My
talk about ghosts must have made that foolishly fond heart ache with a
vague dread that night, and for many a night onward, I fear.
For some time after this I would often look up to find my mother's eyes
fixed upon me. Especially closely did she watch me at feeding times, and
on these occasions, as the meal progressed, her face would acquire an
expression of satisfaction and relief.
Once, during dinner, I heard her whisper to my father (for children are
not quite so deaf as their elders think), "He seems to eat all right."
"Eat!" replied my father in the same penetrating undertone; "if he dies
of anything, it will be of eating."
So my little mother grew less troubled, and, as the days went by, saw
reason to think that my brother angels might consent to do without me for
yet a while longer; and I, putting away the child with his ghostly
fancies, became, in course of time, a grown-up person, and ceased to
believe in ghosts, together with many other things that, perhaps, it were
better for a man if he did believe in.
But the memory of that dingy graveyard, and of the shadows that dwelt
therein, came back to me very vividly the other day, for it seemed to me
as though I were a ghost myself, gliding through the silent streets where
once I had passed swiftly, full of life.
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