The garden-front of the house was covered with jasmine, and it was a pure delight to stand in the summer twilight on the top of the stone steps inhaling the fragrance of the multitudinous blossoms. One evening, as I was standing on these steps alone, I saw something like the white head-dress of a tall figure advance from the right-hand grove,--the dark grove, as we called it,--and, after a brief interval, recede. This, at any rate, looked awful. Presently it appeared again, and again vanished. On which I jumped to my conclusion, and flew into the parlour with the announcement that there was a ghost in the dark grove. The whole family sallied forth to see the phenomenon. The appearances and disappearances continued. All conjectured what it could be, but none could divine. In a minute or two all the servants were in the hall. They all tried their skill, and were all equally unable to solve the riddle. At last, the master of the house leading the way, we marched in a body to the spot, and unravelled the mystery. It was a large bunch of flowers on the top of a tall lily, waving in the wind at the edge of the grove, and disappearing at intervals behind the stem of a tree. My ghost, and the compact phalanx in which we sallied against it, were long the subject of merriment. It was a cruel disappointment to Charles, who was obliged to abandon all hopes of having the house haunted. One day Charles was in disgrace with his elderly relation, who had exerted sufficient authority to make him a captive in his chamber. He was prohibited from seeing any one but me; and, of course, a most urgent messenger was sent to me express. I found him in his chamber, sitting by the fire, with a pile of ghostly tales, and an accumulation of lead, which he was casting into dumps in a mould. Dumps, the inexperienced reader must know, are flat circles of lead,--a sort of petty quoits,--with which schoolboys amused themselves half a century ago, and perhaps do so still, unless the march of mind has marched off with such vanities. No doubt, in the "astounding progress of intellect," the time will arrive when boys will play at philosophers instead of playing at soldiers,--will fight with wooden arguments instead of wooden swords,--and pitch leaden syllogisms instead of leaden dumps. Charles was before the dawn of this new light. He had cast several hundred dumps, and was still at work. The quibble did not occur to me at the time; but, in after years, I never heard of a man in the dumps without thinking of my schoolfellow. His position was sufficiently melancholy. His chamber was at the end of a long corridor. He was determined not to make any submission, and his captivity was likely to last till the end of his holidays. Ghost-stories, and lead for dumps, were his stores and provisions for standing the siege of _ennui_. I think, with the aid of his sister, I had some share in making his peace; but, such is the