n answer to a bell, lightly touched, a
vinegar-visaged waiting-maid, of the interesting age of forty-five,
entered and removed the scarcely touched viands--the _rudis
indigestaque moles_. I ventured to address her, with a request that I
might be supplied with a few books, to enable me to while away the
evening. I anticipated a literary feast from the readiness with which
she rushed from the room; but she reappeared, bringing only Young's
Night Thoughts, (very greasy,) a volume of tales with the catastrophes
torn out, a set of plays consisting only of first acts, and an odd
number of the Eclectic Magazine. This was sufficiently provoking; but
I read a few pages, and tried a second cigar, and made the tour of the
apartment, examining a family mourning-piece worked in satin, a
genealogical tree done in worsted, and a portrait of the mutton-headed
landlord and his snappish wife. I counted the ticks of the clock for
half an hour, and was finally reduced to the forlorn expedient of
seeing likenesses in the burning embers. When the clock struck nine, I
rang for slippers and a guide to my bed room, and the landlord
appeared, candle in hand, to usher me to my sleeping apartment. As I
followed him up the creaking staircase, and along the dark upper
entry, I could not help regretting that fancy was unable to convert
him into the seneschal of a baronial mansion, and the room to which I
was going a haunted chamber. It seemed as if my surly host had the
power of divining what was passing in my mind, for when he had ushered
me into the room, and placed the candle on the light stand, he said,--

"I hope you'll sleep comfortable, for there ain't many rats here, sir.
And as for the ghost they say frequents this chamber, I believe that's
all in my eye, though, to be sure, the window does look out on the
burial ground."

"Umph! a comfortable prospect."

"Very, sir; you have a fine view of the squire's new tomb and the
poorhouse, with a wing of the jail behind the trees. And I've stuck my
second-best hat in that broken pane of glass, and there's a chest of
drawers to set against the door; so you'll be warm and free from
intrusion. I wish you good night, sir."

All that night I was troubled with strange dreams, peopled by phantoms
from the neighboring churchyard; but a _bona fide_ ghost I cannot say
I saw. In the morning I rose very early, and took a look from the
window, but the prospect was very uninviting. The churchyard was a
bleak,