the floor at a little
distance. Old Bose, who always slept with one eye open, saw it fall, and
marched deliberately up to smell it.

"Bose--Bose--don't touch!" cried his mistress, and bending over it with
beating heart, she turned as red as fire. There was as handsome a
capital S as any one could wish to see.

A great knock came suddenly at the door. Bose growled, and the widow
screamed and snatched up the apple-peel.

"It's Mr. T.--it's his spirit come back again, because I tried that
silly trick," she thought fearfully to herself.

Another knock--louder than the first, and a man's voice exclaimed:

"Hello--the house!"

"Who is it?" asked the widow, somewhat relieved to find that the
departed Levi was still safe in his grave on the hillside.

"A stranger," said the voice.

"What do you want?"

"To get a lodging here for the night."

The widow deliberated.

"Can't you go on? There's a house half a mile farther, if you keep to
the right-hand side of the road, and turn to the left after you get
by--"

"It's raining cats and dogs, and I'm very delicate," said the stranger,
coughing. "I'm wet to the skin: don't you think you can accommodate
me?--I don't mind sleeping on the floor."

"Raining, is it? I didn't know that," and the kind-hearted little woman
unbarred the door very quickly. "Come in, whoever you may be; I only
asked you to go on because I am a lone woman, with only one servant in
the house."

The stranger entered, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog upon the
step, and scattering a little shower of drops over his hostess and her
nicely swept floor.

"Ah, that looks comfortable after a man has been out for hours in a
storm," he said, as he caught sight of the fire; and striding along
toward the hearth, followed by Bose, who sniffed suspiciously at his
heels, he stationed himself in the arm-chair--_Mr. Townsend's
arm-chair_! which had been kept "sacred to his memory" for seven years.
The widow was horrified, but her guest looked so weary and worn-out that
she could not ask him to move, but busied herself in stirring up the
blaze that he might the sooner dry his dripping clothes.

A new thought struck her: Mr. T. had worn a comfortable dressing-gown
during his illness, which still hung in the closet at her right. She
could not let this poor man catch his death, by sitting in that wet
coat. If he was in Mr. Townsend's chair, why should he not be in Mr.
Townsend's wrapper? She went nimbly to