wrote his name
in ink upon the back of the canvas."

Old Mr. Scott took up the picture and turned it around. And there we all
saw plainly written upon the time-stained back, "Tatlow Munson, 1780."

Old Mr. Scott laid the picture upon the table, took off his spectacles,
and with wide-open eyes gazed first at Mr. Kilbright and then at us.

The sight of the picture had finished the conversion of my wife. "Oh,
Mr. Scott," she cried, leaning so far forward in her chair that it
seemed as if she were about to go down on her knees before the old man,
"this gentleman is your grandfather! Yes, he is, indeed! Oh, don't
discard him, for it was you who were the cause of his being here. Don't
you remember when you went to the spiritualist meeting, and asked to see
the spirit of your grandfather? That spirit came, but you didn't know
it. The people who materialized him were surprised when they saw this
young man, and they thought he couldn't be your grandfather, and so they
didn't say anything about it; and they left him right in the middle of
whatever they use, and he kept on materializing without their thinking
of him until he became just what you see him now. And if he now wore
old-fashioned clothes with a queue, he would be the exact image of that
portrait of him which you have, only a little bit older looking and
fuller in the face. But the spiritualists made him cut off his long
hair, because they said that wouldn't do in these days, and dressed him
in those common clothes just like any other person. And oh, dear Mr.
Scott, you must see for yourself that he is truly your grandfather!"

Old Mr. Scott made no answer, but still sat with wide-open eyes gazing
from one to the other of us. As I looked at that aged, white-haired man
and thought of his mother, who must have died ever so long ago, being
the daughter of the young man who sat opposite to him, it was indeed
difficult to believe that these things could be so.

"Mr. Scott," exclaimed my wife, "will you not speak to him? Will you
not give him your hand? Will you not acknowledge him as your
grandfather, whose picture you have always had near you, and which, when
a little boy, I expect your dear mother has often told you to look up to
and try to be like? And if you have grown old, and he has not, on
account of differences in circumstances, why should that make any
difference in your feelings, dear Mr. Scott? Oh, why don't you let him
take you to his heart? I don't see how y