It is a dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak November wind sweeps up old Long Wharf, swing slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter-nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the floor of that dark old counting-room. They were ever a mystery and a terror to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on a bleak November night, not many years ago, when I turned my steps, for the last time, up the trembling old stairway. It was just after nightfall. A single gas-burner threw a dim, uncertain light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-headed man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick, square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk, the other, which was planted squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the fashion of some years ago, and had, no doubt, served long as his 'Sunday best,' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of plain black, and though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of decidedly economical appearance. Every thing about him, indeed, wore an economical look. His scant coat-tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat, showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty years--when handing in his semi-annual trial-balances to the head of the house--declared that each one was his last, every body said he would continue to stand there till his own trial-balance was struck, and his earthly accounts were closed forever. As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and taking my hand warmly in his, exclaimed: 'My dear boy'--I was nearly forty--'I am glad to see you.' 'I am glad to see _you_, David.' 'Why, bless me, Mr. Kirke, is that you?' exclaimed a much younger man, springing from his seat near the other, and grasping me by both hands. 'What has brought you to Boston?' 'Business, Frank. I've just arrived, and go back to-morrow. Come! my wife is in the carriage at the door, and wants you to spend the evening with us.' 'I can't--I'm very sorry,' and he added, in a lower tone, '_she_ has just heard of her father's death, and goes home to-morrow. I have engaged to pass the evening with her.'