night. Sleep soundly. If your intentions are really good, you have no cause to fear aught visible or invisible."

The unseen ceased to speak, and profound silence ensued. But Mr. Burton did not find it easy to follow the advice given by the owner of the voice as to sleeping soundly. It is true that he received much comfort from the truce which had been agreed upon, and which caused him to hope that he should for a considerable period receive no annoyance from ghostly visitations. His mind continued for a long time to be exercised in considering the terms, and the mode of fulfilling them, of the contract which had been made. The first pale beams of day had entered into the chamber before he fell into a troubled slumber.

CHAPTER X.—INVITATIONS TO AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.

ALL the household at Faywood arose from their beds on the morning following Mr. Burton's truce with the ghosts, refreshed in mind and body more than had been the case with them for some days. None of them except the master of the place had been liable to what they had supposed to be spiritual visitations for several nights; and they had even begun to think that the idea of the house being haunted was a false imagining. The only cases of ghost-seeing which bore any appearance of being authenticated were those of the ostler and the chambermaid; and all but the two parties immediately concerned were becoming convinced that in these instances some of the household had been mistaken for spirits. Those two parties themselves, indeed, were beginning to doubt the evidence of their own senses as they listened to the arguments of others, and as the images of the supposed apparitions grew dimmer and dimmer in their memories with the passage of time.

Mr. Burton had, as the reader is aware, not had much sleep in the two nights last past; but even he left his couch in much better spirits than he had known since his first spiritual visitation. The bright sunshine, the charming appearance of Nature, and the cheerful faces of his household on that beautiful spring morning had their share in this state of his mind; but this effect was mainly due to his truce with the ghosts, which assured him that he would not be disturbed by his myste. rious visitants for a week or more. Still, in the

depths of his feelings the promise of eventually "giving up" Faywood, which he had, to say the least, suggested to those visitants, interfered with his perfect enjoyment.

During the morning he informed his wife of the grand entertainment, to last through some days, which he intended to give to his neighbors and other acquaintances. Now, in her heart Mrs. Burton was very far indeed from being displeased at the anticipation of the preparatory bustle and the prospect of social enjoyment held out to her afterwards by the party which her husband proposed. But she considered that she had been treated with neglect in not having been consulted in the matter, and held it to be her duty to herself, therefore, to find some objections.

"My dear," she said, "I should enjoy an occasion of the kind above all things. But what are we going to give our guests to eat at this season of the year? There are no turkeys now fit to eat; spring chickens are not yet large enough,, and it is too near summer time for oysters."

"There is but little weight in your objections, madam," replied Mr. Burton. "That turkeys. are not in season I confess; but spring chickens are now at what I consider their very best, for they are not so good when they are large; and Jack's Bay has still a plenty of oysters—yes, and good ones, too. Then there is corned beef and there are hams from our winter stores, and there are pigs and lambs, and wild geese and ducks are still about; and, if anything more in the way of meat be necessary, I can have a beef butchered. Moreover, shad are in season, and other fish are abundant in the river and in Battle Creek. Nor can the Faywood kitchen garden be wanting in a variety of vegetables."

"Well, my dear," replied Mrs. Burton, all her objections being overwhelmed by this catalogue of things of the edible kind, "if you are satisfied, I am. We can only do the best we can. I am sure that I shall do my best."

"Then, Mrs. Burton," said the owner of Faywood, "the party and the time for it being arranged, I wish you to accompany me to Patuxent Town, that we may personally and together invite some families of our friends there to join our social gathering on Wednesday next-that is, this day week. Your calling in person upon the ladies of the different families will be a compliment which will insure their acceptance of our invitation; and

when the ladies of a family accept such an invitation, the gentlemen are bound to do so. Such, madam, is the influence of your sex over ours in matters of this kind."

Mrs. Burton, who was a believer in her hus band's dignity, and therefore obedient to his behests, was quite charmed at this compliment, and forgot all her vexation at not having been sooner consulted.

"Particularly do I desire, my dear," continued Mr. Burton-"my dear" being a great condescension for him-" that this courtesy should be paid to the family of Mr. Sumter, not only because he is the most important merchant in the town and my agent, but because his book-keeper and business confidant is young Charles Leon, the son of my old and respected client. Although the social position of Charles is not so high as was that of his father, yet we must not forget, my dear Mrs. Burton, that his family has been, since the earliest settlement here, one of the most important in the colony. I suppose that you have heard the report that this young Leon is engaged to be married to Mr. Sumter's daughter, and in fact oldest child, Alice?"

Mrs. Burton said in reply that she had heard the rumor, and that she should take much pleasure in the ride to the village, and in complying with her husband's wishes in the premises.

Upon this expression of her assent and satisfaction with the arrangement, three horses were ordered to be prepared for the road and brought from the stables to the front of the house. On one of these horses, a strong but gentle one, the page was mounted, with a broad and soft pillion behind him. To this pillion Mrs. Burton was assisted from the horse-block by her husband; such was the simple mode in which ladies travelled on horseback in those primitive colonial days. Mr. Burton then mounted his own steed, a negro groom sprang to the back of the third horse, and the party thus arranged proceeded in state on their way toward Patuxent Town.

The village was soon entered, and as the cavalcade, considered doubtlessly to be very imposing at that time and place, passed along the streets, it was followed-at a respectful distance, however, for even the children feared to offend so great a man as the owner of Faywood-by a mob of barefooted little boys and girls; while the grown citizens of both sexes peered at the procession

from the windows and doors of dwelling-houses, work-shops and store-rooms.

It was but a short time before the three horses were drawn up before the front door of Mr. Sumter's residence. The negro groom immediately dismounted and held his own horse and his master's, while the latter also dismounted. Mr. Burton then assisted his wife to the ground, after which the gentleman and lady, accompanied by the page, advanced to the house, leaving the horses in charge of the negro servant. Mrs. Sumter and Alice met them at the door, and they were soon after joined by Mr. Sumter and Charles Leon from the not distant warehouse.

There is no need to our story that this visit of the owner of Faywood and his wife to Patuxent Town should be longer dwelt upon. What has been written of it is mainly intended to give to the reader an insight into the manners and customs of colonial life in Maryland in those primitive days. The invitations were accepted by all in the village to whom they were given.

When Mr. and Mrs. Burton returned home some half dozen negro boys, mounted on stout horses, were sent to carry written invitations to the gentry through all the country for many miles around. So distant were the residences of some of those invited that one or two of the messengers did not return to Faywood until the afternoon of the next day. Favorable answers came from almost every quarter.

Meanwhile preparations for the approaching fête were at once begun at Leon Manor House; nor were these preparations entirely concluded until toward sunset of the last day preceding that on which the festivities were to commence.

CHAPTER XI. FRIGHT THE FOURTH.-IMITATION GHOSTS.

Ar as early an hour as ten o'clock on the morning of the important Wednesday the invited guests began to arrive at Faywood; and they continued to come until a late hour in the afternoon. All of the visitors had travelled on horseback. Horsecarts, and even ox-carts too, were driven up before the gate of the front yard of the mansion at intervals throughout the day; these brought trunks and chests containing the gala dresses and other conveniences of the guests.

Mr. Burton, in the full enjoyment of the very heyday of his dignity and importance, stood in

the front piazza of his house to receive his visitors. For the time he forgot all his fear of the ghosts; and his face was covered with smiles of welcome at each new arrival. The lady of the house meanwhile remained in the large double parlor to receive the guests as they were ushered by her husband into his hospitable door.

Quite a crowded company sat down to the dinner table at Faywood that day. The dinner in those early days was generally taken at twelve o'clock; but on this occasion it was postponed until one o'clock P.M. After this meal, with all the onerous formalities of the times, was concluded the ladies, soon followed by the younger gentlemen, retired to the parlors; the older gentlemen remained at their wine at the dinner table until between three and four o'clock. The afternoon was passed by the guests in various ways; by the elder ladies and gentlemen at cards or in conversation; by the younger ladies and gentlemen in rambles through the grounds and sentimental talk. Supper at the early hour of six o'clock called all the company together. After this meal violinists from the colonial capital were introduced; and the evening was passed in dancing by the younger folks, while the elder people either looked on or resumed their games at cards. The parlors were given to the card parties; the eating room and Mrs. Burton's sitting room were devoted to the performance of quadrilles and contra dances. Thus merrily passed the time with all until about eleven o'clock, when the music ceased, and the hour for retiring to bed had arrived.

The reader must recollect that, as all the gentry in a circuit of many miles around were assembled within the walls of Faywood, the mansion was very full of guests. The greatest difficulty was to furnish all with sleeping accommodations. Some few of the more important gentlemen and their wives were accommodated with separate rooms; but many of the married and all of the single gentlemen were crowded into one large apartment, and many of the married and all of the single ladies were placed in another and somewhat larger

room.

