and obtained my transfer. I am off before that horrid
Hinckman comes up the hill. The moment I reach my new position I
shall put off this hated semblance. Good-by. You can't imagine how
glad I am to be, at last, the real ghost of somebody."

"Oh!" I cried, rising to my feet, and stretching out my arms in
utter wretchedness, "I would to Heaven you were mine!"

"I _am_ yours," said Madeline, raising to me her tearful eyes.

"THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELATIVE EXISTENCES"

In a certain summer, not long gone, my friend Bentley and I found
ourselves in a little hamlet which overlooked a placid valley,
through which a river gently moved, winding its way through green
stretches until it turned the end of a line of low hills and was
lost to view. Beyond this river, far away, but visible from the door
of the cottage where we dwelt, there lay a city. Through the mists
which floated over the valley we could see the outlines of steeples
and tall roofs; and buildings of a character which indicated thrift
and business stretched themselves down to the opposite edge of the
river. The more distant parts of the city, evidently a small one,
lost themselves in the hazy summer atmosphere.

Bentley was young, fair-haired, and a poet; I was a philosopher, or
trying to be one. We were good friends, and had come down into this
peaceful region to work together. Although we had fled from the
bustle and distractions of the town, the appearance in this rural
region of a city, which, so far as we could observe, exerted no
influence on the quiet character of the valley in which it lay,
aroused our interest. No craft plied up and down the river; there
were no bridges from shore to shore; there were none of those
scattered and half-squalid habitations which generally are found on
the outskirts of a city; there came to us no distant sound of bells;
and not the smallest wreath of smoke rose from any of the buildings.

In answer to our inquiries our landlord told us that the city over
the river had been built by one man, who was a visionary, and who
had a great deal more money than common sense. "It is not as big a
town as you would think, sirs," he said, "because the general
mistiness of things in this valley makes them look larger than they
are. Those hills, for instance, when you get to them are not as high
as they look to be from here. But the town is big enough, and a good
deal too big; for it ruined its builder and owner, who when he came
to