it. If the course of her life, and the temper which her mother had forgotten to do, and in of her mind did not entitle her to peace the middle of the forenoon ordered dinner, within, he did not know who could hope for which she found her mother had also forit. Somebody whispered that it would be gotten. They had just such a breakfasting dreadful if a shocking mortal disease should three times more during the next fortnight. be seizing upon her whereupon he, Mr. Then, on Miss Wharton crossing the hall, she Gurney, observed that he thought he should met her mother in bonnet and shawl, about to have known if any such thing was to be go out, so early as half-past nine. The cirapprehended. As far as a fit of indigestion cumstance would not have been remarked, went, he believed she suffered occasionally; but for the mother's confused and abashed but she did not herself admit even that. way of accounting for going out. She should Dr. Robinson, who was present, said that not be gone long. She had only a little call Mrs. Wharton's friends might be quite easy to make, and so on. The call was on Mr. about her health. She was not troubled with Gurney. He had hardly done breakfast, indigestion, nor with any other complaint. when he was told that Mrs. Wharton wished People could only go on to ask one another to speak with him alone. what could be the matter. One or two When he entered the study, Mrs. Wharton agreed that Mr. Gurney had made very seemed to be as unready with her words as skilful answers, in which he was much himself; and when he shook hands with her, assisted by his curious customary gestures; he observed that her hand was cold. She but that he had never said that he did not said she was well, however. Then came a know of any trouble being on Mrs. Wharton's mind.

"No one further from it," he dropped, and now he fixed his eyes on her face. Her eyes fell under his, when she went on.

pause during which the good pastor was shifting from one foot to the other, on the Soon after this, a like mysterious change hearth-rug, with his hands behind him, though appeared to come over the daughter; but no there was nothing in the grate but shavings. disasters could be discovered to have hap- Mrs. Wharton, meantime, was putting her pened. No disease, no money losses, no family veil up and down, and her gloves on and off. anxieties were heard of; and, by degrees, At last, with a constrained and painful smile, both the ladies recovered nearly their former she said that she was really ashamed to say cheerfulness and ease of manner,-nearly, but what she came to say, but she must say it; not altogether. They appeared somewhat and she believed and hoped that Mr. Gurney subdued, in countenance and bearing; and had known her long enough to be aware that they kept a solemn silence when some sub- she was not subject to foolish fancies and jects were talked of, which often turn up by absurd fears. the Christmas fireside. It was years before the matter was explained. My mother was married by that time, and removed from her smoky native town, to a much brighter city in the south. She used to tell us, as we grew up, the story of Mrs. Wharton, and what she endured; and we could, if we had not been ashamed, have gone on to say, as if we had still been little children, "tell us again." When we were going into the north to visit our grandparents, it was all very well to tell us of coal-waggons that we should see running without horses, or iron rails laid down in the roads; and of the keelmen rowing their keel-you see?" boats in the river, and all at once kicking up their right legs behind them, when they gave the long pull; and of the glass-houses in the town, with fire coming out of the top of the high chimneys; and of the ever-burning mounds near the mouths of the coal-pits, where blue and yellow flames leaped about, all night, through the whole year round. It was all very well to think of seeing these things; but we thought much more of walking past old Mrs. Wharton house, and perhaps inducing Mr. Gurney to tell us, in his way, the story we had so often heard my mother tell in hers.

"For some time past, I have suffered from a most frightful visitation in the night." "Visitation! What sort of visitation?" She turned visibly cold while she answered " It was last Wednesday fortnight that I awoke in the middle of the night-that is between two and three in the morning, when it was getting quite light, and I saw—" She choked a little, and stopped. "Well! said Mr. Gurney, "What did

"I saw at the bottom of the bed, a most hideous-a most detestable face-gibbering, and making mouths at me."

"A face!"

Yes; I could see only the face (except, indeed, a hand upon the bedpost), because it peeped round the bedpost from behind the curtain. The curtains are drawn down to the foot of the bed."

She stole a look at Mr. Gurney. He was rolling his head; and there was a working about his mouth before he asked

What time did you sup that night?" "Now," she replied, "you are not going to say, I hope, that it was nightmare. Most people would; but I hoped that you knew me better than to suppose that I eat such suppers as would occasion nightmare, or that I should not know nightmare from reality."

"Yes, on three several nights, about the same hour. And, since the first appearance, my supper has been merely a little bread and butter, with a glass of water. I chose to exclude nightmare, as I would exclude anything whatever that could possibly cause an appearance so horrible."

"What sort of face is it?"

"Short and broad ;-silly, and yet sly; and the features gibber and work,-Oh! fearfully!

"Do you hear it come and go?"

sleep with you, after hearing your story. Try whether she can see this face."

"You do not think she would ?"

"I think she would not.-My dear friend, if I were a medical man, I could tell you facts which you are little aware of,-anecdotes of the strange tricks that our nerves play with us ;-of delusions so like reality.

"Do you think I have not considered that?" exclaimed the poor lady. "Mr. Gurney, I did not think that you would try to persuade me out of my senses, when I tell you, that four times I have seen in daylight, and when wide awake, and in perfect health, what I have said.”

Mr. Gurney was very gentle; but, as he said, what could he suggest but indigestion, or some such cause of nervous disturbance? Yet his heart smote him when his old friend laid her forehead against the mantel-piece, and cried heartily.

"No. When I wake-(and I never used He did all he could. He tried indefatito wake in the night)—it is there: and it gably, though in vain, to persuade her to let disappears to say the truth-while my eyes her daughter share the spectacle: and he are covered; for I cannot meet its eyes. I went, the same day, when Miss Wharton was hear nothing. When I venture a glance, some-out for her walk, and the servants were at times it is still there; sometimes it is gone." "Have you missed any property?" "No: nor found any trace whatever. We have lost nothing; and there is really not a door or window that seems ever to have been touched: not an opening where any one could get in or out."

"And if there were, what could be the object? What does your daughter say to it?" Oh!" said Mrs. Wharton, rising quickly, "she does not, and indeed she must not know a word of it. I ought to have said, at first, that what I am telling you is entirely in confidence. If I told my daughter, it must then go no further. We could not keep our servants a week, if it got out. And if I should want to let my house, I could not find a tenant. The value of the property would go down to nothing; and, in justice to my daughter, I must consider that; for it is to be hers hereafter. And we could never have a guest to stay with us. No one would sleep in the house a single night. Indeed, you must not .

"Well, well: I will not mention it. But I don't see

He paused; and Mrs. Wharton replied to his thought.

"It is difficult to form conjectures, to say anything, in such a case, which does not appear too foolish to be uttered. But one must have some thoughts; and perhaps-if one can talk of possibilities-it is possible that this appearance may be meant for me alone; and therefore, if I can conceal it from my daughter till I am convinced whether it is meant for me alone. . . "I would soon try that," observed Mr. Gurney. Seeing Mrs. Wharton look wistfully at him, he continued,

"My advice is that you have your daughter

dinner, to examine the house. He made no discovery. The gratings of the under-ground cellars were perfect. The attics had no trapdoors; and the house had no parapet. The chimneys were too high and narrow for any one to get in at the top. No window or door was ever found unfastened in the morning. Mrs. Wharton did not think she could engage for courage enough to get out of bed, or to look beyond the curtains. Nor could she promise not to draw her curtains. The face had never appeared within them; and they seemed a sort of protection where there was no other.

Without having made any promises, she went so far as to start up in bed, the next time she saw the face. The eyes winked horribly at her; the head nodded-and was gone. The beating of her heart prevented her hearing anything that time; but once or twice during the autumn she fancied she heard a light and swift footstep in the passage. She always left her room-door open, for the sake of the same sort of feeling of security that most people crave when they shut and bolt theirs. If this was a ghost, bolts would not keep it out; and she could fly the more easily through the open door if her terror should become too great to be endured alone. For the first time, she now burned a night light in her chamber, as the nights lengthened, and not a dim, flickering rush candle, but a steady wax-light. She knew that her daughter wondered at the strange extravagance; but she could not bear darkness, or a very feeble light, when the thing might be behind the curtain.

Throughout October the visits were almost nightly. In the first week in November they suddenly ceased; and so many weeks passed away without a return, that Mrs. Wharton

began to be a little alarmed about her own it; and no article was ever displaced at night. wits, and to ask herself whether, after all, it The ladies became in time so accustomed to was not possible that this was a trick of the the appearance as to bear it almost without nerves. One night in January, that doubt, uneasiness. It occurred to them sometimes, at least, was settled; for there, at the same how odd it was to be living under the weight bedpost, was the same face. Mrs. Wharton of such a mystery; and they were silent when was now, after this interval, subdued at once. ghosts were talked about, and felt and looked She had borne, for half-a-year, her pastor's very serious when they were laughed at: but suspicions of her digestion and of her wisdom, their alarm had subsided. The Thing never and now, she really wanted sympathy. She did them any harm; and they had now got let him tell her daughter (let him, rather merely to open drowsy eyes, to see if it was than tell it herself, because he could make there; and to drop asleep the moment it was light of it, and she could not); and she gladly there no longer. This may seem strange to agreed to let her daughter sleep with her. those who have not (and also to those who For long, she gained nothing by it. During have,) seen ghosts; but we none of us know the whole fortnight that the visits now continued, Miss Wharton never once saw the face. She tried to wake the moment her mother touched her; she tried to keep awake; but she never saw the face: and after that fortnight, it did not come again till April.

what we may come to; and these two ladies reached the point of turning their heads on their pillows, without much beating of the heart, under the gibbering of a hideous ghost.

One circumstance worth noting is, that the Thing once spoke. After one of its mocking nods, it said," I come to see you whenever I please." When Mr. Gurney was told this, he asked whether the language was English, and what sort of English it was. It must have been English, as the ladies did not observe anything remarkable. As to the dialect, it had made no particular impression upon them, but when they came to remember and consider, they thought it must have been the broad dialect of the district, which they were accustomed to hear in the kitchen, and in the streets and shops, every day. This was all. Amidst the multitude of nightly visitations, no explanation-no new evidence-occurred for several years. Mr. Gurney was not fond of being puzzled. His plan was to dismiss from his mind what puzzled him. He seldom inquired after the ghost; and when he did, he always received the same answer.

One bright May dawn, she saw it. Her mother pulled her wrist, and, she waked up to a sight which burned itself in upon her brain. She suppressed a shriek at the moment; but she could not tell Mr. Gurney of it afterwards, without tears. She wanted that day to leave the house immediately; but the thought of her mother's long-suffering with this horror, the consideration of the serious consequences of declaring themselves ghost-seers in the town, and of the disastrous effect upon their property, and of the harmlessness of the ghost, induced her to summon up her courage,. and bear on. She did more. When a little inured, she one night sprang out of bed, rushed round the foot of it, and out upon the landing. The stairs were still dim in the dawn; but she was confident that she saw something moving there-passing down to the hall. As soon as she could make One morning, after this lapse of years, Mr. the servants attend her, she told them she Gurney called to ask the ladies if they would believed somebody was in the house; and all like to join a party to see a glasshouse. The the four women-two ladies and two maids-residents of manufacturing towns cannot went, armed with pokers and shovels, and intrude in such places at their own pleasure, examined the whole house. They found but (as is well known) take their opportunity nothing, neither in the chimneys, nor under when an arrival of strangers, or other such the beds, nor in any closet-nothing, from occasion, opens the doors of any manufactory. cellar to attic. And when the maids had Mr. Gurney was the first man in the town, recovered a little, they agreed what a tire-in regard to doing the honours of it. All some and wearying thing it was when ladies strangers were introduced to him; and the took fancies. This was only their first night of disturbance. Miss Wharton called them up three times more; and then she gave the matter up. The servants thought her strangely altered, and wished she might not be going to be ill.

Thus matters went on for some years. The oddest thing was the periodicity of the visits. In winter they were rare; but there was generally a short series in or about January, after which they ceased till the end of March, or the beginning of April. They went on through nearly the whole summer, with one or two intervals of about a fortnight. The servants never suspected even the existence of the mystery. Their ladies never mentioned

doors of all show-places flew open before him. He was wont to invite his friends in turn to accompany him and his party of strangers to these show-places; and he now invited the Whartons to the glasshouse. Miss Wharton was unavoidably engaged at the school, but her mother went.

When the whole party were standing near one of the furnaces, observing the coarsest kind of glass blowing-that of green-glass bottles-Mrs. Wharton suddenly seized Mr. Gurney's arm with one hand, while with the other she pointed, past the glare, to a figure on the other side of the furnace.

