the brook-side. The moonbeams shimmered through the yew-trees and
rested on the old tomb; playing, as it were, round the flowers which
Lily's hand had that day dropped upon its stone. She was walking
beside Kenelm, the elder two a few paces in front.

"How silly I was," said she, "to be so frightened at the false ghost!
I don't think a real one would frighten me, at least if seen here, in
this loving moonlight, and on God's ground!"

"Ghosts, were they permitted to appear except in a magic lantern,
could not harm the innocent. And I wonder why the idea of their
apparition should always have been associated with such phantasies of
horror, especially by sinless children, who have the least reason to
dread them."

"Oh, that is true," cried Lily; "but even when we are grown up there
must be times in which we should so long to see a ghost, and feel what
a comfort, what a joy it would be."

"I understand you. If some one very dear to us had vanished from our
life; if we felt the anguish of the separation so intensely as to
efface the thought that life, as you said so well, 'never dies;' well,
yes, then I can conceive that the mourner would yearn to have a
glimpse of the vanished one, were it but to ask the sole and only
question he could desire to put, 'Art thou happy? May I hope that we
shall meet again, never to part,--never?'"

Kenelm's voice trembled as he spoke, tears stood in his eyes. A
melancholy--vague, unaccountable, overpowering--passed across his
heart, as the shadow of some dark-winged bird passes over a quiet