t was thus left alone with this stripling?"

"Stripling, sir!" said I.

"Young man, let us not make the chamber of death a hall of contention.
Tell me, Miss Tremayne, how comes my patient thus unattended, or rather,
thus ill attended?"

"It was her own positive command," said the young lady, in a faltering
voice.

"Ah! she was always imperious, always obstinate. There must have been
some exciting conversation between you, sir (turning to me), and the
lady; did you say anything to vex or grieve her?"

"On the contrary; she was expressing the most unbounded hope and
happiness when she died."

"And the name of God was not on her lips, the prayer for pardon not in
her heart, when she was snatched away."

I shook my head. "Well," said he, "it is a solemn end, and she was a
wilful lady. Do you know, Miss Tremayne, if she has any relations
living?--they should be sent for."

"I know of none. A person of distinction, whose name I am not at
liberty to mention, sometimes visited her. We had better send for her
solicitor."

Some other conversation took place, which I hardly noticed. The body
was adjusted on the couch, we left the room, and the door was locked.
As I walked quietly, almost stealthily, home, I felt stunned. Health
and mortality, death and life, seemed so fearfully jumbled together,
that I almost doubted whether I was not traversing a city of spirits.

My Achates stared at me when I described to him the late occurrences.

"So you have at length discovered him?" said he.

"I have--a voice almost from the grave has imparted to me all that I
wished to know--and something more. I have sprung from a beautiful
race--but we must not speak ill of kith and kin, must we, Pigtop?"

"For certain not. And, so your father actually did send that old lord
to look after you at your return from the West Indies. Well, that shows
some affection for you, at all events."

"The fruits of which affection Daunton is, no doubt, now reaping."

"Well, let us go and cut his throat, or rather, turn him over to the
hangman."

"No, Pigtop; I have promised his mother that I will not attempt his
life."

"But I have not."

"Humph! let us to roost. To-morrow, at break of day, we will be off for
Rathelin Hall. See that our arms are in order. And now to what rest
nature and good consciences will afford us."

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE.

MR. PIGTOP BELIEVETH IN GHOSTS, AND HATH SOME TRUST IN WITCHES, BUT NONE
AT ALL IN L