italicised, might it not almost seem as if this
uncultivated person had also encountered the
spectre? I merely throw out the suggestion,
without insisting on it.)

"On the 29th of February, C. C. will call on
Y. Z. Y., and claim the deposit."

This was the advertisement on which my eye
fell.

Now, it is not every one that can own a
property in the initials Y. Z. Y. Indeed, I am
inclined to believe that I, Yorick Zachary Yorke,
am their sole legitimate owner.

How great is the power of habit! Three
years before, my mind had been so occupied
with the extra day of the bissextile, that I had
even tried to make a 29th of February of my
own, by giving a new figure to the 1st of March.
Now, on the contrary, I was slow in recalling to
mind the connexion between the umbrella and
the date of its acquisition; and I believe a quarter
of an hour elapsed before I recognised in
C. C., the initials of the ill-starred Miss Catherine
Crackenbridge.

The whole horror of four years ago was
forced back upon me. My agony reached its
crisis, when, looking at the date of the paper, I
shrieked aloud—"The 29th of February is
today!" Frantically I rushed into the passage,
took the umbrella from its stand, and placed it
on the table before me. My eyes were fixed
upon it so firmly that every other object faded,
and my arms were not only folded, but firmly
pressed together, that I might be fully aware of
the strength of my own resolution.

How long I sat in this state I know not, but
after a while I began to feel that I was not
alone, though I could not perceive a companion.
And there was a strange inconsistency in the
appearance of the room. The looking-glass was
over the chimney-piece, and the various articles
of furniture were in their places, but the carpet
seemed made of wet grass, and the walls were
transparent, affording a view of a flat country,
in the last light of evening. I could hear the
sound of rain, and could feel the drops. In
defiance of all the laws of possibility, I was in
two places at once—in my room in London, and
on Swampy Field. A heavy weight rested on
my arm, a cold breath was on my cheek, and
close beside me was a pale face that moved its
lips, as if speaking with the greatest earnestness;
but it gave no sound.

When the face had melted away, and the
weight was removed from my arm, and the
carpet was free from wet grass, and the walls
had ceased to be transparent, the umbrella was
gone!

I am not aware whether any so-called
philosophical explanation of these astonishing
experiences may be attempted. I believe I have related
them (on the whole) with great accuracy. If I
have at all enlarged on any trifling detail, or if
any deduction should be claimed by the determined
sceptic, on the score of harmless stout, or
of brandy-and-water which I have myself
described as (I quote the exact words) "offensively
weak," or on the score of a rather confused
memory, or a slight habit of absence of mind, or
an indigestive disposition (inherited on the
father's side) to doze after dinner, there will still
remain this extraordinary circumstance to be
accounted for by ordinary laws—that I never could
get rid of the umbrella (gingham) during the
whole interval between bissextile and bissextile,
and that I unaccountably and inexplicably lost
the umbrella (silk) on the 29th of February, the
very day when it came home from being newly
covered, and brought with it the extraordinary
man I have described.

HIS BLACK BAG.

I.

CREEL was a ducal house—a palace almost—
in the north of Scotland, and I don't believe
that anywhere in the north or the south, the
east or the west, a pleasanter place could be
found to stay at, or a pleasanter host and hostess
than the Duke and Duchess of Greta. I had
known the duchess long before her marriage,
and as to her husband, we got on well from
the very first day of my stay at Creel, when I
had the good fortune to land a salmon in a
style the duke highly approved of; an achievement
which I followed up by tying a fly with
which he himself killed first and last five large
salmon, and a dozen grilse, before it came to
pieces. Every year I went to stay at Creel, making
one of a great society, the castle being big
enough to hold a small world within its walls.

The first day of my arrival at Creel on the
occasion of which I am writing, I found
myself seated between old Lady Salteith, who is
very deaf, and an uncommonly stupid master of
fox-hounds, whose voice nobody would ever care
to hear unless when it was raised in a melodious
tally-ho or uttering words of encouragement to
a despondent hound. Exactly opposite to where
I sat was the beautiful Miss Crawcour. Of this
young lady I had heard a great deal, though I
had never before found myself in her company.
She was placed next to the man of all others
for whom I have, I think, the least liking. This
was Lord Sneyd, the best match, pecuniarily,
and the worst, I should imagine, in every other
way, that England had to show. At a glance,
I saw what was going on. Miss Crawcour was
a near relation of the duchess, and the duchess
was one of the most inveterate match-makers
that ever lived. She was at this time about
five or six-and-thirty, good-looking, and good-
natured to an excess, but she had this quality
of match-making developed in her nature to an
extent that was almost inconceivable, and
certainly premature.

But the duchess did not stand alone in keeping
a watchful eye over this affair. My fox-
hunting friend, from whom I learnt who the
young lady opposite really was, had even his
stupid old eye fixed upon Miss Crawcour. Lady
Salteith, deaf, as I have said, and so shut out
from conversation, watched her with might and
main, and so, indeed, more or less, did most of
the guests assembled round that great table. I