The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1884-11-15
4 WIERD STORY.


i small party of ladies and gen
tlemcn engaged in conversation were
sitting after dinner in the spacious
grounds of an ancient manor.
The doors of the mansion stood
wide open. The evening breeze
whispered and rustled through the
branches OF the huge lindens, the
shadows grew longer and longer,
ink-black beneath the leafy roof of
boughs, lighter on the patches OF
turf.
1t was Il mild summer evening,
still, yet full OF strange, mysterious
sounds; the soft breeze hoatcd into
the doors, bearing with it the heavy
fragrance of the flowers. In the
gathering dusk the members of the
group could scarcly see each other.
Conversation languished, passing
from subject to subject; no one
seemed inclined to enter upon a
lengthy discussion.
Suddenly one of the party began
to relate an mecdote of ghost he
had seen on an evening like this.
The plan was successful. Several
tales followed; but the young daugh-
ter of the house, Anna, continued to
ask for more. 1t was so amusing to
hear these marvellous stories; mag
inc the white and black spectres
moving noiselessly in dense shadow
or dazzling moonlight, feel Il strange
borrow chill her blood, and then
lean against her mother, finding
safety in her embrace. She could
not endure Candidate Holst's way
of taking these stories; his scornlul
comments tore ugly rents in the
/ dreamy veil in which she wrapped
herself.
He was medical student and
had witnessed many similar things
in the hospital. It was owingto the
sickness acting upon different indi-
vidual. Either the patient, when
his Imagination was excited, mis-
took towel, on which the moon
was shining, for phantom, and the
shricking of the wind in old houses
for ghostly cries and the clank OF
chains, or the whole atlnir was pure
ly hallucination. Any person in a
healthy. normal condition never saw
ghosts.
The whole party opposed his view
There was surely some truth at the
bottom of all these tales. There
were a thousand things which could
not he explained by natural causes.
Anna was warmly seconded by
Holsts youngerbrother, Victor, who
had arrived at the house with him
that morning, though he was inilu-
enced more by courtesy to the pret-
ty young girl than because he really
felt any fear of ghosts. He could
not bear to have his brother appear
to place himself in such contemptu-
Gus opposition to pair of such
beautiful bright eyes, so he fought
stout battle against his own con-
victions.
"The history of such things" " said
the candidate, "is contrary to sound
sense and reason. They are misera-
Bile relics of the darkness of the mid
die ages, which can only check pre-
gress. 1t would be an utterly idi-
otic proceeding for dead folk to
walk abroad and tcrnify the living.
Tradition carries such tales from
generation to generation, and if not
subjected to severe scientific criti-
cism they retain their vitality and
are believed. 1t is the same kind
of superstition as that which makes
, simple folk afraid to sit thirteen at
a table. In nine eases out of ten
nothing happens, and there isn't
even one person who thinks of the
matter. In the tenth, perhaps, one
of the company dies, which is GER
tainly in accordance with the course
of nature. Instantly it is said You
remember; you remember, we sat
thirteen at table that day SO the
superstition obtains nourishment fol-
long time. No, thank God, the
fresh breeze of knowledge will sweep
away all such things like dank, mn
wholesome fogs."
"Ycs, we old people must be par
doncd," the mistress of the house
gently interposed "we don't come
so much in contact with the fresh
breeze of science as perhaps We
ought. We live, they say, wholly in
tradition, and this thrives nowhere
so well as in an old manor like this
1t is very difficult to release our,
selves from the ideas in which We
were reared, and which our ances
; tors believed. | am far from being
what IL called supcrstitious; have
never been in contact with these
strange spirits-yet not for all The
} world would sleep in the blue
chambpr.n