what's that?'"

"Did not Noah say summat about having lost his yellow canvas bag with
his money?" asked the other man; "and that the ghost laid hold on him
with a hand as cold as ice?"

"What, did a'?" and Sam Smith opened his large, round eyes, and
distended his wide, good-natured mouth, with a look of blank
astonishment.

"If the ghost robbed Noah Cotton of his canvas bag, that was what no
living man could do!" cried Bob Mason, bursting into the room, and
cutting sundry mad capers round the floor. "Hurrah for the ghost!"

CHAPTER X.

THE PROPOSAL.

We will now step into the widow Grimshawe's cottage, and see how Sophy
disposed of her guest.

The lower room was in profound darkness, and the little sempstress bade
her companion stay at the door while she procured a light from the
rush-candle, that always burnt in her mother's chamber above.

"Do not leave me in the dark!" he cried, in a voice of childish terror,
and clutching at her garments. "I dare not be alone!"

"Nonsense! There are no ghosts here. I will not be gone an instant."

"Let me go with you."

"What! to my sick mother's bed-room? That cannot be. Perhaps," she
continued, not a little astonished at his extreme timidity, "the ashes
may still be alive in the grate. I think I perceive a faint glimmer; but
you had better allow me to fetch a light from mother's room?"

"Oh no, not for the world. I beseech you to stay where you are."

Sophy knelt down by the hearth, and raking among the ashes succeeded at
last in finding a live coal, which she blew into a blaze, and lighting a
candle she had left on the table, placed it before him.

Her strange guest had sunk down into a large wooden arm-chair beside it,
his head bent upon his clasped hands, his eyes shut, and traces of tears
upon his death-pale cheeks; his lips were firmly compressed, and his
countenance immovable and rigid.

Sophy gazed long and silently upon him. The sympathy of woman, be she
good or bad, is always touched by the sight of a man's tears. Sophy was
selfish and vain--all her faults might be comprised under those two
heads; but she could not bear to witness sorrow and suffering without
trying to alleviate it, unless it demanded the sacrifice of some
personal gratification that she wanted strength of mind to relinquish.

The stranger had awakened her sympathy, which the knowledge that he was
comparatively rich did not tend to diminish; and she examined his
countenance wi