this question; it might not be proper for me so to
do.

Master Lewis had aimed to make clear to the boys that it is easy to
start a superstitious story, and to suggest that such stories in
ignorant times became _legends_.

[Illustration: OLD FORTRESS ON THE RHINE.]

"I propose," said Willie Clifton, "that the first seven meetings of
the Club be devoted to the Rhine."

"We might call this series of meetings _Seven Nights on the Rhine_,"
added Herman Reed.

"The old members of the Club who made the Rhine journey with Mr. Beal
might give us an account of that journey," suggested one of the new
boys.

The plans suggested by these remarks met with approval, and a
committee was appointed to arrange the literary exercises for seven
meetings of the Club, to be known as _Seven Nights on the Rhine_.

The literary exercises for the present evening consisted of the
relation of historic ghost stories, chiefly by members of the old
Club. Among these were the Province House Stories of Hawthorne, the
tradition of Mozart's Requiem, the Cock Lane Ghost, and several
incidents from Scott's novels.

The principal story, however, was given by Tommy Toby, an old member
of the Club, and a graduate of the Academy.

TOMMY TOBY'S STORY OF ST. DUNSTAN AND THE DEVIL AND THE SIX BOY
KINGS.

A splendid court had Athelstane, and foreign princes came there to
be educated. Among these princes was Louis, the son of Charles the
Simple, of France, who, by his long residence in England, obtained
the pretty name of _Louis d'Outremer_.

Splendid weddings were celebrated there. The king married one of his
sisters to the King of France, another to the Emperor of Germany,
another to Hugo the Great, Count of Paris, and another to the Duke
of Aquitaine.

After the fight with the Cornish men, all of the land was at peace
for many years, and the nobility became very scholarly and the
people very polite.

Athelstane had a favorite, a friar, who made more mischief in his
day and generation than any other man. This man is known in history
by the name of St. Dunstan.

When Dunstan was a boy, he was taken very ill of a fever. One night,
being delirious, he got up from his bed, and walked to Glastonbury
church, which was then repairing, and ascended the scaffolds and
went all over the building; and because he did not tumble off and
break his neck, people said that he had performed the feat under the