"Yes," he said, "that was her very face. I was a bit scared and said something--I don't know what--and she laughed and said, 'Did I think she was a ghost?' and I answered back, and I stayed talking to her over the churchyard wall till 'twas quite dark, and the glowworms were out in the wet grass all along the way home. "Next night I saw her again; and the next night and the next. Always at twilight time; and if I passed any lovers leaning on the stiles in the marshes it was nothing to me now." Again my uncle paused. "It's very long ago," he said slowly, "and I'm an old man; but I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was always lame, and the girls used to laugh at me. I don't know how long it went on--you don't measure time in dreams--but at last your grandfather said I looked as if I had one foot in the grave, and he would be sending me to stay with our kin at Bath and take the waters. I had to go. I could not tell my father why I would rather had died than go." "What was her name, uncle?" I asked. "She never would tell me her name, and why should she? I had names enough in my heart to call her by. Marriage? My dear, even then I knew marriage was not for me. But I met her night after night, always in our churchyard where the yew-trees were and the lichened gravestones. It was there we always met and always parted. The last time was the night before I went away. She was very sad, and dearer than life itself. And she said-- "'If you come back before the new moon I shall meet you here just as usual. But if the new moon shines on this grave and you are not here--you will never see me again any more.' "She laid her hand on the yellow lichened tomb against which we had been leaning. It was an old weather-worn stone, and bore on it the inscription-- 'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, _Ob._ 1713.' "'I shall be here.' I said. "'I mean it,' she said, with deep and sudden seriousness, 'it is no fancy. You will be here when the new moon shines?'" "I promised, and after a while we parted. "I had been with my kinsfolk at Bath nearly a month. I was to go home on the next day, when, turning over a case in the parlour, I came upon that miniature. I could not speak for a minute. At last I said, with dry tongue, and heart beating to the tune of heaven and hell-- "'Who is this?' "'That?' said my aunt. 'Oh! she was betrothed to one of our family many years ago, but she died before the wedding. They say she was a bit of a witch. A handsome one, wasn't she?' "I looked again at the face, the lips, the eyes of my dear and lovely love, whom I was to meet to-morrow night when the new moon shone on that tomb in our churchyard. "'Did you say she was dead?' I asked, and I hardly knew my own voice. "'Years and years ago! Her name's on the back and her date----' "I took the portrait from its faded red-velvet bed, and read on the back--'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, _Ob._ 1713.' "That was in 1813." My uncle stopped short.