Into the room occupied solely by gentlemen, there entered at the very moment after the last of them had extinguished the light and retired to bed-a pale and ghastly-looking figure enveloped in a white and flowing dress and bearing before it in its left hand a plate from which a blue light was

blazing. Most of the occupants of the room, fatigued with dancing and the otherwise almost constant exercise of the past day, were already sinking into slumber when this strange figure; entered the chamber. But all were immediately aroused by the violent exclamations of one of the young gentlemen-one who was famous for his fondness for practical jokes, and who had been the last to go to bed.

"Gracious heaven!" he exclaimed, "here comes the famous Faywood ghost. See, gentlemen! It is no false report that this place is haunted."

At once the attention of all was attracted toward the ghostly figure by these exclamations. Some quickly again enveloped their heads in the bedclothes to shut out the unusual and alarming sight, while others, more bold, sprang out of their beds and gazed at the apparition. Many were the mingled expressions of terror and surpise. But the young man who had first called the attention of the others by his cries, apparently recovering, courage, thus addressed the seeming spectre in the language of Hamlet, accompanying his appeal with extravagant gestures and great pomposity of voice:

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. Oh! answer me,
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements? why the sepulchre
Hath cast thee up again? What may this mean?
Why makest night hideous, and we fools of Nature
So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? "Nonsense, Peter Dunning," said Charles Leon. "You are always after some new folly, and I know that this one is of your getting up.. But we are all too fatigued to enjoy such pitiful jokes as this." But Peter Dunning, as he was called, paying no attention to Charles Leon, and staring at apparent

the apparition with eyes which seemed to be almost bursting from their sockets, again addressed it, still using the words of the princely Dane:

Speak! I am bound to hear.

To which appeal the spectre, in a deep and solemn voice, replied, extending at the same time its right hand toward the person addressed:

I am thy father's spirit;

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day condemned to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word— "Oh, come," interrupted Charles Leon, "don't bore us, if you please, with that often-quoted passage. Gentlemen," he continued, addressing the other occupants of the room, "this would-be ghost is no one but Mrs. Burton's page, who has covered himself with a sheet. He has flax soaked in brandy burning before him to make himself look ghostlike. This is a very poor jest, Dunning, even for you."

"Never mind," replied Peter Dunning, "maybe you haven't seen the end of it. And thereby hangs a tale.' You see, Mr. Charley Leon, that I can quote other plays of Shakspeare as well as Hamlet."

This was uttered with a mock expression of great self-assumption. There was immediately a hearty burst of laughter, in which even those who had been most timid joined. Some of the young men then fell upon the poor ghost; one took from him his plate from the flame in which the candle was relighted; others tore off the sheet in which he was enveloped, exposing him in his full costume of page. After this exposure all of the young men who could get at the lad so plied him with multitudinous tickling from head to foot that he alternately roared and shrieked with laughter, which was not by any means expressive of enjoyment.

Suddenly, piercing through the boy's unhappy shouts of laughter, shriek upon shriek was heard, shrilly and startingly sounding from a chamber on the other side of the passage into which the gentleman's room opened. All the gentlemen and the page rushed toward the room door. Charles Leon was the first to gain it. He immediately locked the door and retained the key in his hand.

"Keep your presence of mind, gentlemen," he said; "those shrieks proceed from ladies, and you are in no condition to appear before them. Let us first dress as quickly as possible, and then hasten to the help of those who seem to need assist

ance.

This prudent suggestion was at once acted upon. In a few moments the garments of all present were

donned, in a somewhat disorderly manner, it is true; the door was unlocked by young Leon, and all the gentlemen rushed one after the other into the passage. They saw an elderly negro woman trying to open the door of the room from which loud and piercing shrieks were still continuously issuing, and endeavoring, in a shrill and screaming voice, to make herself, through the noise, heard by those within the chamber before which she was standing.

"Come out er dare, you Kate," she cried. "Gorree-mighty! de gal will skeer de poor ladies right to def."

By this time Mr. and Mrs. Burton, and several of the married gentlemen and ladies to whom separate apartments had been assigned, made their appearance upon the scene in dresses evidently hastily assumed. Several negro servants brought up the rear. The faces of all expressed much alarm. One of the gentlemen, a powerfully built, middle-aged man, advanced to the door of the room from which the shrieks still sounded, but in feeble tones, expressive of exhaustion.

"Let me have hold of the door, Aunt Dolly," said this gentleman to the old negro woman; "I will soon get it open."

"But done go in, Massa Bourne," urged the woman addressed. "Dis is de ladies' room. But lemme go in; I'll bring dat gal, Kate, out er dare. She's doing all de fus; she's puttin' on de ghose; maybe she git made er ghose herself fore she know it."

