Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-19
The Mystery Joe Morgan.
By WALTER BESANT.

met, we saw, we conquered each other.
 Eleanor's parents made fewer objections than feared, my fears being based upon the l usual grounds. I was given to understand that the duration of the engagement depended entirely upon myself, and, as was already perilously near 30, hastened to bring mat ters to speedy termination. The remark | able intolerance to the realization of my
 hopes, arising out of circumstances entirely ! unlocked for and beyond my control, forms the subject Of this paper. It was not a pleasant experience, and yet it gives me a sense of pleasure to recall it; just as an old l salt will delight in dwelling on the dangers of the ocean. There is nothing, strictly speaking, horrible about it. At the same time. when l write it down in cold blood, l am conscious of tingling of the nerves and ! tendency to look over the left shoulder.
 This, l suppose, will never leave me. It is distinction, l know-perhaps a small one, like the Companionship of the Bath, or that ! of the order of St. Michael and St. George
 or the queer Turkish decorations with which old Crimean officers love to decorate them
 selves-but still distinction. It is not everybody, even now, who can tell of visits from the other world; and the constant eompanionship of a ghost seems to me naturally inclined to exaggerate on such a subject-an adventure, perhaps, little out 1 Of the common.
 l had taken and furnished, in readiness for my wedding, small detached villa, some few miles out of London. It was a new house,
 with-though did not think of that-no pos 1 sible memories of the past to awaken dis agreeable thoughts; a pretty little house, 1 standing between lawn on the front and @ l garden behind, with stables on one side and Q "library" built out on the other. There were the usual trees in the front-a laburnum, | a hlac a laurestinus arrow of Hines, enough l to shade the house from the road and give the appearance of privacy such as every | Londoner loves But it was not a gloomy house. It stood east and west, so that the | drawing room, which ran the whole depth of ! the house, was never without sunshine when | eyer there might be any going The view | from the back was perfectly cheerful; beyond the garden lay green fields, and beyond these | stretched noble rark studded with elms bright, cheerful and comfortable house On the north, separated by several houses and out of sight, therefore out of mind, was @ cemetery, belonging to great town thnly populated. Had I noticed it at all I should have laughed at the 'idea of specters in connection with so s1nil- ing a garden. Ghosts, might have said, prowl about grim old church yards, whose falling tombstones are green with moss, on whose slabs cGngs the yellow Gchen; where the grass grows tall and rank and the bram- bles stretch along thorny arms across the paths, whose worn stones once preserved the names of the long forgotten dead. They love the old country Gods acre, piled eight or ten feet high with human mold, where every pinch of dust contains what is left of life once filled with hopes and fears. But not a new cemetery; not 8 formal place planted with loj jI ont in vel walks and lying around two perky little chapels, which stand face to face, turning up spiteful noses ct each other and breathing q post-mortem defiance. Is there bogey ridden boy living who would fear to pass night in Finchly cemetery, or dread to sit out few dark hours alone in Nunhead2
 l was mistaken. The truth Is that the new ness of cemetery is no proof of its tranquil lity. Comparatively are as are the visits of ghosts, they may come from a cemetery handseled only a week ago. mere upstart thing of yesterday. as well as from a grave yard whose long annals are dark with the se- crets of thousand unknown murders. One Is never safe, and the only way to insure inn munity from these generally unwelcome wis., itors is, perhaps, to live as far as possible from churchyard of any kind. Ihave been particular in describing my house, because I wish it clearly understood that there was not either about the place or its neighborhood, any predisposition to ghosts. Nor was there about myself. am not an imaginative man; there are no poems, romances, or novels with my name U them. l have no patience with people who can forget their own real troubles in reading of those which never happened; and, for the life of me, cannot have any in- terest in the loves of anybody but myself. 1 am not, therefore, man likely to be the prey of hallucinations. l am no pulling poet trembling at shadow, nor am I one of those poor specter smtten imbeciles who turn a branch into warning finger, and snow drift into sheeted wrath. This considera- tion makes my trifing experience the more credible.
 The situation is this: An unimaginative man of thirty, whose days are spent in busi- ness; new suburban villa; bright, sum- shiny country; neighbors all round one, and 6 new cemetery hundred yards distance l from the house.
 To this house and to this man the Ghost | came.
 | And in this wise:
 It was in August, when the days begin to close in early and it grows dark at s. was sitting after dinner, trying to get sentimental over my approaching happiness, and pictur- ing to myself Eleanor in the easy chair oppo- site me It was 8 feeble attempt at expert encing the pleasures of imagination, because l could not picture any one at all. Then I took a book and opened 1t with yawn. My l back was to the window, which overlooked the garden behind the house. The light was fading, but as my eyes followed the lines me chanically and my thoughts were elsewhere, | that mattered little. Outside the house there was a stiffness extraordinary-no stirring of the leaves; no breath in the air; no voices r from my own kitchen; no sounds from the houses on either side, which were locked up, their tenants being at the seaside; not even the distant bark of dog, or the distant l roll of a carriage, to show that there was another living person in tho world beside myself. Then curious feeling came over me; suddenly realized the fact that life may go on in invisible, intangible forms. l looked around with shudder. I expected something. The room became, with
 put warning, distinctly darker, the air grew chill; felt cold dews upon my forehead.
 Remember that up to this moment there was no reason at all-none whatever-for alarm.
 Yet became unaccountably afraid. turned l to the window for relief, and there-there | saw 1t for the first time.
 It was standing outside the window, dark
 shadow, clearly outlined against the, sky;
 colorless, and yet its draperies were like ! ,%n ol1 eho