the apparently fearless intelligence about to be
confronted with it. But it had escaped his
memory to warn the servants to do likewise,
and hence, when, sitting together after supper,
Mrs. Applebee suddenly bethought her of the
ghost, and requested particulars, Mr. Thomas
at once gave them.

As he proceeded, to the extreme amazement of
all, the hitherto fearless old lady turned deadly
pale, and lay back, as if gasping for breath, in
her chair.

"How—how often—does he come?" she
presently ejaculated.

Thomas did not notice the expression "he,"
and only answered that the visitation might
occur any night—perhaps, then.

"Then, my dears," said Mrs. Applebee,
presently regaining her looks and smiles, "you
do a poor old lady this kindness. Moment you
see him—the light, that is—coming, all of you
bolt up-stairs like frightened rabbits, and leave
me all alone."

Emma drew a long breath.

"Well, you are a bold one, Mrs. Applebee."

"'Mr. Greatheart led the way,'" quoted
the old lady, with her confident smile. "I'm
afraid of nothing He sees fit to suffer in the
world."

It was remembered that, while she was yet
speaking, the marvellous light began to steal
into the room, slowly, this time, as the revealing
of an actual dawn.

All looked at Mrs. Applebee—Thomas
raising his hand, as if to apprise her of what
her less experienced eyes might not have
yet detected. The old lady nodded. She
betrayed no trace of fear, but, as the light
increased, her countenance seemed to put on a
strange solemnity.

Presently she signed to the door, when the
servants, remembering her request, all three
quitted the room. Turning at the top of the
stairs, Thomas, who went last, observed that the
apartment was filled with a radiance brighter
than any they had yet beheld.

For the next half hour, the servants waited
quietly in their respective rooms. At length
Thomas, becoming a little uneasy, was on the
point of going down, when Mrs. Applebee
was heard to come softly up-stairs, and retire
to bed.

The next morning found her active and cheerful
as ever, but uncommunicative as to the
ghost. Having got through the greater part of
her morning's work, she asked permission to
pay a visit to the little village—a mere cluster
of the humblest cottages—close at hand, and,
tying on her neat bonnet, set forth.

Near the first cottage, she encountered an
old woodman, at work with his hatchet on the
trunk of a felled tree. Upon this, looking, in
her scarlet cloak and straw bonnet, like a bright
old moth, Mrs. Applebee alighted, and the
following conversation ensued.

After a brief strangers' greeting:

"Folks very bad off in these parts, master?"
inquired the old lady.

"Us, in Duffryn, couldn't hardly buy the
Queen a new crown, if the old 'un was wore
out," replied the woodman, darkly.

"Poor, are they?"

"Cruel poor."

"But you helps each other?"

"O yes, we helps each other," replied the
old man, dealing a savage cut at the tree. He
seemed weak, and in ill health, and the energy
of the action exhausted him, for he sunk the
hatchet wearily, and sat down upon the tree.

"Is—is anything the matter?" asked the old
lady.

"Hunger, and death," said the man; "nothin'
more. Never you mind, missis."

Mrs. Applebee started up in a moment:

"But I must mind," she exclaimed. "Who's
hungry? Who's dying? Tell me, tell me,
tell me!"

Before her earnestness, the man's sullen
mood gave way.

"I'll tell you, missis," he said, "but don't
put yourself out for us. You can't do
nothing."

Thereupon, he related to her, in plain rustic
terms, a sad—but not strange—history. His
daughter, and only child—the beauty, as he
called her, of the country round—quitted her
honest home—several years before—under the
protection of a young soldier, whose attention
she had attracted at a neighbouring fair. At
the end of two years, the girl came wandering
back, wretched, ragged, weary, carrying a sickly
child. Her seducer had been ordered on a
dangerous foreign service, and, giving her what
he could spare, bade her farewell. Her mother
had died in the interval of her absence, and her
father, falling into indifferent health, was
reduced to the last stage of poverty. The
desolate home, however, could still offer the shelter
of a roof, and to this the wanderer was made
welcome.

It would appear that, either owing to a
certain haughtiness in the girl's former bearing, or
from the villagers having been deeply impressed
by the grief of the heart-broken mother, the
rude sympathy usually displayed by persons of
their class in mutual misfortune, was withheld.
The wretched parish allowance was insufficient
for support—outside the Union walls—and,
what is an uncommon circumstance in our
day, no person of superior condition, in that
vicinity, took any interest in the troubles of the
poor. Unaided—or, at all events, unassisted in
any effectual manner—the misery of this
unfortunate family had reached its height, the father
being able only to obtain a few hours' work
now and then, as on that day, and that for the
most trifling remuneration. In truth, they were
all but starving.

Mrs. Applebee had listened to the old
woodman's narrative with the most fixed attention.
When he had finished, she reminded him that
he had not mentioned the seducer's name.

"We never knowed it," said the man. "She
wouldn't tell. Perhaps it was as well for all,"
he added, gloomily.