ow
good-bye, Dick, I must be round and see who wants anything from my
pack."

And the blind man went fearlessly on his way, showing that the
confidence he spoke of in God's protecting providence was real, and not
assumed.

The subject of the ghosts had by this time pretty well been dropped by
the inmates of the Tower, although it was still a matter of wonder how
they, or rather the people who acted them, could have got inside.
Stephen had come over again to see them, attended by a groom, for he was
not allowed to ride about by himself. He said that he must go back
early; indeed, it was clear that nothing would tempt him to spend a
night in the Tower--and he wondered how Charley Blount could venture to
sleep on by himself after the dreadful sights he had seen. "I never
have found that sights or sounds could do a man any harm, and so I do
not mind them any more than the Scotch Quaker, who, when a fellow was
one day abusing him, observed quietly, `Say what ye like, friend, with
your tongue, but dinna touch me.' If the ghost had come with a dagger,
or pistol, or bowl of poison, I should have had good reason for wishing
him to keep his distance."

"Oh! Charley, you are so fool-hardy," drawled out Stephen; "I, for my
part, don't see any fun in trifling with such serious matters."

Charley Blount burst out into a hearty fit of laughter. "Why, Stephen,
I thought from what I have heard, that you were more of a man than to
believe in such nonsense," he exclaimed.

"What is it that you have heard that makes you think so?" asked Stephen.

"That you were going to persuade your father to let you go to the South
Seas, that you might try and find out what has become of Jack Askew."

"Yes, I know that is what I thought of doing," answered Stephen; "that
is to say, Margery wished me to go; but, in the first place, I know that
my father wouldn't let me go; and in the second, I don't think that I
should like the sea, and my health wouldn't stand it, and altogether I
have made up my mind not to go."

"Have you told Margery this?" asked Charley; "at present she fully
believes that you are going and that you are certain to find her brother
alive in some desert island, like that Robinson Crusoe lived in; as you
knew him so well, she thinks that you are more likely than any one else
to find him out."

"Oh! that is a mere fancy of Margery's," answered Stephen, in a tone
which showed great indifference to the subject. "It is a hu