ence and personal worth. The
boys loved and respected him, sought his advice often, and sometimes
invited him to meetings of their Society.

"Have you called together the Club yet?" asked Master Lewis of
Charlie, when the latter had ceased reading.

"We had an informal meeting in my room last evening."

"What is your plan of study?"

[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN SOUTHERN GERMANY.]

"We have none as yet," said Charlie. "We are to have a meeting next
week for the election of officers, and for literary exercises we
have agreed to relate historic _ghost stories_. We asked Tommy Toby
to be present, and he promised to give us for the occasion his version
of 'St. Dunstan and the Devil and the Six Boy Kings.' I hardly know
what the story is about, but the title sounds interesting."

"What made you choose ghost stories?" asked Master Lewis, curiously.

"You gave us Irving and Hawthorne to read in connection with our
lessons on American literature. 'Rip Van Winkle,' 'Sleepy Hollow,' and
'Twice-Told Tales' turned our thoughts to popular superstitions; and,
as they made me chairman, I thought it an interesting subject just now
to present to the Club."

"More interesting than profitable, I am thinking. Still, the subject
might be made instructive and useful as well as amusing."

* * * * *

"Did you ever see a ghost?" asked Charlie of Gentleman Jo, after
Master Lewis left them.

"We thought we had one in our house, when I was living with my sister
in Hingham, before the war. Hingham used to be famous for its ghost
stories; an old house without its ghost was thought to lack historic
tone and finish."

Gentleman Jo took a story-telling attitude, and a number of the pupils
gathered around him.

GENTLEMAN JO'S GHOST STORY.

I shall never forget the scene of excitement, when one morning
Biddy, our domestic, entered the sitting-room, her head bobbing, her
hair flying, and her cap perched upon the top of her head, and
exclaimed: "Wurrah! I have seen a ghoust, and it's lave the hoose I
must. Sich a night! I'd niver pass anither the like of it for the
gift o' the hoose. Bad kick to ye, an' the hoose is haunted for
sure."

"Why, Biddy, what have you seen?" asked my sister, in alarm.

"Seen? An' sure I didn't see nothin'. I jist shet me eyes and hid
mesilf under the piller. But it was awful. An' the way it clanked
its chain! O murther!"

This last remark