For private reasons of my own, I traveled south. Margaret bloomed again; as for her aunt, she was a peony in fullest flower. She had a breezy house by the sea-side, abominated dirt and spiders, and, before we had been five minutes together, abused me for having lavender-water upon my handkerchief. She hated smells, it seemed; she carried her antipathy so far as to throw a bouquet out of the window which I had been putting together with great patience and pains for Margaret. We talked of the old house at ----. "I tell you what it is, Peggy," she said, "if ever you marry, ghost or no ghost, you're the heir of the Holyokes, and in the old house you shall live. As soon as Miss Williams has quitted, I'll put on my bonnet and run across with you into the north." And so she did. We stalked together into the desolate old house. It echoed our tread dismally. "Peggy," said aunt Anne with her eyes quite fixed, "Peggy, I smell a smell. Let's go down stairs." We went into the kitchen. "Peggy," the old lady said, "it's very bad. I think it's Sir Godfrey." "O aunt!" said Margaret, laughing; "he died in Palestine, and is dust long ago." "I'm sure it's Sir Godfrey," said aunt Anne. "You fellow," to me, "just take the bar belonging to that window-shutter, and come along with me. Peggy, show us Sir Godfrey's cellar." Margaret changed color. "What," said the old lady, "flinch at a ghost you don't believe in! I'm not afraid, see; yet I'm sure Sir Godfrey's in the cellar. Come along." We came and stood before the mysterious door with its enormous padlock. "I smell the ghost distinctly," said aunt Anne. Margaret did not know ghosts had a smell. "Break the door open, you chap." I battered with the bar, the oaken planks were rotten and soon fell apart--some fell into the cellar with a plash. There was a foul smell. A dark cellar had a very little daylight let into it--we could just see the floor covered with filth, in which some of the planks had sunk and disappeared. "There," said the old lady, "there's the stuff your ghost had in his cup. There's your Sir Godfrey who poisons sleepers, and cuts off your children and your girls. Bah! We'll set to work, Peggy; it's clear your ancestors knew or cared nothing about drainage. We'll have the house drained properly, and that will be the death of the goblin." So it was, as our six children can testify. A REMINISCENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The following sketch of his life was given to me by the subject of it, while living as M. Hippolyte in a retired quarter of Paris, and procuring a subsistence by following the profession of a baker: