"No."

I did not tell him Mrs Gresham had been alarmed; she seemed to have forgotten it, for the time at least.

"Well, tell him then; call him the next time you see it, if it visits you again. I have heard something of this before, from a half-mad patient of mine who once lodged in the house; but he was always seeing signs and wonders, and I classed this with the rest. It's a queer affair altogether. I should like to see it myself."

"Not if you knew what it was like," I said, with a shiver.

"You say it only appears in that room?” "Only there."

"Then Georgy must come out of it as soon as she is able to be up."

She can have this one if you And leave you to the ghost?" "I can sleep with Nelly."

think it will do."

I

"You are very kind; we'll talk it over to-morrow; don't let her hear of it, but tell Frank. shouldn't like him to be shouting out at the sight of it, and frighten her into a fever, as he would be sure to do."

It was a relief to have told some one of my trouble, and a greater relief the way Mr Gresham took it, when I communicated my story to him. He laughed at my fears, said he was sure we should find out some reason for the appearance, and altogether cheered me not a little. We were both in Mrs Gresham's room that night; he had been reading to her, and I was reminding him that it was getting late, and it was time to leave her in quiet, when Nelly came into the adjoining room. "Can you see, Nelly ?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, the gas is in."

She set what she carried upon the table, and was leaving the room, when she gave a little cry.

"I stumbled, ma'am," she said in a moment, with thoughtful tact, and then we heard her fly along the passage like a startled deer, and shut herself into the kitchen. I felt what it was, and I resolutely walked out of the bedroom.

"Just one minute, sir," I said, "and then you must go; Mrs Gresham is tired now."

I closed the door upon his good night's kiss to his wife and babe, and lifted my eyes to the place. There she was again, the agonized-looking woman, gazing at me with her weary, staring eyes, and with difficulty I repressed a scream. Gresham came out I grasped his arm.

As Mr

"Shut the door fast," I said, "and look there." He followed the direction of my pointing finger, and his laughing look died away.

"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed; "what is it?" He turned on more light and it disappeared, and we looked at each other in dismay.

"May I examine the passage, Mrs Morrison?" "The whole house, if you like."

He did examine most thoroughly, but no elucidation of the mystery could be found, and he left the house perplexed and annoyed. I grew used to that haunting horror ere many nights had passed away; I could endure its presence, though I resolved that I would do as my predecessor had done, and leave the house before any one suffered seriously from it. Night after night did Frank Gresham and I watch that fearful vision, till his wife began to sit up, and wish restlessly to be allowed to leave her room. I prepared mine for her reception on some pretext or other, and the

next morning she was to be moved there for a change. Dr Mitchell called very late that evening; he had been absent in the country, and Mrs Gresham was settled for the night ere he arrived.

"Then I won't disturb her," he said, "I'll take your word for her well-doing. Why, Mrs Morrison! Frank! what in Heaven's name is it?"

He had caught sight of our incubus, the white face over the doorway, and started back in alarm. "That's the the ghost, uncle," his nephew replied hesitatingly; "I have thought till I am stupid about it, but I cannot make it out."

"Ghost! nonsense; it's something of course, but ugh its horrible! I don't wonder at your fright, Mrs Morrison."

He went into the passage and looked about, and then climbed up as my lodger had done, and looked in through the glass.

"There's nothing out here," he said.

you see now?"

"What do

We saw his face with the outline of the woman's wavy hair distinctly defined above and around it. He stood a moment thinking, and then said— "Have you a large sheet of paper?"

I wondered what he was going to do, but I got him what he required, and he told us to watch. He slowly raised the paper up the pane of glass, and the unearthly face disappeared gradually till it vanished altogether.

"Can you see it now ?" he asked.

"No."

"Neither can I; it is not out here. I think I have laid the ghost, Mrs Morrison."

He jumped down, took off the handsome globes I so prided myself upon, and, lo, the ghost disappeared again. The pattern on the ground glass,

and its double reflection on the panes over the door, aided by the fanciful paper of the lobby, had produced a complete optical illusion.

"I saw it in a moment," the doctor said, "when I looked into the room through that glass; there was a reflection of the same sort, though very faint, upon the window yonder." He put on the globes and the face returned, though not nearly so vivid to our fancies now. We thoroughly convinced ourselves that it was an illusion and nothing more, by turning the gas up and down, drawing up the gaselier, etc., before we left the room, the doctor and his nephew laughing; I myself with such a load taken from my heart as I cannot describe. There was no need for Mrs Gresham to move out of her room now; in the morning I sent away the fanciful glasses, and replaced them with sober-looking plain ground ones, and had the panes of glass covered with a thin coat of paint, to preclude the possibility of even a ghost.seeing through them. How the doctor made his niece laugh, when he told her of his investigations and accidental discovery of what manner of a ghost it was; and how she prided herself on not having brooded on her own alarm! Many a time now, in letters from their far-off Indian home, come little allusions to our supernatural experiences, which I dare say serve them to laugh at out there. The agent is remarkably civil to me, when he finds that term after term I remain his tenant, and what is more, find lodgers who will stay too; but I have a kind friend in Dr Mitchell, who never tires of putting in a word for me and my house wherever he can, and telling the story far and wide of the ghost he laid at No. 26 Markham Street.

FRANCES ACTON.

Married? or not Married?

THE Countess von Werbe became a widow very young. Her husband was old and rich when he asked her in marriage. and wept in the arms laughed at her tears.

She rejected his addresses, of her father. Her father He did not conceive how it was possible to reject the count, and his daughter did conceive it. Her father reckoned the estates of the count, and she reckoned his years.

She had some time before become acquainted with Herr von Welt, who had fewer estates, and fewer years over his head, danced well, talked tenderly, and loved ardently. But the count was pressing the father severe; the Herr von Welt was poor, and the count rich. She continued to love the Herr von Welt, and gave the count her hand.

The count had no children. The gout and a cough reminded him of temperance, and he retired in the arms of Hymen to one of his estates. The young countess lived in solitude; the count coughed worse, and remained without children. His old age and his infirmities increased every day; in two years he left the world and his estates, and the young wife was a widow.

She laid aside her white dresses and put on