to-night! Let us, in these next Holidays now
going to begin, throw our thoughts into something
educational for the grown-up people, hinting
to them how things ought to be. Let us
veil our meaning under a mask of romance;
you, I, and Nettie. William Tinkling being
the plainest and quickest writer shall copy out.
Is it agreed?"

The Colonel answered, sulkily, "I don't
mind!" He then asked, " How about
pretending?"

"We will pretend," said Alice, "that we
are children; not that we are those grown-up
people who won't help us out as they ought,
and who understand us so badly."

The Colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled,
"How about waiting?"

"We will wait," answered little Alice, taking
Nettie's hand in hers, and looking up at the
sky, " we will wait—ever constant and true—
till the times have got so changed as that
everything helps us out, and nothing makes us
ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We
will wait—ever constant and true—till we are
eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then the
fairies will send us children, and we will help
them out, poor pretty little creatures, if they
pretend ever so much."

"So we will, dear," said Nettie Ashford,
taking her round the waist with both arms
and kissing her. "And now if my Husband
will go and buy some cherries for us, I have
got some money."

In the friendliest manner I invited the Colonel
to go with me; but he so far forgot himself as
to acknowledge the invitation by kicking out
behind, and then lying down on his stomach on
the grass, pulling it up and chewing it. When
I came back, however, Alice had nearly brought
him out of his vexation, and was soothing him
by telling him how soon we should all be ninety.

As we sat under the willow-tree and ate the
cherries (fair, for Alice shared them out), we
played at being ninety. Nettie complained that
she had a bone in her old back and it made her
hobble, and Alice sang a song in an old woman's
way, but it was very pretty, and we were all
merry. At least I don't know about merry
exactly, but all comfortable.

There was a most tremendous lot of cherries
and Alice always had with her some neat little
bag or box or case, to hold things. In it, that
night, was a tiny wine-glass. So Alice and
Nettie said they would make some cherry-wine
to drink our love at parting.

Each of us had a glassful and it was delicious,
and each of us drank the toast "Our love at
parting." The Colonel drank his wine last, and
it got into my head directly that it got into his
directly. Anyhow his eyes rolled immediately
after he had turned the glass upside down, and
he took me on one side and proposed in a hoarse
whisper that we should "Cut 'em out still."

"How did he mean?" I asked my lawless
friend.

"Cut our Brides out," said the Colonel, "and
then cut our way, without going down a single
turning, Bang to the Spanish Main!"

We might have tried it, though I didn't
think it would answer; only we looked round
and saw that there was nothing but moonlight
under the willow-tree, and that our pretty pretty
wives were gone. We burst out crying. The
Colonel gave in second, and came to first; but
he gave in strong.

We were ashamed of our red eyes, and hung
about for half an hour to whiten them. Likewise
a piece of chalk round the rims, I doing the
Colonel's, and he mine, but afterwards found in
the bedroom looking-glass not natural, besides
inflammation. Our conversation turned on being
ninety. The Colonel told me he had a pair of
boots that wanted soleing and heeling, but he
thought it hardly worth while to mention it to
his father, as he himself should so soon be ninety,
when he thought shoes would be more
convenient. The Colonel also told me with his hand
upon his hip that he felt himself already getting
on in life, and turning rheumatic. And I told him
the same. And when they said at our house at
supper (they are always bothering about
something) that I stooped, I felt so glad!

This is the end of the beginning-part that you
were to believe most.

LATEST GHOST-TALK.

THE persuasion that the spirits of the
departed occasionally revisit the scene of their
earthly existence is too general to render necessary
any excuse for an occasional return to the
subject, whenever the occurrence of some incident
of novel feature—or the starting of new theories
of explanation—give promise of any profitable
result. The object of this paper is not to
advocate the doctrine that the revisitings just
alluded to are permitted, but simply to narrate
two or three additions to Ghostly Literature.

Very few years have passed since the
occurrence, in a busy thoroughfare of busy London,
of an incident which it will be better to
give in the words of the narrator.

"It was on a wild stormy night in the spring
of 1857, that I was sitting before the fire at
my lodgings in—— street, with an open book
on my knee. The fire had burned very low, and I
had not replenished it; for the weather, stormy
as it was, was warm, and one of the windows had
remained, since dinner, partially unclosed.

"My sitting-room was on the third floor—
one of those queer old rooms that seem expressly
adapted to the occupancy of sprites and bogies.
The walls were panelled to a height of six feet
from the floor, and the cornices covered with
fantastic mouldings. Heavy articles of furniture,
including a mighty high-backed chair,
disposed in different parts of the room, were lighted
up occasionally by the flickering gaseous flame in
the grate, which soon abandoned them to deeper
and deeper darkness as its aliment grew less.

"In the centre of the apartment there stood
a large round table. Between this and the fire
I sat, as I have mentioned, with a volume on
my knee. It was upon the subject of the law
of evidence, and, to say truth, showed small