The gentleman spoken to put his strong shoulder to the door, and soon lock and bolt gave way before his strength. The negro woman, Dolly, immediately entered the room, but soon came out of it dragging after her by the arm a very remarkable figure. This figure, like that which had created the commotion in the gentlemen's room, was enveloped in a sheet from the shoulders to the feet; but it was its face which gave the most horror to its appearance. This was of a mere dead whiteness save a jet-black circle around each eye, and a space of the same color around the mouth. An ebony-hued ear started out from each side of the face under the black wooly hair.

Every one was startled by this horrid and disgusting sight, and some of the ladies shrieked on beholding it. Dolly pulled away the sheet from this figure with one hand, while, passing her other hand roughly downward over the face, she

tore off the white mask which was made of dough, and Kate, the black chambermaid, stood revealed with a look of terror upon her face, and her wideopen eyes seeming to be almost starting from her head.

"Dare she is," said Dolly. "She put on er dough face to skeer de ladies; she's de cause ob de whole ob it."

"Deed, massa, 'deed, missee," exclaimed Kate, "'twus on'y fur fun. Massa Pete Dunning he did it; he gib me ur shillin' fur do it. He fix Massa Jack, de page, fur skeer de genlum, un den he fix me fur skeer de ladies. Dat's all, massa; 'deed un 'deed it is."

"I'll attend to you and Mister Jack presently, Miss," said Mr. Burton, sternly. "Tell me first, however, how the door of the ladies' room came to be locked."

"Miss Alee Sumter locked it, massa," answered Kate, "when de ladies 'gun tur scream, for keep de genlum from comin' inter de room."

At this moment Alice and two other young ladies, who had to some extent preserved their presence of mind, entered the passage fully dressed. They said that several ladies had fainted and needed assistance. Upon this information being received, Mrs. Burton sent two of the negro girls, who were among the servants that thronged the passage way in the rear of the white folks, to bring restoratives. Then the mistress of the house, accompanied by all the ladies present, went into the room. The excitement there had much abated; and under the gentle ministrations of the older ladies, those who had fainted were soon restored; and the fears of all being quieted by a full explanation of the cause of terror, they were shortly again in a frame of mind to return to their couches. Before they fell asleep, however, many a jest was passed and many a laugh enjoyed over the recalled incidents of the late scare.

In the meanwhile Mr. Burton continued in the passage his investigation into the causes and particulars of the disturbance.

"How did you learn," he asked of Dolly, "before you drew Kate out of the room just now, that she was concerned in this foolish and unfeeling affair?"

"Massa Pete Dunning un Massa Jack," answered Dolly, "come inter de kitchen, massa, jes when all de white folks was gwine tur bed, un dey took Kate out inter de yard; un den, arter

er while, Massa Jack come back un ax me fut some flour un some flax. I gib um tew him coz I didden 'spec' nuttin den; but soon as I hear de screamin', as I was er gwine up ter de garret tur go tur bed, I knowed what it all meant."

As soon as Dolly had finished her statement, Mr. Burton turned towards the accused young gentleman.

"Is this true, Mr. Dunning?" he asked. "Yes, sir," was the prompt answer; "every word of it, I believe."

"Mr. Dunning," said Mr. Burton, in pompously severe tones, "I am astonished, I am amazed, sir, that you should play so cruel a trick as this upon the tender and timid sex, sir. I did not dream, Mr. Dunning, that you were capable of it, sir."

"Bless my life, Mr. Burton," replied Dunning, "who could think that there was any harm in a joke. Where so many of us are together there ought to be as much fun as we can make. Besides, the jests that Jack and myself played are so common that we thought that everybody who saw him and the negro girl in their regimentals" (at this word he looked around for a laugh, or a smile at least, but neither showed itself) "would know what it all meant, and only have a good laugh."

"It seems, however," remarked Mr. Burton, "that the fun, such as it was, was confined entirely to you and Jack."

"'Twasn't my fault," replied Dunning, "if nobody else could see into the joke."

"I hope, Mr. Dunning," said Mr. Burton, "that no more tricks of this kind will be played within the walls of Faywood, sir. Consider, young gentleman, that we all need sleep after a day of excitement. I hope that during the past day we have all had enough of what you call fun, more properly, however, enjoyment, I think, not to require that our needful rest should be disturbed by such fun as this."

He looked around upon the guests as he spoke, as if for confirmation of his words. Several of them immediately declared that they had never passed a pleasanter day, and all the others by their looks yielded assent to the assertion.

After a long and severe lecture had been administered by Mr. Burton to the page and chambermaid, before the conclusion of which the mistress of the house and the married ladies who had ac companied her to the ladies' apartment had returned to the passage and reported that everything