But where was Gertie while the embraces and congratulations of everybody else were being so freely dispensed? George looked round, as though to receive the final seal to his welcome home again from one whose approval was dearest of all. But she had left the room, apparently unobserved.

Once more Master Jack came to the front. "I'm sorry she won't be Sister Gertie' after all," he said demurely, and he looked at his brother compassionately.

"What do you mean?" said the latter, almost fiercely.

"My dear fellow," remonstrated Jack, "You can't commit bigamy. Haven't you already told us that you are engaged to a Miss Maggie Ferguson?"

George stayed to hear no more, but strode hurriedly from the room. He was a long time away, and so was Gertie. But when they did come back it was in each other's company. Jack looked curiously at them, and nodded approval.

And I think we all felt, as we retired to bed, that it had been the happiest Christmas Eve we had ever spent.

ZETA.

Cheerfulness.

T

HE course of life flows swiftly on,
And changes day by day;

The things we love, the things we hate,
Pass equally away:

A word, a look, a smile, a sigh,

Will change the face of earth and sky.

Now we are glad with flowery Spring,
Now chill with Winter's snow,
And Summer now prepares the world
For Autumn's golden glow :
And thus our life is ever found,
Of ceaseless change a ceaseless round.

Then why the present hour perplex
With what the next may be !

Use well the only time there is,

Strong, patient, calm, and free.
With cheerfulness all troubles meet,
And life will then be bright and sweet.

J. A. L.

A Chat about Ghosts.

HRISTMASTIDE without holly and mistletoe, Christmastide without roast beef and plum puddings, Christmastide without its dances, its pantomimes, its fun, frolic, and flirtation, would seem well nigh impossible, and yet, great as would be the absolute void created were all these necessary associations of the season suddenly to vanish altogether, I think Christmas itself would become entirely a festival of retrospect and memory, were the annual flood of ghost stories and ghost literature to be dammed (I don't mean the other naughty word) or diverted into some other channel. It seems inevitable that although "men may come and men may go" ghosts and ghostesses must go on for ever.

So surely as the festive holiday comes round, so, unfortunately, like death and taxes, appear those miles and miles of printed matter with which our magazines and annuals are inundated. Everybody pretends to like these dismal tales just as one pretends to like certain curious wines, because it is the thing to do, but depend upon it both are to a great extent acquired tastes. Even the humblest pater familias, after due justice has been done to the Christmas fare, and his pipe being duly charged and lighted, is not unwilling to be horrified or amused with this kind of literature; he desires his daughter, "Sairann " (Sarah Ann), to read aloud for the family delectation the Christmas stories of the Post or Gazette, which, it may certainly be taken for granted, will not be thoroughly appreciated unless a goodly proportion of ghost stories be provided.

I must confess, with perhaps some feelings of shame and regret, that ghosts have altogether ceased to interest me as in the days of yore they did. How well I remember years ago the awful fears which seized my youthful mind after reading a certain terrible ghost story (I think it is to be found at the end of Bulwer Lytton's "Strange Story") at having to go down into the cellar to turn the gas on in the evening-that being my one domestic duty in those days-how horrible forms rushed out at me from the darkness and hissed dreadful things in my ears, and how glad I was when the duty was performed and I could rush up the stairspursued though I might be by weird and uncanny spectres-into light and safety again.

Talk about the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the most heroic deeds of daring of olden times, it was nothing to the despairing courage with which I descended those cellar stairs each evening until the influence of the story had passed away, and carried with it my ghostly terrors.

I think it is most probable that my declining interest in apparitions generally arises from the very foggy and diverse ideas one gets about them from those gentlemen who should tell us so much about ghosts, yet who only tell so wonderfully little. They remind one forcibly of those excellent worthies who write our church hymns when they get upon the subject of the glories of Paradise. If our readers will only turn to any collection of hymns, and read carefully those which are intended to be descriptive of heaven, they will understand my comparison, and if they are not very much mystified by the extraordinarily diverse pictures which are presented to the mind I shall be much surprised. It is impossible that all can be correct in their delineations, because they are so contradictory, the heaven of one poet being very often more like the hell of another bard. So with the authors of our ghost stories, their various presentations of the ways and customs of the phantom world are simply bewildering.

In these days of enlightenment, when even our babies are too intellectual to suck their little thumbs, and when the father of fiction, that dear funny old Nicholas is openly derided and disbelieved-horns, hoofs, brimstone, curly tail, and everything as an antiquated and clumsy old bogey, we must have at least some little consistency shewn by the biographers and historians of the spirits. It would not be a bad idea if the various writers of ghost stories were to meet, say in the autumn of each year, in solemn conference, and definitely decide upon a plan of cogent action for the ensuing campaign. By this means the public would be great gainers, as the little descrepancies we now are so familiar with would doubtless be removed, and we should have presented before us respectable and intellectual nineteenth century ghosts, instead of the idiotic, childish, vacillating, disgracefully unclothed spectre of the past.

one.

I would suggest for the consideration of the conference, that a little less moonlight be introduced in the stories. As the solar system is at present constituted, the moon does not shine every night in the year. Pick up any story, however, and there you will find the inevitable moon -always a moon-loafing about just as the crisis of the plot demands The same on the stage—always a moon. I was once present at a performance where the long-suffering moon disappeared all at once, with a terrific crash, into space; doing this no doubt as a protest against such a manifest absurdity. Well, then, I say, be more moderate with your moon, and banish for ever that dreary ghost with the clanking chains, of whom we are all so very tired. The spectre who walks airily about with his head carefully carried under his arm I would move be retained, as he is undoubtedly funny, although somewhat improbable.

So much for the question of a conference of ghost writers. I would now say a few words as to the habits and ways of the spirits, as we meet with them in the pages of fiction.

Some ghosts, I regret to have to say so, are extremely improper in their conduct; not only do they appear in very delicate, or rather indelicate attire, but these objectionable apparitions even presume to

invade the sanctities of our chambers at improper hours. They shock some of the highest feelings of our nature, by appearing before us when privately engaged in disrobing for the night. The secrets of the toilet, which should be inviolate to all outsiders, are revealed to these prying spectres. We cannot remove our wigs, take out our pearly teeth, unship our improvers, or unstrap our calves, with any assurance that we are unobserved by phantom eyes.

Other ghosts are accustomed to flit about in a meaningless sort of way, crossing rooms with a rustling sound, opening and shutting doors without appearing themselves, like some third-rate conjurer out of work. Others again are addicted to pacing to and fro with slow and solemn tread, and then seating themselves opposite the spectator, appear and disappear like the pictures on a magic lantern slide; others hang about on staircases and pass one in the dark, leaving cold clammy touches as they go; others still more objectionable wake their victims up in the night by stalking round the bedside and whispering dreadful threats into their ears, which if it did not alarm, would certainly tickle their tympani most unpleasantly.

Ghosts have their exits and their entrances in very various ways--they come in by the window, down the chimney, through the keyholes, up from cellar gratings; they appear in the castle and in the cottage, in the palace and in the prison, in churches and in theatres, in short everywhere almost. The occasions for their visits are as numerous as their motives for coming are frivolous and puerile. The pages of this Magazine might be filled by the mere enumeration of the causes given for the appearance in the natural of denizens from the supernatural world.

It is certain that very few of the visitants manifest any practical goodwill to the person most interested. Hood's celebrated " Grimsby Ghost" did indeed come to tell her daughter of something to her advantage, but it was after all a very poor affair, and certainly not worth such a pother as she made of it. This is what the perturbed spirit came to unfold the terrible secret which compelled her to quit nightly her nice snug grave, and to prowl about with the midnight cats on earth— "Mary! it arn't booked—but there's tuppence for sandpaper at number nine!"

If our friends the ghosts would make themselves generally useful by giving real and valuable information to the persons whom they, at present, only manage to frighten out of their seven senses, they would be far more respected than they are, and the charge brought against the spirit fraternity by an old writer would fall to the ground. He says"It is much to the discredit of ghosts that they doe commonly revisit the earth on such trivial errands as would hardly justify a journey from London to York, much less from one world to another. Grave and weighty ought to be the matter that can awaken a spirit from the deep slumbers of the tomb." There is a great deal of good sense in these remarks, and it is much to be desired that the spectre world should take the matter into grave consideration.

Were ghosts to revisit their former friends still in the flesh with useful and pleasing items of news, such as foretelling the winner of the next Derby, the earliest date to expect the demise of a respected mother-inlaw, or something of the kind, with what warmth we should welcome each apparition, and if that benevolent spectre should intimate he were thirsty, with what alacrity would we proceed to compound a good stiff glass of grog-"just to keep the cold out-old fellow."

I have never met with any such amiable ghosts as these; the only sort I have seen have been of the disagreeable, greenery-yellery, out of the cellary, pah! to the nose! young men.

One I remember only too well-he was of the real grim and ghastly school of phantoms: this objectionable spirit was in the habit of whiling away the small hours of the long winter nights by prancing round my bedroom after I had gone to bed-most frequently after I had supped somewhat heartily, I will confess. His appearance was against him-he came in the guise of a skeleton shining all over with a greenish sepulchral light which shewed every bone distinctly. This too familiar spirit, after waltzing about the room for a short time, would leap on to my bed and proceed to kneel heavily upon what I may term the headquarters of my commissariat department, and grin a horrid baleful grin. into my face. After enduring the dreadful incubus for some minutes I managed to get up, seize the creature, carry him out of the room, and then drop him over the balustrade. Down went the horrid mass, clattering and jingling down three flights of stairs until it fell into fragments into the hall of the house. I would relock my door and retire to bed but not, alas! to sleep presently through the door came a skull, and then a leg, and then a rib, or as the late Dr. Young beautifully puts it

"Now charnels rattle; scattered limbs, and all
The various bones, obsequious to the call,
Self-moved advance; the neck, perhaps, to meet
The distant head; the distant legs the feet.
Dreadful to view!"

Until the phantom was reconstructed once more, and then the dismal drama would be repeated, the ghostly dance, the hop on the bed, the forcible removal, the throwing down stairs of the phantom, like that wicked Daddy Longlegs who wouldn't say his prayers, again and again through the long night, till welcome daylight did appear and chase away the doleful horrors of the night.

From my experience I find that the offensive ghosts are in a large majority-like, we will say, our Town Council, 60—4 may be said to be, in fact so numerous are they that but few persons would have either inclination or courage to call them from the vasty deep. Speaking for myself, I like my ghosts to wear trousers, if males, and-well-ulsters if of the fair sex-I prefer steady, whilome church-going and rate-paying ghosts to those uncomfortable bilious-looking chaps who enter with a shriek and depart with a yell.

If our talented writers would give us more of the former and less of