The sacristan of Notre Dame des Grèves dwelt in a little cottage quite close to the church. He was an exact and pious man; he had the keys of the sacred edifice and the care of the bells. Several worthy priests were attached to the lovely church; the earliest Masses were never rung except by the honest sacristan. Now, one morning, during the Christmas holydays, he heard, before day, the tinkle of one of his bells announcing a Mass. He rose immediately and ran to the window. The snow- covered roofs enabled him to see objects so distinctly that he thought the day was beginning to dawn. He hastened to put on his clothes and go to the church. The total solitude and silence reigning all around him made him understand that he was mistaken and that day was not yet breaking. He tried to go into the church, however, but the door was closed. How, then, could he have heard the bell? If robbers had got in, they would certainly have taken good care not to touch the bell. He listens; not the slightest noise in the holy place. Should he return home? Not so, for having heard the bell, he must go in. He opens a little door leading into the sacristy; he passes through that, and advances towards the choir. By the light of the small lamp burning before the tabernacle and that of a taper already lighted, he perceives, at the foot of the altar, a priest robed in a chasuble, and in the attitude of a celebrant about to commence Mass. All is prepared for the Holy Sacrifice. He stops in dismay. The priest, a stranger to him, is extremely pale; his hands are as white as his alb; his eyes shine like the glow-worm, the light going forth, as it were, from the very centre of the orbits. "Serve my Mass," he said gently to the sacristan. The latter obeyed, spell-bound with terror. But if the pallor of the priest and the singular fire of his eyes frightened him, his voice, on the contrary, was mild and melancholy. The Mass goes on. At the elevation of the Sacred Host the limbs of the priest tremble and give forth a sound like that of dry reeds shaken by the wind. At the _Domine, non sum dignus_, his breast, which he strikes three times, sounds like the coffin when the first shovel-full of earth is cast upon it by the grave-digger. The Precious Blood produces in his whole body the effect of water which, in the silence of the night, falls drop by drop from the roof. When he turns to say _Ita Missa est_, the priest is only a skeleton, and that skeleton speaks these words to the server: "Brother, I thank thee! In my life-time, I was a priest; I owed this Mass at my death. Thou hast helped me to discharge my debt; my soul is freed from a heavy burden." The spectre then disappeared. The sacristan saw the vestments fall gently at the foot of the altar, and the burning taper suddenly went out. At that moment, a cock crowed somewhere in the neighborhood. The sacristan took up the vestments, and passed the rest of the night in prayer. THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. SIR WALTER SCOTT.