"But every step I took I now heard | Light," said Stephen Ford, who was a something stepping behind! Truro man. "I walked faster-the creature, or devil, walked faster too:not daring to look back, I began to run; but the demon kept up with me-nearer and nearer ! "Hear the wind roar in the chimney," said the children. The schoolmaster was reading by the lamp-stand. But Mary Horton, and I suspect aunt Sarah also, had not forgotten his promise of a story. So while it was yet early in the evening, the children were, by various inducements, inveigled into retiring; and as soon as they were out of the way, Mary reminded him of his narrative. As all joined with her, he was easily persuaded to lay aside his book and enter "I ran with all my might clean out of the woods and a long way further, till suddenly it came to me what it was that was pursuing me. I had a wooden half gallon bottle under my arm, empty, except an old bit of cork that had been pushed inside and rattled to and fro with a dull sound at every step I took. Of course the more I ran the louder it rat-tain us. tled." The children laughed merrily at this, and aunt Sarah saw that it was a favorable opportunity for sending them to bed. So bidding us all good night, including Tiger, and kissing their father and mother, they went off escorted by Elise Parker. "I have a better reason for believing in the existence of ghosts," said the schoolmaster, when they were gone, "than even Mrs. Bird; for unless I was out of my right mind at the time, I once saw one. I did not mention it before the young people lest it might spoil their sleep; and as the story may prove somewhat long, perhaps we had better reserve it for to-morrow evening." "Just what I was thinking," said my uncle, who, as well as Ford and Ingalls, after their labor in the field, was rather sleepy; "if this storm holds, we shall need something to-morrow evening to make us cheerful!" And so with a laugh that would have scared all the ghosts in Christendom, uncle Robert rose up and the family separated for the night. I hardly know, he began, if I ought to divulge a circumstance of so strange and terrible a character; yet as it happened long ago, and the principal parties, none of whom were ever known in this part of the country, are now dead, I think that by altering names and other particulars, I may with propriety do so. We are bound to contribute as much of individual experience as we can (he added, smiling at his own preciseness) to the general stock of information. Among the students at the college where I received my education, was one towards whom I very early learned to cherish those sentiments which ripen under the lapse of time into the most endearing friendship. William Alison was ther a young man in the bloom and promise of life. Delicate and slender in person, yet with a form of masculine mould; in his manners lofty and gentle; alive to all impulses; his graceful forehead just saddered with the paleness of thought; his con versation open and various; he was to my mind the realization of my ideal of a stu dent. It was my pride to make him my friend; and I felt more joy in knowing that we were looked upon by our fellow students as inseparable companions, th in gaining the highest honors of the un versity. In the third year after our friendship Alison was compelled, in consequence some cause which I have now forgotten to remain for nearly a term at his hom which was in ington, about sixy miles from the town where the college situated. During this time he informed me, in the frankness of youthful cr believe he had found what is so rare in man or woman, that love which is unto the death that sacred interchange of wills which makes two beings, in deed as well as in form, one flesh and one spirit. A world of correspondence passed between the lovers, but of this nothing was ever communicated by Alison to me. He could enlarge upon the personal charms of his love; her devotion to him; the high inspiration which her affection breathed into him, and the vision of coming happiness which almost overwhelmed him with its lustre; but his love was not of that kind which requires sympathy. In truth I believe that if there was ever true affection, like that depicted by our great poets, it was experienced then by Alison and his young respondence, of an attachment he had to sustain her and minister to her feminine conceived for a certain young lady in the pride. With all my allowance for the exneighborhood, and his happiness in believ-aggeration of his passion, I could not but ing his affection returned. The young lady's name he did not mention, though from sundry sonnets he inclosed me, I suspected it must be Ellen, and gathered also that there was some obstacle in the way of their wishes, which they almost despaired of ever being able to remove. When he returned to the university in the term after the summer vacation, I found a marked difference in the character of his hopes and purposes. The whole bent of his existence was changed. Before, he had been the indefatigable student, the example of his class and the pride of our professors and tutors. No labors had been too hard for him, nor was there any department of science or literature into which his mind did not seem to burst with such an eagerness it was as if there had been a latent affinity between his spirit and knowledge. Now, he was another creature. Books for him had lost their charm. He delighted to muse alone, and it was with difficulty I could persuade him into our old topics of talk, in our customary walks and conversations. On one subject only would he willingly dilate-the perfections of the aforesaid Ellen, of whom, for my own part, since by his painting she appeared to be such a miracle as could by no possibility exist in the world, I grew somewhat tired of hearing. As I might judge from his portraiture, she was a rather slight girl of seventeen or eighteen, with blue eyes and light hair, and a disposition inclining more to tenderness than to gaiety. I imaged to myself, through his descriptions, a creature susceptible to poetic influences as well as to the grosser developments of manly strength; one like Coleridge's Genevieve, who loves her poet best when he sings to her "The songs that make her grieve." mistress. Ellen was But there was an obstacle. the daughter of a poor widow, Alison the heir to wealth. She was without family and without friends, dowered only by her beauty and her love; Alison was descended of a proud stock, and had a mother who, he dreaded, would never hear of his marrying beneath his rank. Their great fear was the apprehension of his mother's displeasure. As far as I could gather from what he informed me, it seemed there was little in common between his mother and himself; she was an austere woman, of gloomy religious faith, and almost a monomaniac on the subject of family. He kept the whole affair of his love a secret from her, and intended to win her gradually by ingenious contrivance, to allow him to wed the daughter of one who had been the tenant of a small portion of his paternal acres. His scheme was to bring Ellen by some means, at church or elsewhere, though his mother, he told me, seldom visited, to be acquainted with her; when he hoped that the loveliness of her character could not fail in time of pleasing. I fancied I could see such a one as nature Thus matters stood during the remainwould choose to be the bride of such a der of the time we spent at college. Aliman as Alison-a being capable of loving son grew more studious and somewhat him as Desdemona loves Othello, for " his reserved. It appeared that his love had mind," or as poor Ophelia loves her ill-passed into the depth of his life, and bestarred prince, for his "noble and most soverain reason," as well as for his ability came a part of his very self, so that his whole bearing showed an inward peace, and he was no longer a speculative youthful scholar, but a resolute, laborious man. Yet there was in him no want of sympathy, and we continued firm friends till the day we graduated, when we separated, as class-mates usually do, to meet we knew not when. Alison retired to his estate, and I went to the West, where I found employment in teaching. For many months we kept up a regular correspondence, but our ways of life were so different, his so quiet, mine so full of excitement, that gradually, though our friendship was unabated, the intervals between our letters grew longer, and at last it occasioned me no surprise that I did not hear from him for nearly half a year. As it happened, opportunely enough, I was in Cincinnati preparing to return eastward after three years' absence, when I received one day a letter bearing the postmark of Alison's village. It may be supposed that not having heard from him for so long, I opened it with no little eagerness, though the handwriting of the superscription was unfamiliar. What was my surprise to find, instead of a letter from my friend, a communication from his mother, informing me that he had been afflicted with an illness which had injured his mind, and requesting me, if possible, to visit them. She stated that since the commencement of his disease, her son had frequently spoken of me, and always in the most affectionate manner, and that one of his favorite occupations was re-reading and re-arranging the numerous letters that had passed between us. He would sit gazing at the parcel which they made for hours together, saying that I was the only true friend he had ever possessed in the world, and lamenting my neglect in not keeping up my correspondence. (This by the way was altogether fancied, for I had written him twice since hearing from him.) Much grieved by this unpleasant news, respecting one on whose intellectual strength I had so securely relied, and whose noble heart I had so truly loved, I lost no time in replying to the summons. I was to leave the West in a week, and hoped ere another to be able to visit ―ington, and render to my friend such assistance as might be in my power. To him also I wrote an apparently careless letter respecting my return to the East, the pleasure it would give me to see him and the like, designed to soothe him with out betraying any knowledge of his a tion. Within three days after, I was a my way across the mountains, and in liuk more than seven, had arrived home I remained but a day or two to exching greetings with my