now at the last
gasp--" Apparently, there was some powerful excitement in the ideas
which had now flashed across his mind. He snatched the torch from his
companion's hand, and threw open the door with such sudden violence
that the flame was extinguished, leaving them no other light than the
moonbeams which fell through two windows into the spacious chamber. It
was sufficient to discover all that could be known. In a high-backed
oaken arm-chair, upright, with her hands clasped across her breast and
her head thrown back, sat the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet. The
stately dame had fallen on her knees with her forehead on the holy
knees of the Old Maid, one hand upon the floor and the other pressed
convulsively against her heart. It clutched a lock of hair--once
sable, now discolored with a greenish mould.

As the priest and layman advanced into the chamber the Old Maid's
features assumed such a semblance of shifting expression that they
trusted to hear the whole mystery explained by a single word. But it
was only the shadow of a tattered curtain waving betwixt the dead face
and the moonlight.

"Both dead!" said the venerable man. "Then who shall divulge the
secret? Methinks it glimmers to and fro in my mind like the light and
shadow across the Old Maid's face. And now 'tis gone!"

PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.

"And so, Peter, you won't even consider of the business?" said Mr.
John Brown, buttoning his surtout over the snug rotundity of his
person and drawing on his gloves. "You positively refuse to let me
have this crazy old house, and the land under and adjoining, at the
price named?"

"Neither at that, nor treble the sum," responded the gaunt, grizzled
and threadbare Peter Goldthwaite. "The fact is, Mr. Brown, you must
find another site for your brick block and be content to leave my
estate with the present owner. Next summer I intend to put a splendid
new mansion over the cellar of the old house."

"Pho, Peter!" cried Mr. Brown as he opened the kitchen door; "content
yourself with building castles in the air, where house-lots are
cheaper than on earth, to say nothing of the cost of bricks and
mortar. Such foundations are solid enough for your edifices, while
this underneath us is just the thing for mine; and so we may both be
suited. What say you, again?"

"Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown," answered Peter Goldthwaite.
"And, as for castles in the air, mine may not be as magnificent as
that sor