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opened the door, moving so that he might sit down beside her.

Annie had been thinking a good deal about the man she had seen enter Lindenwold that afternoon. She knew now that it was not Arthur, for she saw him when he came out, and he was taller and darker. It might have been a burglar, although a burglar would hardly come so boldly, she thought. However, she resolved to go up and inform Miss Livingston of what she had seen. Nearly opposite Lindenwold House she met John Randolph, and almost at the same moment, Miss Livingston's carriage came from towards town and turned up the drive.

John had a light buggy, and, in a friendly manner, invited her to take a drive to town with him.

"No, John," she said, kindly, "not to-night. I have got to go up to Lindenwold;" glancing in that direction just as St. Orme was handing Miss Livingston from her carriage. A sudden change swept over her face, and the blue eyes flashed as royally as ever Miss Livingston's did, as, with a strong effort she controlled herself sufficiently to say, in an indifferent tone:

"I think I will go, John, after all. It will be just as well to go up to Lindenwold in the morning, and one might as well enjoy this fine autumn weather before the long, dreary winter shrieks over its forgotten grave." She

shuddered slightly, and drew her shawl closer about her, as John gathered up the reins and drove off.

A shadow of disappointment settled over the face of St. Orme, which was not lightened by the meaning look that Miss Livingston

cast after them.

"Did I not tell you?" she said, softly, laying her hand lightly on his arm.

He started as if some one had struck him, shaking off her arm with a slight shiver.

"Pardon my rudeness," he said, instantly. "I am hardly myself to-night. I believe I am nervous." And he tried to smile, but it was a pitiful abortion.

Miss Livingston saw it, and her white teeth set themselves savagely together, and a dark look flitted across her face.

"I will know to-night," she said, mentally. "even if I humble my pride in the dust. If he still prefers that little unsophisticated fool, with her pink and white baby-face, then there is but one alternative. And, after all, it is perhaps the safest way, for I hate him, and always did, and I will not be conquered and outwitted by him. I know he will not hesitate to use, for his own interest, what I verily believe Satan helped him to get. And to think I was such a fool as to trust him, and leave that where he could get at it! Well, to-night-yes, this very hour, must decide my fate-and his!"

OUR CO-TENANT AT THE TOWERS.

BY MISS AMANDA M. HALE.

I was always a stubborn disbeliever in ghostly appearances until I went to live at the Towers, but my experience there was too much for my incredulity.

The first time I ever saw the Towers was upon a sweet, summer afternoon, more years ago than I like to think. We had been driving over miles and miles of country road, climbing breezy hills where lonely farmhouses sat overlooking the quiet, pastoral landscape, homelike and happy in their seclusion, swooped down into green hollows where merry rivers ran noisily, and mills clattered, and the horses' feet echoed on the crazy wooden bridge, and the clematis, in full flower, whitened the thickets, and the gentians made the meadows blue, and loitered through dim

forests where the birches whispered in the wind, and great oaks uprose, and the silence and religious light awed one like a cathedral; and at last, when the afternoon was in its prime, when the whole western sky was a field of gold, and church spire and tree-top were defined upon it with exquisite distinctness, we came upon the village of Landsdowne.

First there came neat white houses set in vines and shrubbery; straggling, moss grown stone walls dividing the pleasant mowingfields; lines of graceful English elms, garlanded about their brown boles with young green leaves, and tempting paths curving prettily between margins of soft turf. And so presently we reached the Towers.

I did not know, at the time, that it owned this soubriquet; afterward I learned that it was the ancestral home of a family more remarkable for influence and wealth than for goodness, a family now quite extinct.

It was a massive three story house, with the end walls of brick; two narrow, tall wings, exceeding the main structure in height, flanked it; the windows were many-paned and old-fashioned; it stood close upon the road, the grass-grown yard, as trim, and green, and velvety as a entleman's lawn, unclosed. There was a low, insignificant porch over the front door, curiously disproportioned to the height of the building. A girl sat in a chair in front of the porch busy with some needlework.

All around there were homes which must have been the centres of warm, happy life, but the street was utterly still; as if the people were all locked in a Rip Van Winkle sleep.

From far-off mowing fields came the clink of the whetted scythe, now and then an audacious bird dropped a song into the silence; but nothing else stirred.

Years after, when I was soul-sick of noise and worry, I did not forget that picture of idyllic quiet. And when one day I happened upon a newspaper with an advertisement setting forth that house called the Towers, with all its appurtenances was to let, I seized upon the thought at once.

