t. My aunt, who was almost as resolute a
personage as your uncle, sir, (turning to the old story-teller,) became
instantly calm and collected. She went on adjusting her dress. She even
hummed a favorite air, and did not make a single false note. She
casually overturned a dressing box; took a candle and picked up the
articles leisurely, one by one, from the floor, pursued a rolling
pin-cushion that was making the best of its way under the bed; then
opened the door; looked for an instant into the corridor, as if in
doubt whether to go; and then walked quietly out.

She hastened down-stairs, ordered the servants to arm themselves with
the first weapons that came to hand, placed herself at their head, and
returned almost immediately.

Her hastily levied army presented a formidable force. The steward had a
rusty blunderbuss; the coachman a loaded whip; the footman a pair of
horse pistols; the cook a huge chopping knife, and the butler a bottle
in each hand. My aunt led the van with a red-hot poker; and, in my
opinion, she was the most formidable of the party. The waiting maid
brought up the rear, dreading to stay alone in the servants' hall,
smelling to a broken bottle of volatile salts, and expressing her
terror of the ghosteses.

"Ghosts!" said my aunt resolutely, "I'll singe their whiskers for
them!"

They entered the chamber. All was still and undisturbed as when she
left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle.

"Pull me down that picture!" cried my aunt.

A heavy groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, was heard from
the portrait. The servants shrunk back. The maid uttered a faint
shriek, and clung to the footman.

"Instantly!" added my aunt, with a stamp of the foot.

The picture was pulled down, and from a recess behind it, in which had
formerly stood a clock, they hauled forth a round-shouldered,
black-bearded varlet, with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling all
over like an aspen leaf.

"Well, and who was he? No ghost, I suppose!" said the inquisitive
gentleman.

"A knight of the post," replied the narrator, "who had been smitten
with the worth of the wealthy widow; or rather a marauding Tarquin, who
had stolen into her chamber to violate her purse and rifle her strong
box when all the house should be asleep. In plain terms," continued he,
"the vagabond was a loose idle fellow of the neighborhood, who had once
been a servant in the house, and had been employed to assist in
arranging