kindred, my anxiety for Alison urging me to comply with his mo ther's request without delay. I well recollect, though so many year have now passed away, the evening wha after a long day's ride, I at length c mounted before Alison House. It was t the season of the Indian summer, and the sun was just setting beyond a woodland valley that sloped away in front and exhibited all the variegated richness of o autumnal forests. The mansion, which though I had never seen it before, I had no difficulty, through my friend's well remembered descriptions, in recognizing, was an ancient structure, such as there no remain but a few of in the country. E front it was three stories high, with a double roof and narrow projecting wit dows; on the back the roof sloped deat to a single story. The eaves were hears moulded in the antique fashion, and the glass in the windows looked obscure and weatherworn. In the ends and at the r I observed several small casements fitted with gothic or lozenge-shaped frames. Before the house was a narrow green plat or lawn leading down to the gateway. where two pillars of rough masonry, surmounted by wooden urns, stood like serti tinels to guard the place from profane intrusion. Some venerable trees wared their arms over this inclosure, and on opt side a decaying orchard encroached up the level sward. On the other were surry out-buildings, apparently coeval with the principal structure. All the aspect of the place inspired a solemn peace, that sacred. almost religious repose which it brings into the mind to come as it were into the immediate presence of the generation thai has passed away. There was no grave walk leading from the gateway to the e trance, and clumps of lilac and other shrabs had been suffered to spread untrained around the house and against the walls, as if nature loved to contrast the vigor of ther youth with the venerableness of its age Had it been later in the year, or on a gloomy day, my first impressions of such | I readily assented to. She believed I could a scene would have been doubtless far less agrecable; but now, bathed as it was in the full radiance of the sunset, and mingling its impression with the cheerful feelings inspired by the nearness of my friend, and my hopes of aiding him by my presence, it appeared only suggestive of tranquillity. be of infinite service to him by winning him to rides or walks with me in the fields, and that a few weeks of my society would quite restore him to health. The cause of his melancholy being but temporary, a little cheerful society would soon restore him. I made suitable replies to these obserI passed into the house and was con- vations, and said that I hoped all would ducted by an aged serving-woman into the succeed as we desired. But I was by no presence of the mother of my friend. It means satisfied with this view of the causes was the first time I had ever seen her, and of my friend's illness. He must, indeed, I was destined to a sad disappointment. II said, have studied severely if that had hardly know why, but from the moment driven him to madness, for his mind was She greeted me, all my cheerful frame of of a texture to bear study as well as any nind seemed to pass from me like the fading I had known. But his mother persisted unlight, and a horrible shadow crept over in her opinion, and added that he had for ny spirits, filling me with an indescribable the last year or more lived in much too neasiness. retired a manner; that she had for some time entertained fears for his health, and in order to wean him from study, had contrived a marriage for him with a young lady who was heiress to a large property in the next county, when he was suddenly taken ill. She was a tall unfeminine person, withut any trait of gentleness in form, or oice, or carriage. Her face--I shall never orget it was characterized only by an pression of cruel, self-denying pride at peculiar conformation of temper which ds a poison in the most innocent pleasres of life, and tends constantly towards happiness, both in itself and those with hom it comes in contact. Her eyes were ay and severe; her forehead contracted; e had prominent cheek bones, an aquiline se, and pinched lips; altogether her untenance was the most stern and un manly I had ever seen in a female--and y God grant I never behold such anher! As I recall the scenes of that memoranight, I seem to see her sitting in her h-backed chair in that dusky parlor, coursing to me of the condition of her ortunate son, and impressing me, as she posed, with her extraordinary sagacity, in reality astonishing me by the reflechow such a man as my friend could e been the offspring of such a mother. ad appeared to her, she said, that Willhad grown of late rather over-stus, and to this cause and their retired e of life, she attributed his malady, ch was a sort of melancholy nervousthat led him to pass whole days in his v, almost without food, and permitting ne to approach him. She thought it er to postpone informing him of my al until she had spoken with me; this As she said this I observed that momentary unsteadiness of the eye which the most thorough adepts in falsehood are not always able to avoid, and by which we know that the tongue