“My daughter!” says the old man, as she nervously advances, her pale hand extended. “Poor woman! how she would mourn about this old dress; and say it contained something that might give her a chance in the world,” she rather whispers than speaks, disclosing two rows of small white teeth. She takes from the old man’s hand the package, and disappears. The anxiety she evinces over the charge discloses the fact that there is something of deep interest connected with it. Mr. McArthur was about to relate how he came by this seemingly worthless old package, when the property-man, becoming somewhat restless, and not holding in over high respect the old man’s rubbish, as he called it in his thoughts, commences drawing forth, piece after piece of the old relics. The old man will not allow this. “There, young man!” he says, touching him on the elbow, and resuming his labor. At length he draws forth the dust-tenanted skull, coated on the outer surface with greasy mould. “There!” he says, with an unrestrained exclamation of joy, holding up the wasting bone, “this was in its time poor Yorick’s skull. It was such a skull, when Yorick lived! Beneath this filthy remnant of past greatness (I always think of greatness when I turn to the past), this empty tenement, once the domain of wisdom, this poor bone, what thoughts did not come out?” And the old man shakes his head, mutters inarticulately, and weeps with the simplicity of a child. “The Star’ll have skulls and bones enough to make up for his want of talent now-I reckon,” interposes the property-man. “But!—I say, mister, this skull couldn’t a bin old Yorick’s, you know—” “Yorick’s!—why not?” interrupts the old man. “Because Yorick-Yorick was the King’s jester, you see-no nigger; and no one would think of importing anything but a nigger’s skull into Charleston—” “Young man!—if this skull had consciousness; if this had a tongue it would rebuke thee;” the old man retorts hastily, “for my ancestors knew Yorick, and Yorick kept up an intimate acquaintance with the ancestors of the very first families in this State, who were not shoemakers and milliners, as hath been maliciously charged, but good and pious Huguenots.” To the end that he may convince the unbelieving Thespian of the truth of his assertion, he commences to rub away the black coating with the sleeve of his coat, and there, to his infinite delight, is written, across the crown, in letters of red that stand out as bold as the State’s chivalry—“Alas! poor Yorick.” Tears of sympathy trickle down the old man’s cheeks, his eyes sparkle with excitement, and with womanly accents he mutters: “the days of poetry and chivalry are gone. It is but a space of time since this good man’s wit made Kings and Princes laugh with joy.”