"That's the face!" she exclaimed, in great agitation; Keep quiet, and pull down your

else to do.

veil," said Mr. Gurney in her ear. She drew Who will not honour the courage and fortiback into the shadow, and let down her veil, tude of the ladies, and rejoice that their feeling scarcely able to stand. Mr. Gurney dwelling escaped the evil reputation of being did not offer her an arm; he had something a Haunted House? Lastly, who will not say that most of the goblin tales extant may, it inquired into, be as easily accounted for as that appertaining to the good Mrs. Wharton; which has this advantage over all other ghost stories :-it is perfectly and literally true.

"Who is that man?" he inquired of the foreman, who was showman at the moment. The man inquired about looked scarcely human. He was stunted in figure, large in face, and hideous, making all allowance for the puffing out of his cheeks, as he blew vigorously at the end of the long pipe he was twirling in his baboon-like hands.

"That poor fellow, sir? His name is Middleton. He is a half-wit,-indeed, very nearly a complete idiot. He is just able to do what you see-blow the coarsest sort of glass."

CHIPS.

A VOICE FROM A " QUIET" STREET. SIR, Your article in a recent number, on the subject of street music, was very good as far as it went. But I have this fault to find with it, that it leaves untouched a series of nuisances which are much more awful and Mr. Gurney wished to speak with him; heart-rending than those which it attempts to and the poor creature was summoned. He describe. Somebody must start up to be the came, grinning; and he grinned yet more Cobden of these abuses. Somebody must when he was requested to show the glass- arise to put them down, or perish in the house to the gentleman. Mrs. Wharton, with attempt. I venture to offer myself on the her veil down, hung on her friend's arm; and shrine of my suffering country. they followed the idiot, who was remarkably light-footed (for a wonder), to the place he was most fond of. He took them down to the annealing chamber; and then he observed that it was 66 a nice warm place o' nights." Being asked how he knew that, he began pointing with his finger at Mrs. Wharton, and peeping under her bonnet. Being advised to look him in the face, she raised her veil; and he sniggled and giggled, and said he had seen her many a time when she was asleep, and many a time when she was awake; and another lady too, who was not there. He hid himself down here when the other men went away-it was so warm! and then he could go when he pleased, and see "her there," and the other, when they were asleep. Mr. Gurney enticed him to whisper how he managed it; and then, with an air of silly cunning, he showed a little square trap-door in the wall, close by the floor, through which he said he passed. It seemed too small for the purpose; but he crept in and out again. On the other side, he declared, was Mrs. Wharton's cellar. It was so. Far distant as the glasshouse seemed from her house, it ran back so far, the cellar running back also, that they met. No time was lost in sending round to the cellar; and, by a conversation held through the trap-door, it was ascertained that when Mrs. Wharton's stock of coals was low, that is, in summer, and before a fresh supply came in in mid-winter, Middleton could get in, and did get in, almost every night. When he did not appear, it was only because the coals covered the trap-door.

Three days ago, Sir, I returned to town with my friend and collaborateur, Jones. We are writing a three act drama of intense and ap palling interest; and have, for certain reasons, been spending a fortnight in Paris. On our return to London we agreed to pick out some quiet lodging where, undisturbed by the roaring of cabs and omnibuses, we might continue our work without molestation. For this purpose, we fixed upon one of the streets running from the Strand to the river, which by their quiet air and secluded appearance, invite the attention of the passer-by, and seem to promise an eternal repose. It may not be generally known that in some of these streets I allude, of course, to Craven Street, Norfolk Street, Cecil Street, and their parallels-grass actually grows. In Cecil Street we secured a convenient two-pair front; and, moving in there with our carpet-bags, indulged in dreams of the success which we were about to achieve. We drew out the career of the ruffian, killed him at the end of the third act, made puns for the comic characters, wept over the suffering heroine, and determining to set to work betimes the next morning, went to bed early.

Well, Sir, no sooner had the breakfast things been cleared away, and we were engaged upon the opening scene-a chorus of Peasants and Peasantesses, I need hardly say-than we were alarmed by a frightful noise outside the window. It was impossible to continue our work while it lasted, so I went to the window to see what was the matter. Will it be believed? Three individuals were standing on Who shall say with what satisfaction the each other's heads, and from each of the arms ladies watched the nailing up of the trap- of the topmost, two infants of tender years door, and with what a sense of blissful com- were suspended. A mob of butcher boys, fort they retired to rest henceforth? Who servant-maids, policemen, and other unem shall estimate the complacency of the good ployed persons, were shouting with rapturous clergyman at this complete solution of the applause around them. The imminent peril greatest mystery he had ever encountered? of our melodrama demanded that we should do

something vigorous. We accordingly sent out the servant-of-all-work, as a deputation, with a shilling, and a request that they would "move on," as there was a gentleman in the house afflicted with lumbago. It had the desired effect the donative, not the message-and we thought we were free.

