to be desecrated by an irreverent fraud? A vision of the haunted room, garnished as in the past, rose before me, and I saw the old tragedy re-enacted. Then a horrible revulsion of feeling took possession of me. I felt myself powerless to advance. An invisible influence seemed forcing me back to the house. But there was nothing in life I so dreaded as the thought of yielding to fear; I could not belie my name, and I vowed that, come what might, I would carry out my resolve. Mastering my repugnance by a strong effort, I drew near to the stables. The hideous whiteness of my attire heightened my nervous foreboding by a strange, fanciful dread. It seemed to me the garb of a doomed man-the livery of death, in which he is clothed to be led to his fate. The silence was unbroken by the rustling of a leaf, and I would have welcomed any sound, even the moaning of Darell, to relieve the acute tension of my nerves. I reached the door of the building, and pushed back the bolt, and, without a pause, though the grating of the rusty iron made my pulses throb, I entered the stable. As I passed a stall that was used for one of the horses, I stretched out my hand and felt for him in the darkness—I sought for a scrap of comfort in the thought that anything that breathed was near me. The horse started violently at my touch, and stood trembling under my hand; then I passed into the haunted room. Placing myself as nearly as I could judge in the centre, I stood with my back to the dreaded wall, while in front, to the right and left, were two doors through which Crump should pass on his way to his bedchamber. Had the place not been in utter darkness, I could not, I think, have supported the strain of my overwrought feelings. It was a kind of relief to me that I could see nothing. But even as it was, as I stood breathlessly awaiting the moment for the performance of my part, the terror of my surroundings gradually overmastered me, and I could scarcely resist an impulse to fly from the building. Then a slight sound from within told me of Crump's approach. As he entered the stable, and the walls of the chamber became dimly visible from the rays of his lantern, I raised my arms and held them outstretched. He appeared at the door to the right and came in rapidly on his way to the other. When he was half across the room, he saw me and stopped. Raising his lantern by an apparently half-conscious effort, he peered at me through the gloom, the picture of mortal fear. With a face of stony horror, he kept his gaze on me for some moments. Then his eyes dilated, and he seemed to look through me and beyond me, as his whole frame shook.

'My God,' he breathed at last, in an awestruck whisper, two of them, two of them!'

'At his words I was seized with a thrill of terror. I became conscious of some awful presence that caused my pulses to throb and my limbs to shake at the same moment with a mingling of heat and cold. By an involuntary movement I turned my head, and the blood rushed back to my heart. A tall, black figure stood behind me, bending slightly over me with open arms as if about to seize me in its grasp, with something in its indefinite, wavering outline that told me it was nothing human. I felt myself powerless to move, and stood as if I had been turned into stone. A low, unearthly laugh sounded through the chamber. Then Crump's voice rose in a shriek:

"Two of you,' he cried again-in the frenzy of his terror he seemed beside himself- two of you! But, devils or Darells, I don't fear you!'

'Then I felt an overpowering shock; how or whence it came, I knew not. Sick and dizzy, I felt myself reeling under it, and my senses left me.

'When I became conscious again, I was lying on the floor of the chamber, which was faintly lighted by the morning twilight. Crump's lantern was near me, with the glass shattered. It was some time before I had strength to rise from the ground; then I dragged my faltering feet to the house, and stole up to my bedroom. A ghastly image faced me as I stood before the looking-glass. My white clothing was spattered with blood, and my face looked haggard and colourless, save for a red stain in the centre of my forehead.

And that," concluded Mr. Darell, "was the manner in which the spirit of my ancestor punished the impiety of his descendant. You may see a slight mark on my forehead where the wound healed.

"What became of Crump? Oh, he disappeared, and was never heard of again. It was said that the following morning a man answering his description was seen more than ten miles from the house speeding across the country like a hunted animal. But he never reappeared, and Denis O'Connor, became our coachman, and is our coachman still.

"You think it was courageous of him to take the post," he continued, in response to a nervous lady, who seemed much impressed by the recital. "Well, so everyone thought at the time, except my father, who had nothing but scoffs for my ghostly experience. He said that, through some dark hints

thrown out by O'Connor, Crump had anticipated the trick that I was going to play; that his awe at sight of the ghost was feigned, and, seeing in the situation an opportunity for displaying his resolution in the face of supernatural terrors, and at the same time of taking a safe revenge on me, he had attacked me with his lantern, and that, my face being half averted at the moment, I had been stunned by the assault, without knowing whence it came; and that then, in dismay at the belief that he had killed me, Crump had fled."

But the real ghost?" inquired the lady.

"Ah," replied Mr. Darell, "my father had his theory about that, too. He said it was only my own shadow thrown on the wall behind me, which my heated imagination had transformed into the black figure of Reginald Darell. But then," he added with a whimsical smile, "even if he was right, it was the shade of a Darell still."

CHARLES T. WATERS.

MY ONLY ONE

I Do not love the sonnet, for to me

It seems a tangled, straggling sort of thing;
It never laughs, it does not dance, or sing,
But drones along, low-buzzing like a bee.
For solemn thoughts it may, in some degree,

Be fitting medium; but it lacks the swing
Of heroic lines, the heart-enchanting ring
Of lyric measures, tuneful, light, and free.

These words, I fear, may shock the sonneteers:
Yet will I add, that though in bygone years

Whole hanks of verses-good or bad-I spun,
And sent out ranns that still are on the run,"

No sonnet in my tale of work appears

But stay! I say! Have I just fashioned one?

T. D. S

HINTS AND HELPS TOWARDS HAPPINESS

ONE cannot, I think, begin too early to cultivate in children the happy disposition which will cause them to look instinctively, as it were, upon the bright side of things. If a rainy day comes, instead of allowing them to bewail the outdoor pleasures which are spoilt, put before them their good fortune in having a day so suitable for tidying their doll's house, giving a tea-party, or beginning that new story-book.

Youth and age, riches and poverty, have each their attendant joys and sorrows, and without contentment no happiness can be found in any of these states.

After all, "the world is very much like a looking-glass: laugh at it, and it laughs back; frown at it, and it frowns back." and, doubtless, it is the noblest mind the best contentment

has."

Of all the joys that we can bring into our own lives there is none so joyous as that which comes to us as the result of caring for others and brightening sad lives; for it is mercifully ordained that

"They who joy would win must share it.
Happiness was born a twin."

And what more blessed text can be chosen for the summingup of a life's work than "Thou hast given gladness" (Ps. iv.)? -E. B.

True happiness is heaven. The highest happiness is to possess God. That is the supreme felicity of the elect. Here on earth happiness is to expect heaven or the possession of God; it is anticipated felicity. "Happy the souls whose converse is with Heaven! For the sake of even our present happiness, let us busy ourselves only about the happiness to come." BOURDALOUE.

Humility is a great help towards happiness. How much unhappiness springs from wounded pride! It is to the meek and humble of heart that our Blessed Lord has promised rest of soul

"A heart at rest within my breast

And sunshine on the land."

With good reason does Father Rudolph Meyer, S.J., denounce

* Gerald Griffin,

VOL. XXXV.-No. 411.

20

as groundless "the assertion sometimes heard that humility makes us gloomy because it holds up to our gaze but the dark and dismal picture of our utter worthlessness. Just the reverse is true. The humble have within them the secret of happiness, aye the very fountain of happiness. Even their own nothingness becomes dear to them when they think of Him who drew them out of it and who keeps them from falling back into it." -M. R.

What does that word cheerfulness imply? It means a contented spirit; it means a pure heart; it means a kind loving disposition; it means humility and charity; it means a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion of self.-THACKERAY.

There is no happy life; there are only happy days.— THEURIET.

The impulse towards happiness is the same in all men. The tendency of the will in this regard is analogous to that intellectual process which leads all men to agree upon first principles. But while there is a universal impulse towards happiness, the most divergent theories exist in practice in regard of the object in which happiness exists. The humblest child of the Catholic Church is possessed on this great question of a theory which, for simplicity and elevation, surpasses all the speculations of the sages of antiquity, and to which the researches of philosophy can make no addition. In this life to love God, in the next to know and to enjoy Him, is the happiness of man. This principle is of so sublime a character that the application of it to the study and examination of our own lives furnishes us with abundant opportunities for the practice of Christian humility. Hence the importance of frequently renewing the memory of it, and making it the basis of all our efforts in the direction of culture of the will. It is a maxim which embodies, in the sphere of conduct, "the best that is known and thought in the world."-REV. WILLIAM HAYDEN, S.J.

Somebody has said that the man who has just a little more to do than he has time for-note the qualifying little-is a happy man. It is certain that to be always fully occupied makes for happiness, and experience teaches us that the most miserable mortals on earth are people of large leisure and no resources. One wonders sometimes whose fault it is that they cannot occupy themselves usefully and pleasantly. Often

*First Lessons in the Science of the Saints, p. 141.