it in amber, and over
the olive groves as if they had become moss agates. . . .

["'Or I,' quoth Flaxius, 'a fly in hock.']

"Yes, it was a clear, cold, Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells
went out into eternity and faded in the irrevocable, thousands of spirits
of the departed began to appear, thronging like fireflies through the
streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes, greeting, gossiping,
arranging their affairs just as the peasants do on Friday in the great
place of the Signoria, as they have done for centuries.

"Flaxius looked at the rolling river which went rushing by at his feet,
and said:

"'_Arno mio_, you are in a tremendous hurry to get to the sea, and all
the more so because you have just had an _accessit_--a remittance of rain
from the mountain-banks. _Buon pro vi faccia_--much good may it do you!
So every shopman hurries to become a great merchant when he gets some
money, and every farmer a signore, and every signore a great lord, and
every great lord a ruler at court and over all the land--_prorsum et
sursum_. And when they get there--or when you get to the sea--then ye
are all swallowed up in greater lives, interests, and actions, and so the
rivers run for ever on, larger yet ever seeming less unto yourselves.
And so--_ad altiora tendunt omnes_--the flower-edged torrent and the
Florentine.' . . .

"When he suddenly heard above his head a spirit voice, clear, sweet and
strange, ringing, not in words, but tones of unearthly music--of which
languages there are many among the Unearthlies, all being wordless songs
or airs suggesting speech, and yet conveying ideas far more rapidly. It
was the Goblin of the Tower calling to him of the tower next beyond on
the farther hill, and he said:

"'How many ghosts there are out to-night!'

"'Yes; it is a fine night for ghosting. Moonlight is mid-summer for
them, poor souls! But I say, brother, who is yonder _frate_, the dark
monk-spectre who always haunts your tower, lingering here and there about
it? What is the spell upon that _spirito_?'

"'He is one to be pitied,' replied the Goblin of the Trinita. 'He was a
good fellow while he lived, but a little too fond of money. He was
afflicted with what doctors called, when I was young in Rome, the _amor
sceleratus habendi_. So it came to pass that he died leaving a
treasure--_mille aureos_--a thousand gold crowns buried in my tower
unknown to any one, and for that he must walk the earth un