We were a large, rollicking, fun-loving family, and we had countless relations. I remembered the long stretch of front wall, and was sure of bedrooms adequate to our bestowment. If I could secure it, one summer was happily provided for.

I wrote to the agent, leased the house, and the first of June we all migrated countryward. In an incredibly short space of time we had scattered ourselves all over the house, explored to the attic, taken an inventory of closets-it being a theory of mine that houses are built chiefly to contain those convenient apartments-and made a raid on the orchards and garden. But there being, as Charlie said, no fruit ripe except a few green currants, we did not prosecute our investigations any further in that direction.

Returning to the house, we renewed our adventures within it. There was a low wing, joining the main body of the house, where the humbler parts of the work could be performed. It was divided into apartments, the largest and most remote of which had once

been used as a kitchen. This was in a pretty dilapidated condition. The plastering was cracked, and in some places falling from the walls. The huge beams that crossed the ceiling were black with ancient smoke, and tapestried with cobwebs. There was a wide, open fire-place with ponderous crane and foot-hooks.

"And what's this?" cried Charlie, laying hold of a rusty iron door. It yielded to his urgent hand and disclosed a yawning entrance to a dark cavern.

"Why, it's the oven, Charlie."

"Sure enough! Hold your candle here, sis." I did so.

"Why, the place is large enough to roast an ox whole," Charlie said.

It was, indeed, and at the further part lay a pile of rubbish, of what sort we could only faintly discern.

"Who knows but there are treasures hid there?" said Charlie, with enthusiasm. "I've a great mind to creep into the den and see." "No indeed, Charlie! With your best clothes on, too," I remonstrated. "Whew!"

Charlie looked down at his new gray suit in dismay, then cast a longing, lingering glance at the mouth of the oven.

"There are only ashes there I dare say, Charlie, and you may not get another new suit of clothes when you want them."

"No! It's just possible I mayn't," and Charlie turned heroically away.

"Stay!" he said. "We must put up the door first. Help me, Lu."

I stooped with him and lifted one side of the heavy door.

"Why, you needn't try so hard, Lu," said Charlie, looking at me in surprise.

"I? I was thinking that I wasn't lifting a bit," I returned, also surprised.

Charlie stared at me.

"Didn't you breathe hard and fast, and lift almost the whole weight? I thought you were trying to show your muscle."

"Nonsense!" I answered, with indignation. "It was you who breathed like a locomotive, and tugged and strained with every sinew."

"Upon my word it wasn't, Lu!" said Charlie, vehemently.

We looked at each other in a sort of confused surprise,

"You look as if you had seen a ghost, Lucilla," said Charlie, at length.

I shivered. I felt an unaccountable, sudden depression.

"Come! Let's go away!" I said, hastily. We turned to go out. Charlie passed first into the next room, and I had stepped over the threshold, my hand upon the door, just ready to close it, when it was wrenched from my hand and slammed violently upon us.

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My God-what was that ?"

It was Charles's exclamation. The young, red blood had all left his face. I was trembling too much to speak, but I tottered out somehow, and holding to Charlie's hand made my way into the light, airy room which we used as our kitchen. Patty, our maid of all work, looked up from the biscuit she was moulding and exclaimed:

"Why, Miss Lu, your cheeks are like snow, and it's ill you'll be after all this work."

I looked at Charlie; he was discreetly silent. Just then mother's bell rang, and I ran up stairs to her. Mother was the invalid of our family. She was not our own mother, but a little delicate woman whom my father had taken to his heart during the last years of his life, and dying, left on our hands. There were three children, too, the youngest a merry morsel of fun. The others were respectively six and eight. Then we had Sophia and May, the twins, just sixteen, and Hugh who was twenty-one, and a tall, blue-eyed, moustachioed fellow whom we called the colonel. He was then marching and countermarching between the Potomac and Richmond.

I had plenty of things to worry about, mother's ill health, Charlie's flightiness, the problem as to how the twins were to be educated, and whether Hugh would ever be anything but a dreamer; then Winnie, and Jack, and Jamie were always encountering frightful perils by field and flood. And when these all failed I could always be miserable about Will.

I was never called up stairs by mother's bell without suspecting a letter containing bad news. I ran up hastily, therefore, and my complexion wasn't any ruddier when I presented myself at her door.

This little stepmother of ours was a wonderfully delicate creature. She was past her fiftieth birthday now, but her cheeks were as fair as a girl's, and had that wavering pink color in them which is so delicious. Her life was always on the point of going out, and she required to be guarded from all rude shocks with the tenderest care. So when she exclaimed at my pallor, I made out to smile and said I supposed I was tired.

