before, and, in passing it, I mechanically raised
my eyes. Then I remembered that it was
Allhallovv's eve, the anniversary of the
apparition of last year. As I looked, the room,
which had been so deadly still, became filled
with the sound I had heard before. The rushing
of large wings, and the crowd of whispering
voices flowed like a river round me; and
again, glaring into my eyes, was the same
face in the glass that I had seen before, the
sneering smile even more triumphant, the
blighting stare of the fiery eyes, the low brow
and the coal-black hair, and the look of mockery.
All were there; and all I had seen before
and since: for it was Felix who was gazing
at me from the glass. When I turned to speak
to him, the room was empty. Not a living
creature was there; only a low laugh, and the
far-off voices whispering, and the wings. And
then a hand tapped on the window, and the
voice of Felix cried from outside, "Come,
Lizzie, come!"

I staggered, rather than walked, to the
window; and, as I was close to it—my hand
raised to open it—there stood between me
and it a pale figure clothed in white; her
face more pale than the linen round it. Her
hair hung down on her breast, and her blue
eyes looked earnestly and mcurnfully into
mine. She was silent, and yet it seemed as
if a volume of love and of entreaty flowed
from her lips; as if I heard words of deathless
affection. It was Lucy; standing there
in this bitter midnight cold—giving her life to
save me. Felix called to me again,
impatiently; and, as he called, the figure turned,
and beckoned me; beckoning me gently,
lovingly, beseechingly; and then slowly faded
away. The chime of the half-hour sounded;
and, I fled from the room to my sister. I
found her lying dead on the floor; her hair
hanging over her breast, and one hand
stretched out as if in supplication.

The next day Felix disappeared; he and
his whole retinue; and Green Howe fell into
ruins again. No one knew where he went,
as no one knew from whence he came. And
to this day I sometimes doubt whether or not
he was a clever adventurer, who had heard of
my father's wealth; and who, seeing my weak
and imaginative character, had acted on it for
his own purposes. All that I do know is that
my sister's spirit saved me from ruin; and that
she died to save me. She had seen and known
all, and gave herself for my salvation down to
the last and supreme effort she made to rescue
me. She died at that hour of half-past twelve;
and at half-past twelve, as I live before you all,
she appeared to me and recalled me.

And this is the reason why I never married,
and why I pass Allhallow's eve in prayer by
my sister's grave. I have told you to-night
this story of mine, because I feel that I shall
not live over another last night of October,
but before the next white Christmas roses
come out like winter stars on the earth, I shall
be at peace in the grave. Not in the grave;
let me rather hope with my blessed sister in
Heaven!

OVER THE WAY'S STORY.

Once upon a time, before I retired from
mercantile pursuits and came to live over the
way, I lived, for many years, in Ursine
Lane.

Ursine Lane is a very rich, narrow, dark,
dirty, straggling lane in the great city of
London (said by some to be itself as rich, as
dark, and as dirty.) Ursine Lane leads
from Cheapside into Thames Street, facing
Sir John Pigg's wharf; but whether Ursine
Lane be above or below Bow Church, I shall
not tell you. Neither, whether its name be
derived from a bear-garden, (which was in
great vogue in its environs in Queen Bess's
time) or from an Ursuline Nunnery which
flourished in its vicinity, before big, bad
King Harry sent nuns to spin, or to do
anything else they could. Ursine Lane it was
before the great fire of London, and Ursine
Lane it is now.

The houses in Ursine Lane are very old,
very inconvenient, and very dilapidated;
and I don't think another great fire (all the
houses being well-insured, depend upon it)
would do the neighbourhood any harm, in
clearing the rubbishing old lane away. Number
four tumbled in, and across the road on
to number sixteen, a few years ago: and
since then, Ursine Lane has been provided
with a species of roofing in the shape of great
wooden beams to shore up its opposite sides.
The district surveyor shakes his head very
much at Ursine Lane, and resides as far from
it as he can. The cats of the neighbourhood
find great delectation in the shoring
beams, using them, in the night season, as
rialtos and bridges, not of sighs, but of
miauws; but foot passengers look wistfully
and somewhat fearfully upwards at the
wooden defences. Yet Ursine Lane remains.
To be sure, if you were to pull it down, you
would have to remove the old church of St.
Nicholas Bearcroft, where the bells ring every
Friday night in conformity with a bequest
Master Miniver Squirrell, furrier, obiit
sixteen hundred and eighty-four, piously to
commemorate his escape from the paws of a
grisly bear while travelling in the wilds of
Muscovy. You would have to demolish the
brave gilt lion and the brave gilt unicorn at
the extremity of the churchwarden's pew,
who (saving their gender) with me clerk,
the sexton, and two or three deaf old shop-
keepers and their wives, are pretty nearly all
the dearly beloved brethren whom the
Reverand Tremaine Popples, M. A., can gather
together as a congregation. Worse than all,
if Ursine Lane were to come down—the
pump must come down, the old established,
constitutional, vested, endowed pump; built,
so tradition runs, over a fountain blessed by