are too absurd to bristle even childhood's hair. What sense,
meaning, or moral, for example, such as even ghost-stories should be
susceptible of, can be traced in the ridiculous legend, that, at
midnight, all the dead Pyncheons are bound to assemble in this parlor?
And, pray, for what? Why, to see whether the portrait of their ancestor
still keeps its place upon the wall, in compliance with his
testamentary directions! Is it worth while to come out of their graves
for that?

We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghost-stories are
hardly to be treated seriously any longer. The family-party of the
defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise.

First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak, steeple-hat, and
trunk-breeches, girt about the waist with a leathern belt, in which
hangs his steel-hilted sword; he has a long staff in his hand, such as
gentlemen in advanced life used to carry, as much for the dignity of
the thing as for the support to be derived from it. He looks up at the
portrait; a thing of no substance, gazing at its own painted image! All
is safe. The picture is still there. The purpose of his brain has
been kept sacred thus long after the man himself has sprouted up in
graveyard grass. See! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries the
frame. All safe! But is that a smile?--is it not, rather a frown of
deadly import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? The stout
Colonel is dissatisfied! So decided is his look of discontent as to
impart additional distinctness to his features; through which,
nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond.
Something has strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the
head, he turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in
their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to
reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with
the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated
officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping
Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his
wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist's
legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out
of her virgin grave. All try the picture-frame. What do these ghostly
people seek? A mother lifts her child, that his little hands may touch
it! There is evidently a mystery about the picture, that