JfF BOYHOOD'S HOME.

475

come tiptoeing into the room where Miss —— sat reading at mid-
night by a lamp. The girl at the head of the file wore a shroud and
a doughface ; she crept behind the victim, touched her on the shoulder,
and she looked up and screamed, and thea fell into convulsions. She
did not recover from the fright, but went mad. In these days it
seems incredible that people believed in ghosts so short a time ago*
But they did.

After asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finally
inquired about myself:

*Oh, he succeeded well enough—another case of damned fool. If
they'd sent him to St. Louis, he'd have succeeded sooner/

It, was with much satisfaction that I recognised the wisdom of
having told this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name
was Smith.