Another aspect of the later as distinguished from the earlier occult literature is the attention paid to ghostly children. Youngsters are coming to the front of the stage everywhere nowadays, particularly in America, so it is but natural that they should demand to be heard as well as seen, in supernatural fiction. In the Gothic ghosts I found no individualized children, and children in groups only twice. In one of James Hogg's short novels a vicious man is haunted on his death-bed by the specters of little ones dead because of him, but they are nameless and indistinguishable. In Maturin's _The Albigenses_ a relentless persecutor, while passing through a lonely forest, sees the phantoms of those he has done to death, little children and babes at the breast, as well as men and women. But here again they are not given separable character, but are merely group figures, hence do not count. There is a ghost-child mentioned in Hawthorne's _Blithedale Romance_, but it is not until more recent fiction that children's ghosts enter personated and individualized. The exquisitely shy little ones in Kipling's _They_ are among the most wonderful of his child-creations, very human and lovable. In a war story,[216] he shows us the phantoms of several children whom the Germans have killed, natural youngsters with appealing childish attributes, especially the small boy with his pride in his first trousers. Arthur Machen[217] tells of a German soldier who has crucified a child against the church door and is driven to insanity by the baby spirit. Quiller-Couch[218] shows the specter of a little girl that returns at night to do housework for the living, visible only as two slender hands, who reminds us of the shepherd boy Richard Middleton tells of, who having died because of his drunken father's neglect, comes back to help him tend the sheep. Algernon Blackwood relates the story of a little child who has been wont to pray for the unquiet ghost of Petavel, a wicked man who haunts his house. After the child is dead, the mother sees the little boy leading Petavel by the hand, and says, "He's leading him into peace and safety. Perhaps that's why God took him." [216] _Swept and Garnished._ [217] In _The Monstrance_, another story of the war. [218] In _A Pair of Hands_.