place was only precious because it held her.
Presently the servants came to look on her guardianship of the house
as holy, for one night some careless person had left a light burning
where the wind blew the curtains about, and they took fire, and were
extinguished, by whom none knew; but in the morning there was the
charred curtain, and Molly, the kitchenmaid, confessed with tears how
she had forgotten the lighted candle.

The husband was the last of all to hear of these strange doings, for
the new wife took care that they should never be about the house at
midnight. But one night as he lay in bed he had forgotten something
and asked her to fetch it from below. She looked at him with a disdain
out of the mists of her black hair, which she was combing to her knee.
Perhaps for a minute she resented his unfaithfulness to the dead.
'No,' she said, with deliberation, 'not till that dog and his
companion pass.' She flung the door open, and looked half with fear,
half with defiance, at the black void outside. There was the patter of
the dog's feet coming down the stairs swiftly. The man lifted himself
on his elbow and listened. Side by side with the dog's feet came the
swish, swish of a silken gown on the stairs. He looked a wild-eyed
inquiry at his second wife. She slammed the door to before she
answered him. 'It has been _so_ for years,' she said; 'every one knew
but you. She has not forgotten as easily as you have.'

* * * * *

One day the dog died, worn out with age. After that they heard the
ghost no longer. Perhaps her purgatory of seeing the second wife in
her place was completed, and she was fit for Paradise, or her
suffering had sufficed to win another's pardon. From that time the new
wife reigned without a rival, living or dead, near her throne.

II

THE STORY OF FATHER ANTHONY O'TOOLE

On the wall of the Island Chapel there is a tablet which strangers
read curiously. The inscription runs:

FATHER ANTHONY O'TOOLE

FOR THIRTY YEARS THE SHEPHERD OF
HIS FLOCK

_Died 18th December 1812_
Aged 80 years.

'He will avenge the blood of his servants, and will be
merciful unto his land, and to his people.'

Many a time has a summer visitor asked me the meaning of the Old
Testament words on the memorial tablet of a life that in all
probability passed so quiet