now? O, sir, it's Christmas eve,--don't be hard with us!"

Instead of touching him, this speech irritated him beyond measure.
Passing all considerations of her difficult position involved in her
piteous statement, his anger flashed at once on her implication that
he was unjust and unkind. So violent was his excitement that it whirled
away the words that rushed to his lips, and only fanned the fury that
sparkled from the whiteness of his face in his eyes.

"Be patient with us, sir," she continued; "we are poor, but we mean
to pay you; and we can't move now in this cold weather; please, don't
be hard with us, sir."

The fury now burst out on his face in a red and angry glow, and the
words came.

"Now, attend to me!" He rose to his feet. "I will not hear any more
from you. I know nothing of your poverty, nor of the condition of your
family. All I know is that you owe me three months' rent, and that you
can't or won't pay me. I say, therefore, leave the premises to people
who can and will. You have had your legal notice; quit my house
to-morrow; if you don't, your furniture shall be put in the street.
Mark me,--to-morrow!"

The phantom had rushed into the centre of the room. Standing face to
face with him,--dilating,--blackening,--its whole form shuddering
with a fury to which his own was tame,--the semblance of a shriek upon
its flashing lips, and on its writhing features, and an unearthly anger
streaming from its bright and terrible eyes,--it seemed to throw down,
with its tossing arms, mountains of hate and malediction on the head