Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed
with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our
ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor,
and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in
the long upper entry,--where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite
of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not
improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest
full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while
Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there
came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk gown, sweeping through
the very midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against
the chairs. Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business
was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the
kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,--
performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labor,--although no traces
of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. Some
neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched ministerial band,
disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work without
any wages.

But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor's
library was stored in the garret,--no unfit receptacle indeed for such
dreary trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books
would have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable
garret, however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their
literary value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down
through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty
Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded
ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations
or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible