“My dear, you know him well enough, though you cannot see him in this light--it is your husband, Mr. Lupton.” “No, no!” she exclaimed in a loud voice, and with a penetrating look at the indistinct figure beyond the table; “he cannot be come back again! I always feared what judgment he would come to, in spite of all my prayers for him; and to-night I saw a foul fiend carry his ghost away. You are not he, are you?” “Be assured I am, indeed, dear wife,” said the squire, rising from his chair, and advancing towards her; “you know me now. Give me your hand.” “If you be a gentleman, sir, leave me. The manners of this house have been corrupted so, that even strangers come here to insult me. Send him out, Mary; call William. I won't have men coming here, as though we were all disciples in the same school.” Mr. Lupton began to act upon the hint previously given by his fair visitor, by leaving his seat, and retreating towards the door:-- “Yes, sir,” continued his wife, “begone! for, as the sun shines in the daytime, and the moon by night, Mary, so I shall be to the end; and never wed again--never again,--never! Hark! I heard the rustling of a gown below that window. They are coming!” and she held up her hand in an attitude bidding silence, and listened. The dull roaring of the wind in the chimney-top, and the creak of the door-latch as Mr. Lupton closed it after him, were alone audible to the young lady whom she addressed. “Stay!” continued Mrs. Lupton, “perhaps his mother is bringing him home.” Her voice was at that instant interrupted by the unequivocal and distinct cry of a babe, uttered apparently within very few yards of them. “It is he!” shrieked the lady, as she strove by one energetic and convulsive spring to reach the window; but nature, overstrained so long, now failed her, and she fell like a stone, insensible, on the ground. Miss Shirley had started to her feet with terror, on hearing the first sound of that little living thing, which seemed to be close upon them in the room, or hidden behind the oaken panels of the wainscot: but before she could recover breath to raise an alarm, several of the domestics of the house rushed into the room; and seeing the situation of their mistress, raised her up, and by the direction of the squire, conveyed her up-stairs to her own apartment. While this was going on, others, at the bidding of Miss Shirley, examined both the room itself, and the outside of the premises; but as nothing could be seen, or even heard again, it was concluded either that the ladies had been deceived, or that the ghost of some buried ancestor had adopted this strange method of terrifying the present master of Kiddal into better morals. The logic, however, of this argument did not agree with Miss Shirley's conceptions; since, in that case, the squire, and not his lady, would have been the proper person for the ghost of his grandmother to appeal to.