everywhere--or--Randolph shuddered in spite of himself. It is generally people without imagination, or with the most elementary and rude embryo of that poetic faculty, who see ghosts. This sounds like a paradox, yet there is reason in it. The people who are literal and matter-of-fact in mind, are those to whom wonders and prodigies come naturally; those who possess the finer eye of fancy do not need those actual revelations. Randolph’s was as stolid a mind as ever asked for a sign--and he had not asked for a sign in this case, nor felt that anything of the kind was necessary; but his entire mental balance was upset by what he had seen, or supposed himself to have seen; and he could not free his mind from the impression. As he sat and read, or rather pretended to read, his mind kept busy with the one question--What was it? Was it a real person, a stranger who had got astray, and stumbled into some copse or brushwood, which Randolph had forgotten--a man with a chance resemblance to John, heightened by the pre-occupation and previous reference to John in Randolph’s mind? or was it John himself, come to look after his own interests--John--in the body, or out of the body, who could tell? As for Nello, he ran home by the water-side, his mind possessed by the new thing that was about to be accomplished--school! Boys to play with, novelty of all kinds, and then that cricket, which he pretended to despise, but secretly admired and desired with all his heart--the game which came to Johnny Pen by nature, but which the little foreign boy could not master; all this buzzed through his little head. When he came home from school he would know all about it; he would have played with much better players than Johnny Pen ever saw. The revolution in his thoughts was great and sudden. But as he ran home, eager to tell Lilias about the change in his fortunes, Nello too met with a little adventure. He came suddenly, just as he emerged from the woods upon the water-side where it was open to the road, on a man whom he had repeatedly seen before, and who was generally accompanied by a dog, which was Nello’s admiration. The dog was not with his master now; but he took a something white and furry out of his great pocket, which stopped Nello even in the hot current of his excitement. “Would you like to have this, my little gentleman?” the man said. It was a white rabbit, with the biggest ears that Nello had ever seen. How his eyes danced that had been all aglow before! “But I have no money,” he said, disposed to cry in disappointment as sudden as his delight. “It’s not for money, it’s a present,” said the stranger, with a smile, “and I’ll give you another soon. They tell me you’re going to school, my young gentleman; is that true?”