such a visitor?

_Montesinos_.--I should not credit my senses lightly; neither should I
obstinately distrust them, after I had put the reality of the appearance
to the proof, as far as that were possible.

_Stranger_.--Should you like to have an opportunity afforded you?

_Montesinos_.--Heaven forbid! I have suffered so much in dreams from
conversing with those whom even in sleep I knew to be departed, that an
actual presence might perhaps be more than I could bear.

_Stranger_.--But if it were the spirit of one with whom you had no near
ties of relationship or love, how then would it affect you?

_Montesinos_.--That would of course be according to the circumstances on
both sides. But I entreat you not to imagine that I am any way desirous
of enduring the experiment.

_Stranger_.--Suppose, for example, he were to present himself as I have
done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity
suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen--after dinner;
and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in
aspect than the being who now addresses you?

_Montesinos_.--Why, sir, to so substantial a ghost, and of such
respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say with
Hamlet,

"Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee!"

_Stranger_.--Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now
that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I told
you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more
distant country than America, and had long been naturalised there. The
country whence I come is not the New World, but the other one: and I now
declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost.

_Montesinos_.--A ghost!

_Stranger_.--A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the
world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation if
ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne. And now what test do
you require?

_Montesinos_.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns
as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame. You
look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give
entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that
belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil!

_Stranger_.--The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me almost
three hundred years ag