have vouched the fact as universally known, and believed by every one,
_nem. con._, would not have been half so satisfactory to a skeptic as to
allow fairly that the narrative had been impugned, and hint at the
character of one of those skeptics, and the motives of another, as
sufficient to account for their want of belief. Now to the fact itself.

Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested
their attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's
brother obtained an office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of
their intimacy ensued, "though without any positive quarrel." Mrs.
Bargrave had removed to Canterbury, and was residing in a house of her
own, when she was suddenly interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she
was sitting in deep contemplation of certain distresses of her own. The
visitor was in a riding-habit, and announced herself as prepared for a
distant journey (which seems to intimate that spirits have a
considerable distance to go before they arrive at their appointed
station, and that the females at least put on a _habit_ for the
occasion). The spirit, for such was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to
waive the ceremony of salutation, both in going and coming, which will
remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to his mistress in the fine
old Scottish ballad:--

Why should I come within thy bower?
I am no earthly man;
And should I kiss thy rosy lips,
Thy days would not be lang.

They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and
Mrs. Veal proses concerning the conversations they had formerly held,
and the books they had read together. Her very recent experience