ciated by him with any
perspicuous idea. Thus, while the Ritualistic organist had a blurred
perception of his nephew's conversational remains, and was dimly
conscious that the tone of the supernatural remarks addressed to himself
was not wholly congratulatory, he still presented a physical and moral
aspect of dense insensibility.

Momentarily nonplussed by such unheard-of calmness under a ghostly
visitation, the apparition, without changing position, allowed itself to
roll one inquiring eye towards the opening above the step-ladder, where
the moonlight revealed an attentive head of red hair. Catching the
glance, the head allowed a hand belonging to it to appear at the opening
and motion downward.

"Look there, then," said the intelligent ghost to its uncle, pointing to
the ground near its feet.

Mr. BUMSTEAD, rousing from a brief doze, glanced indifferently towards
the spot indicated; but, in another instant, was on his knees beside the
undefined object he there beheld. A keen, breathless scrutiny, a
frenzied clutch with both hands, and then he was upon his feet again,
holding close to the lantern the thing he had found.

The barred light shone on a musty skeleton, to which still clung a few
mouldy shreds left by the rats; and only the celebrated bone handle
identified it as what had once been the maddened finder's idolized
Alpaca Umbrella.

"Aha!" twitted the apparition, "then you have some heart left, JOHN
BUMSTEAD?"

"Heart!" moaned the distracted organist, fairly kissing the dear
remains, and restored to perfect speech and comprehension by the awful
shock. "I had one, but it is broken now!--Allie, my long-lost Allie!" he
continued, tenderly apostrophizing the skeleton, "do we meet thus at
last again?--

'What thought is folded in thy leaves!
What tender thought, what speechless pain!
I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Thou darling of the April rain!'

Where is thine old familiar alpaca dress, my Allie? Where is the canopy
that has so often sheltered thy poor master's head from the storm? Gone!
gone! and through my own forgetfulness!"

"And have you no thought for your nephew?" asked the persevering
apparition, hoarsely.

"Not under the present circumstances," retorted the mourner; he and the
ghost both coughing with the colds which they had taken from standing
still so long in such a damp place--"not under the present
circumstances," he repeated, wildly, making a fierce pass at the