is uttering what the mind knows to be untrue. I observed this, and I remembered at once what Alison had told me in our college days of his love affair, how much it changed him, and the difficulty he anticipated with his mother. Ah," said I, with the assumed nonchalance of a man of the world, "if my friend is grown to be a woman-hater, he is changed indeed. Had he never," I inquired, " since college times, shown a partiality for any of the sex ?" "O yes, he had at one time been quite a lady's man; that is, he used to visit and amuse himself with the farmers' girls in the village below. She had not encouraged it. She had heard something, indeed, of a sort of flirtation with a little artful minx who was so presumptuous as even to pay court to herself. But it never came to anything. The hussy had left the village several months, and gone no one knew whither." I remarked an unsteadiness when this was saying, not in the eye only, but in the voice and manner. It was evidently the constraint of dissimulation. But I had not time to sift the matter further, for the door of the parlor opened, and in a moment I was grasping by the hand my poor friend, who had, on my arrival being announced to him by the serving-woman, come down at once to meet me. Time and sorrow had wrought sad changes in his once noble countenance, and fearfully ravaged the graceful beauty of his once healthful form. I read at a glance, in his hollow cheek and eye, and heard in his cavernous voice, that the destroyer had marked him, and that however successful I might be in my endeavors to recover him from his depression, it could never be for a long enjoyment of his society. I might minister to his diseased mind, but no earthly power could arrest the progress of consumption. I should restore him only to watch at his death-bed. We sat and conversed of old times, for his affliction did not reach his reason, until I was convinced that he was suffering more from general decay than from any organic affection, arising from what cause soever. He grew faint with the effort of speaking, and was obliged to recover himself by intervals of rest. These his mother by her looks to me evidently considered as simple wanderings of his intellect. She encouraged him accordingly to converse, and urged him to partake more of the tea, which was in the meantime brought in by the housekeeper, than he would have desired. She did not appear to be in the least aware of his actual condition. In her manner towards him she mingled none of that gentleness, none of those kind tones which are so soothing to the exhausted nerves of the sick. On the contrary, she appeared quite rough and dictatorial, as though in my coming she had gained a point, and was now securing the attainment of her wishes. Grim and rigid, she sat in her upright chair and doled us out a thin infusion that kept no promise to the taste, meanwhile talking on in the very presence of her wretched son, of schemes and plans which it was plain he was well aware could never be realized. It seemed she was one of those women who have man's desire for control, and that she had been accustomed to assume the entire management of her son; he deferring to her out of long habit, and because he was too affectionate to wish to undeceive her. I made one or two attempts to check her exposing her pride and wickedness. L my friend rebuked me with glances seemed to say, "Let her alone-it be over!" After tea I went up with him to he chamber. It was a dark old room, antique presses and chairs, and cold-r cold-one of those rooms which sa upon the senses with a funereal chize We sat upon a faded sofa that stud against the eastern wall, and talked former days and hopes departed. own life had not been unchequered grief, and in endeavoring to probe the reed sorrow of my friend, I was obliged go over much which even now I stre to forget. But at length I wrung from ha in secret. It was, as I suspected, no e of application that had jangled the harry of his soul. Ellen-it was she who wa the burden of his lamentations—once was his, and now she was lost foreve Where was she? He had searched country over for tidings of her; he spent days and weeks, and employed best assistance money could buy. never since one fatal evening in the that was past was he able to hear s concerning her. She was to have bes his bride; they had loved long; th had been patient. He had been dut. and his mother he thought would n yielded. She had relaxed so far eve to invite Ellen to the house, and ba; seemed to countenance her efforts to pleas On the very evening, she had come up the mansion with a boquet of flowers ina her own garden; he was to have met b here, and they thought then to have j ed in asking his mother's consent to th union. But an accident to his horse and delayed him in returning from a ne ing town; Ellen was forced to walk alone, and that was the last ever sea her. Was not this enough to make weary of life? Had she sickened died, or even been taken away by s sudden and dreadful accident, he c have borne it with fortitude. Ear what might she not have undergoret li what secret den of hell might is beauty be the spoil of ravishers and derers? Feeble as he had seemed, while b a |