ployment on newspapers. Then he was
terribly passionate, not without cause, I allow; but it wasn't
wise. What I mean is this: if he saw, or if he fancied he saw,
any wrong or injury done to any one, it was enough to throw him
into a frenzy; he would get black in the face and absolutely shriek
out his denunciations of the wrong-doer. I do believe he would
have visited his own brother with the most unsparing invective,
if that brother had laid a harming finger on a street-beggar, or
a colored man, or a poor person of any kind. I don't blame the
feeling; though with a man like him it was very apt to be a false
or mistaken one; but, at any rate, its exhibition wasn't sensible.
Well, as I was saying, he buffeted about in this world a long time,
poorly paid, fed, and clad; taking more care of other people than
he did of himself. Then mental suffering, physical exposure, and
want killed him."

The stern voice had grown softer than a child's. The same look of
unutterable tenderness brooded on the mournful face of the phantom
by his side; but its thin, shining hand was laid upon his head,
and its countenance had undergone a change. The form was still
undefined; but the features had become distinct. They were those
of a young man, beautiful and wan, and marked with great suffering.

A pause had fallen on the conversation, in which the father and
daughter heard the solemn sighing of the wintry wind around the
dwelling. The silence seemed scarcely broken by the voice of the
young girl.

"Dear father, this was very sad. Did you say he died of want?"

"Of want, my child, of hunger and cold. I don't doubt it. He had
wandered about, as I gather, houseless for a couple of days and
nights. It was in December, too. Some one found him, on a rainy
night, lying in the street, drenched and burning with fever, and had
him taken to the hospital. It appears that he had always cherished
a strange affection for me, though I had grown away from him; and
in his wild ravings he constantly mentioned my name, and they sent
for me. That was our first meeting after two years. I found him
in the hospital--dying. Heaven can witness that I felt all my old
love for him return then, but he was delirious, and never recognized
me. And, Nathalie, his hair,--it had been coal-black, and he wore
it very long,--he wouldn't let them cut it either; and as they
knew no skill could save him, they let him have his way,--his hair
was then as white as snow! God alone