And--joy does not often kill. Barnett was able to understand it all better than might have been expected. He was never _quite_ himself, but infinitely better both in mind and body than poor old Betsy had ever dreamt of seeing him. And he was perfectly content--content to live as long as it should please God to spare him to his little Nell; ready to go to his Marion when the time should come. And Ellinor had her wish--a home, though not a "grand" one; some one of her "very own" to care for; a father's devoted love, and, to complete her happiness, the friends who had grown so dear to her close at hand. More may yet be hers in the future, for she is still young. Her father may live to see his grandchildren playing about the farmstead at Mayling, so that, though the name be changed, the old stock will still nourish where so many generations of its ancestors have sown and reaped. AT THE DIP OF THE ROAD. Have I ever seen a ghost? I do not know. That is the only reply I can truthfully make to the question now-a-days so often asked. And sometimes, if inquirers care to hear more, I go on to tell them the one experience which makes it impossible for me to reply positively either in the affirmative or negative, and restricts me to "I do not know". This was the story. I was staying with relations in the country. Not a very isolated or out-of-the-way part of the world, and yet rather inconvenient of access by the railway. For the nearest station was six miles off. Though the family I was visiting were nearly connected with me I did not know much of their home or its neighbourhood, as the head of the house, an uncle of mine by marriage, had only come into the property a year or two previously to the date of which I am writing, through the death of an elder brother. It was a nice place. A good comfortable old house, a prosperous, satisfactory estate. Everything about it was in good order, from the farmers, who always paid their rents, to the shooting, which was always good; from the vineries, which were noted, to the woods, where the earliest primroses in all the country side were yearly to be found. And my uncle and aunt and their family deserved these pleasant things and made a good use of them. But there was a touch of the commonplace about it all. There was nothing picturesque or romantic. The country was flat though fertile, the house, though old, was conveniently modern in its arrangements, airy, cheery, and bright. "Not even a ghost, or the shadow of one," I remember saying one day with a faint grumble. "Ah, well--as to that," said my uncle, "perhaps we----" but just then something interrupted him, and I forgot his unfinished speech.