Fallacious hope!

Bertram. Beloved Anna, cast not upon me that contemptuous look. The false Ferdinand loves thee not. Oh! say, charmer, wilt thou be mine? Anna (sobbing tenderly). Curse that Turk!!

I could put up with barrel-organs. I could bring myself to suffer, almost without repining, under "Lucy Long." I could even endure "Trab Trab." But to be molested with much for me. these Punches and Eastern performers is too To watch one of these Abo

rigines (I suppose I ought to say an Aborigo) munch his enemies; to hear the particulars tearing his hair and making pretence to

We had scarcely set to work again, and had got one of the peasants in the drama upon his knees, offering a rose to his beloved, and pointing to a distant cottage on the Rhine, when a more terrible noise invaded our ears. This time it was a "Punch," to which a retired half-pay officer and his family in the first-floor of the last half-dozen burglaries and murders shouted under my very nose; to listen to a front are partial, and which had come, by their express orders, to perform in front of man and six small children bellowing at the the house. The habitués of this kind of exhi-tops of their stentorian voices that they have tion, gathered round in dense array to witness not partaken of food for three days, and are their favourite performance, and there we is too much for me. It occasions, in the ready to drop down with exhaustion. All this were, stopped again for a full half-hour. But everything must have an end, and the "Punch "at length departed amidst our sup pressed maledictions. With difficulty, indeed, was my heroic friend Jones prevented from rushing out and administering a kick to the dog Toby who, with a pipe in his mouth, had added ten-fold to our agony, and contributed to the horror which, for my part, I have always felt for precocious animals.

sensitive mind of a melo-dramatist, a degree hair, like the Aborigo; to yell, like the of phrenzy that makes him ready to tear his whooping Indian; to drop down, like the fatherless and motherless children and their exhausted but strong-voiced parents.

Is there no law, Sir, to protect these happy streets from the vagrants who infest them? No international treaty to compel Well, Sir, we had no sooner congratulated Oriental nations to keep their jugglers and ourselves on the termination of this disgraceful curiosities to themselves? No untenanted scene, when an individual habited in a Turkish patent-theatre where Punch and Judy, and garb came into the street, to swallow a sword Fantoccini, might find a secure retreat No and to balance a walking-stick on his policeman lying in ambush in a larder, ready coloured nose. Neither sixpences, nor shillings, to spring out upon the offenders? My mind is made up. I shall take a nor protestations, could get rid of this infernal Oriental, who-in perfectly good English lodging in the most cab-frequented street that informed us that he had not been that I can find, and compose my master-piece

copper

way

there.

for a whole fortnight, and that he really must perform. It was in vain that we requested Even as I write, and the shades of evening him to retire-if not to his own country, and are stealing upon me, I observe an individual the smiling babes he had left behind him advancing slowly out of the Strand with a either in Damascus or in Houndsditch-at all huge drum and a fife. Two other miscreants events, lower down the street. He was in-are following him, wrapped up in large greatexorable, and for full twenty minutes large the wretches are about to throw off their coats. A secret presentiment tells me that pebbles and other heavy articles seemed to disappear down his capacious throat, and great-coats and stand upon their heads in were brought up again before our reluctant front of my window. I can, consequently, write no more, but must remain, Sir, Your very obedient and afflicted Servant, JOHN SMITH, Dramatic Author.

eyes.

He was succeeded by a Hindoo chieftain who danced the national war-dance, howling at the same time the national war-song-upon a deal plank, two feet square.

I shall not prolong this painful subject much further. At half past one, we had a Fantoccini; at three, a performance of Ethiopian serenaders; at four, a select band of Scottish youths, to execute the fling; interspersed at intervals with barrel-organs, organs upon wheels, brass bands, violinists, flute-players, and every other kind of known and unknown musicians. Now, Sir, just to show you the effect that these accursed artists have had upon one of the most promising dramatic pieces of the season, take this passage as 1 find it written in my MS. :

Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.