 turning philanthropist at large, or any Quixotism of that sort, I don't believe in it. We didn't make the world, and we can't mend it. Poor George. Wellhe's at rest. The world wasn't the place for him."

They grew silent. The spectre glided slowly to the wall, and stood as if it were 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 being starved and grieved to death.

"Father," said Nathalie, softly, “I felt, while you were reading the letter, as if he were near us. Didn't you? The room was so light and still, and the wind sighed so."

Netty, dear, I've felt that all day, I believe," 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," 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 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."

"O-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 obdurate 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 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 sympathy already-the old trickand steeled himself against any attacks of that kind, looking jealously, meanwhile, at Netty.

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 resolutely put his right leg up to rest on his left knee. He did not look at his tenant's face, determined that her piteous expressions (got up for the oc

casion, of course,) should be wasted on him.

"Well, Mrs. Miller," he said again.

"Dr. Renton," she began, faintly gathering 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."

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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 appears 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 hadn't been for that, your rent would have been paid long ago, sir."

"Don't believe a word of that story," thought Dr. Renton, sententiously.

"I thought, sir," she continued, emboldened 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 occur 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, don'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 don't hardly know how to make out a living. And so, sir, I have come here this evening, leaving the children alone, to ask you if you wouldn't be kind enough to wait a little longer, and we'll hope to make it right with you in the end."

question 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 tenements. You must move out. I have no more to say."

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Dr. Renton," she said faintly, "I have a sick child-how can I move now? O, sir, it's Christmas eve-don't be hard with us!"

Instead of touching him, this speech irritated him beyond measure. Passing all considerations of her difficult position involved in her piteous statement, his anger flashed at once on her impli cation 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.

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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, therefore, leave the premises to people who can and will. You have had your legal notice; quit my house to-morrow; if you don'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 with him-dilating-blackening its whole form shuddering with a fury to which his own was tame; the semblance of a shriek upon 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 suffering, 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, 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 before him, like a dark cloud in the image of a man. But its darkness was lightening slowly, and its ghostly anger had passed away.

Mrs. Miller, paler than before, had sat mute and trembling among the hopes he had ruined. Yet her desperation forbade her to abandon the chances of his mercy, and she now said:

"Dr. Renton, you surely don't mean what you have told me. Won't you bear with us a little longer, and we will yet make it all right with you?"

"I have given you my answer," he 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 sank down again. There was a pause. Then, solemnly gliding across the lighted room, the phantom stole to her side with glory of compassion on its features. Tenderly, as a son to a mother, it bent over her; its spectral hands of light were stretched above her; its shadowy fall of hair, once blanched by the fever and the anguish, floated on her throbbing brow.

The stern and sullen mood from which had dropped but one fierce flash of anger, still hung above the heat of the doctor's 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. might have flamed violently, had his tenant made any further attempt to

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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 feeling 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 movelessly to the open letter on the table, by his side.

Dr. Renton took the sheets from tho table, thinking, 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 all men!" and the words touched him like a low voice from the grave. Their penetrant reproach pierced the hardness of his heart. tossed the letter 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 more reverently, but only to lay them down again.

He

He had thrown himself on a sofa, striving to be rid of his remorseful thoughts, 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, irritated that the whole matter should be thus broadly forced upon him again, he harshly asked him what he wanted. The man only came in to say that Mrs. Renton and the young lady had gone out for the evening, but that tea was laid for him in the dining-room. Dr. Renton 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.

Rising from the sofa, the doctor turned down the lights of the chandelier, and screened the fire. The room was still. The ghost stood, faintly radiant, in a remote corner. Dr. Renton lay down again, but he could not sleep. Things he had forgotten of his dead friend, now started up again in remembrance, fresh from the sleep of many years; and not one of them but linked itself with some mysterious bond