"I'm sure you are, dear, and no wonder. But now we are here in this fine old countryplace you really ought to begin to pick up. You must insist on the twins doing moresuch great, red-cheeked girls ought to do half the work."

I smiled, thinking that if I didn't get rested till Sophia and May began to help me I should wear out first.

"The girls don't like house work, you know, mamma. But never mind. I dare say we shall do very well. Patty says the house is so convenient that it will be only fun to do the work."

Mamma drew a little sigh of satisfaction, and glanced around her room. It was a large, airy south chamber, having an outlook over cheerful green fields with blue hills in the distance. All our pretty things somehow gravitated to mamma's room, and it had already, though we had not been twenty-four hours in the house, a cosy, home look.

"I really think I shall begin to mend here," sighed mamma. "You know Doctor Vassar said a room with a southern exposure was what I needed. There is, though, just a little too much sunshine here. Don't you think you could manage to furbish up those old green chintz curtains? You might darn the rents, I should think-you do such things so nicely." "I might line them with something, I suppose."

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With rose-colored cambric," said mamma, eagerly. "That would be so pretty, dear. Do go and get them, Lu, and let's see what can be done."

So in discussions over the faded curtains the rest of the afternoon waned, and I did not get a chance to speak to Charlie aloneagain till after tea.

But the first moment I had I said:

"What could that have been, Charlie?" Charlie drew his paper-cutter between the leaves of “ Ballou," and replied coolly enough: "It seems there is a co-tenant in the house."

"A co-tenant!" I echoed.

"No need of being frightened, Lu. We can't be hurt-only scared at the worst. I don't remember knowing a ghost to have done positive harm. Do you?”

I didn't think I did, but what difference did that make?

"I'd as lief be murdered outright as scared to death!" I said, sitting down quite helplessly, "O, never mind, Lu. I tell you I think it will be capital fun."

"Fun!"

I shuddered.

"And then it mayn't be anything after all. The wind may have shut the door."

"Wind! There wasn't a breath of wind stirring, and no way by which a draught could have been in the room."

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Well, well! It can't hurt us, whatever it is."

I reflected and came to the same conclusion. "Only Charlie, not a word to Patty. Remember. And mother must not be frightened either. So don't forget that it is a secret between our two selves."

A little calm consideration soothed my fears wonderfully, and it was with more curiosity than fear that I lay down to sleep the first night in the new, or rather old house. But, to my surprise, and I am afraid to my disappointment, I was utterly undisturbed, and rose in the morning ready to laugh at my whimsies of yesterday.

Six weeks passed away quietly as is compatible with two young ladies practising on the piano all day long, and three small imps, whose ideal of delight includes unlimited noise. But I was, in spite of my cares, picking up, as mamma said. Mamma was better too. Charlie had settled down to reading law with the village squire. Hugh was writing a novel from which we all confidently expected great things. And all was quiet along the Potomac.

And so, the chintz curtains having been a success, I was at work upon thin white muslin that should adorn the parlor. I was in my own room. It was past eleven o'clock at night. Everybody in the house except myself was sound asleep.

I had ceased to be troubled by any hypothetical ghost, and I sewed quite contentedly. But suddenly (the room having that perfect stillness which is so noticeable at night) I seemed to become aware of somebody breathing at my elbow. For a minute my heart stood still, and I felt the cold sweat start upon my forehead. But presently Charlie's consolation recurred to me.

"They can't hurt us anyhow. The most they can do is to give us a scare."

I would not be scared. So I shut my teeth tight, determined not to scream, till I felt my strength coming back, and my blood flowing regularly. All the time this slow, steady breathing went on close at my side.

I mustered courage presently to change my seat. The sound followed me. And I had

moreover an awful sense of oppression. I am sure it was not terror. Was it the impalpable atmosphere which encompassed my spiritual visitant?

I changed my seat two or three times, but I could not get away from that sound. I was losing my self-control again. Suddenly a thought struck me. I would go to Charlie.

But could I? I could try. I got up and crossed the floor, but the invisible presence went with me. Along the entries I passed, and there was a rustle of garments that were not mine. My own slippered feet made no noise, but there was a light footfall beside me all the way.

A strong draught of wind met me-met us, should I say? just at Charlie's door. If my light goes out, I thought, I shall die. But it did not. I reached the door, pushed it open. Charlie was awake and up, but I did not think of that. I cried out and he caught me in his arms as I fell. For I swooned away. When I woke Charlie was bending over me. "Did you hear it?" I whispered.

"Yes! It is not gone yet. But don't be frightened, Lu."

