e have been really mad."

"It was a strange occurrence, altogether, I believe, was it?" inquired
the stranger.--"Indeed it was, sir. I hardly know the particulars, there
have been so many tales afloat; though they all concur in one point, and
that is, it has destroyed the peace of one family."

"Who has done so?"--"The vampyre."

"Indeed! I never heard of such an animal, save as a fable, before; it
seems to me extraordinary."

"So it would do to any one, sir, as was not on the spot, to see it; I'm
sure I wouldn't."

* * * * *

In the meantime, the procession, short as it was of itself, moved along
in slow time through a throng of people who ran out of their houses on
either side of the way, and lined the whole length of the town.

Many of these closed in behind, and followed the mourners until they
were near the church, and then they made a rush to get into the
churchyard.

As yet all had been conducted with tolerable propriety, the funeral met
with no impediment. The presence of death among so many of them seemed
some check upon the licence of the mob, who bowed in silence to the
majesty of death.

Who could bear ill-will against him who was now no more? Man, while he
is man, is always the subject of hatred, fear, or love. Some one of
these passions, in a modified state, exists in all men, and with such
feelings they will regard each other; and it is barely possible that any
one should not be the object of some of these, and hence the stranger's
corpse was treated with respect.

In silence the body proceeded along the highway until it came to the
churchyard, and followed by an immense multitude of people of all
grades.

The authorities trembled; they knew not what all this portended. They
thought it might pass off; but it might become a storm first; they hoped
and feared by turns, till some of them fell sick with apprehension.

There was a deep silence observed by all those in the immediate vicinity
of the coffin, but those farther in the rear found full expression for
their feelings.

"Do you think," said an old man to another, "that he will come to life
again, eh?"--"Oh, yes, vampyres always do, and lay in the moonlight, and
then they come to life again. Moonlight recovers a vampyre to life
again."

"And yet the moonlight is cold."--"Ah, but who's to tell what may happen
to a vampyre, or what's hot or what's cold?"

"Certainly not; oh, dear, no."--"And then they have