These remarks must smooth the way to the confession that in the present volume no "human interest" will be found, or has been attempted. The gist of the work (or at least of three-fourths of it) is to show how the impossible might occur. Now, in order to appreciate the delicate flavour of a ghost, it is indispensable that the palate should not be cloyed by a contemporary diet of flesh and blood. In other words, the reality of the personages amidst whom the disembodied spirit appears should be insisted upon no further than is necessary to the telling them apart; only that side of the human figures which is most in accord with the superhuman should be made prominent. If the writer has managed this part of his business properly, he is open to criticism only in so far as he may have sinned in the way of conception and literary execution; and upon those points he is happily spared the necessity of pronouncing judgment. He may however be permitted to observe that the following stories are among the very lightest and least profound of their class; there are no tears or terrors in them; barely even a smile or a sigh; and, in short, their success--should they achieve any--will be mainly due to the fact that with such small pretensions failure would actually become difficult. One of the tales, it should be added, is a mere _jeu d'esprit_, the presence of which in the collection is justifiable only on the plea that it makes believe to be what the others are--relieving a note too monotonously sounded by lowering it to the key of mockery. Possibly, nevertheless, it may turn out to be the float which will save the weightier portion of the cargo from going too speedily to the bottom. All the stories have appeared, during the last four years, in various periodicals, to the editors of which my acknowledgments are due for leave to reproduce them. _January, 1879._ CONTENTS. PAGE THE LAUGHING MILL 3 CALBOT'S RIVAL 105 MRS. GAINSBOROUGH'S DIAMONDS 177 THE CHRISTMAS GUEST. A Myth 295 THE LAUGHING MILL. I.