ion whatever between the rush-wick
and--"

"Don't tell her what HE says," cried Raby, with a sudden fury that made
Grace start and open her eyes. "I know the puppy. He is what is called
a divine nowadays; but used to be called a skeptic. There never was so
infidel an age. Socinus was content to prove Jesus Christ a man; but
Renan has gone and proved him a Frenchman. Nothing is so gullible as an
unbeliever. The right reverend father in God, Cocker, has gnawed away
the Old Testament: the Oxford doctors are nibbling away the New: nothing
escapes but the apocrypha: yet these same skeptics believe the impudent
lies, and monstrous arithmetic of geology, which babbles about a
million years, a period actually beyond the comprehension of the human
intellect; and takes up a jaw-bone, that some sly navvy has transplanted
over-night from the churchyard into Lord knows what stratum, fees the
navvy, gloats over the bone, and knocks the Bible down with it. No, Mr.
Coventry, your story is a good one, and well told; don't let us defile
it with the comments of a skeptical credulous pedant. Fill your glass,
sir. Here's to old religion, old stories, old songs, old houses, old
wine, old friends, or" (recovering himself with admirable grace) "to
new friends that are to be old ones ere we die. Come, let the stronger
vessel drink, and the weaker vessel sip, and all say together, after
me--

"Well may we all be,
Ill may we never see,
That make good company,
Beneath the roof of Raby."

When this rude rhyme had been repeated in chorus, there was a little
silence, and the conversation took a somewhat deeper tone. It began
through Grace asking Mr. Raby, with all the simplicity of youth,
whether he had ever seen anything supernatural with his own eyes. "For
instance," said she, "this deserted church of yours, that you say the
shepherd said he saw on fire--did YOU see that?"

"Not I. Indeed, the church is not in sight from here. No, Grace, I
never saw any thing supernatural: and I am sorry for it, for I laugh at
people's notion that a dead man has any power to injure the living; how
can a cold wind come from a disembodied spirit? I am all that a ghost
is, and something more; and I only wish I COULD call the dead from
their graves; I'd soon have a dozen gentlemen and ladies out of that old
church-yard into this very room. And, if they would only come, you would
see me converse with them as civilly and as calmly as I am doing