I was braver now for I was not alone. For half an hour we sat holding to each other; then the room was still; the oppression, the nightmare which we had both felt was gone. Charlie spoke first.

"The co-tenant has made us a pretty long visit," he said, with a smile which seemed ghastly enough.

"Did you hear anything before I came ?" I asked.

Before Charlie could speak there was a sound as of rapid running along the entry; swift steps descended the stairs; there was something like a struggle; and then a heavy fall.

We both sprang to the door. The bright light of the kerosene lamp was flung over the entry and staircase. But there was nothing to be seen.

While we stood hesitating, a new series of sounds commenced further off-a medley which we could not well define.

"We'll follow it up. Can you come, Lu?" I could not stay alone, and I followed timorously, along the dark, narrow entries, through the kitchen, and finally through the narrow passage-way which led to that room in the wing which had been the scene of our first singular experience. And here I laid my hand upon Charlie's arm and implored him to stop. For there were strange sounds within

-a confused tramping about the floor, so hard and heavy that the walls beside us shook; presently a fall, with a sharp, metallic ring.

"There goes the oven door!" exclaimed Charlie.

There followed a sound as of a heavy body drawn over the floor; then came the strain and tug of lifting a weight, and then the iron door was slipped into its grooves with a clang. Simultaneously Charlie flung open the door of the room. It was quite empty, of course. A pale moonlight shone in at the unshuttered window and revealed the cobwebs on the wall-revealed, too, something which we both shuddered in looking at—a dark, irregular stain upon the floor which inevitably suggested a pool of blood.

"O, come away!" I cried, and dragged Charlie away, almost until we were well into the body of the house again.

Just as we reached the head of the stairs the clock in the dining-room struck two. Charlie sat with me half an hour, but there was no further disturbance.

"I guess the entertainment is over for tonight," said Charlie. "You go to bed, Lu, and I'll finish the night on the sofa in mamma's sitting-room.

This arrangement was adopted. After a while I fell asleep. I thought I was in my first nap when Patty's voice at my bedside awoke me.

“O Miss Lu, who do you think is come? I was never to tell you, but you was to come down stairs, and find him there, and be beside yourself in your surprise. Hurry then, for sure it's eight o'clock, and that's late enough for you." And with this Patty hurried away.

I dressed hastily, ran down and there was our darling old Will, alive and well. All my long heart-sickness was over.

Home on a furlough! Ah! the meaning compressed into those words. O, but it should be a holiday! And it was.

We were all as merry as birds. Will was, in himself, enough to bring sunshine anywhere. My load was inexpressibly lightened. He was older than I, while all the rest were younger, and so I slipped off upon him many a care that I had borne uneasily.

And first Charlie and I took him into our confidence. Of course Will was incredulous, and when we had scornfully routed the whole battalion of natural causes which he had brought into the field-nerves, fancies, fears,

illusions-he stubbornly declared himself unconvinced.

"Well, you will see," I retorted.

And that night he did so, and hear also. The whole performance of the preceding night was repeated, with scrupulous adherence to the letter of the programme.

Only I had taken the precaution to install Will in a room next my own, so that at the first call he was beside me. With him near I was not much afraid, and of course a soldier who has faced the cannon's mouth is not to be routed by an invisible army.

There is a great deal in use. Even the supernatural becomes divested of its terrors when we become accustomed to it.

These singular manifestations were frequently repeated. We became in a measure habituated to them. All the older members of the family heard the sounds, also, except mamma, and most fortunately she was never disturbed.

At last I would wake, hear the sounds betokening the presence in my room, and fall asleep again. Will declared it was a gentle ghost that haunted me-not the one, he was persuaded, who made the racket in the old kitchen.

One night there was a peculiarly curious phenomenon. Little Jamie had showed symptoms of the croup, and I had taken him into my bed. In the night he woke and cried-not violently but sleepily, and as if disturbed and uneasy. My coaxing did not still him. But, by-and-by, there was a low sh-sh, prolonged as a mother sometimes hushes her babe.

"Will!" I called.

He came to me immediately, and we both heard the low, soothing noise, continued till Jamie dropped off into a quiet sleep. He was quite well in the morning, and at breakfast time startled us all by turning on me his round, blue eyes, and demanding, in his childish, peremptory way:

"Who was the pretty lady ?"

"What lady?" I asked, astonished. "Don't you know?" he said, impatiently. "The pretty lady that got me to sleep!" "What is the child talking about?" said

mamma.

"He has been dreaming, I suppose," I had to say. But was it a dream?

Autumn came. Will's furlough was to last till Christmas, and we had determined to retain the house till December, and keep our Thanksgiving there.

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