ho cannot buy at advantage, but must get their
firing in the winter, would then have given nine or ten dollars for
them. And so (glowered the fire), I am determined to think of that
outrage, and not to light them, but to go out myself, directly! And the
fire got into such a spasm of glowing indignation over the injury, that
it lit a whole tier of black coals with a series of little explosions,
before it could cool down, and sent a crimson gleam over the moody
figure of its owner in the easy chair, and over the solemn furniture,
and into the shadowy corner filled by the ghost.

The spectre did not move when Dr. Renton arose and lit the chandelier.
It stood there, still and gray, in the flood of mellow light. The
curtains were drawn, and the twilight without had deepened into
darkness. The fire was now burning in despite of itself, fanned by the
wintry gusts, which found their way down the chimney. Dr. Renton stood
with his back to it, his hands behind him, his bold white forehead
shaded by a careless lock of black hair, and knit sternly; and the same
frown in his handsome, open, searching dark eyes. Tall and strong, with
an erect port, and broad, firm shoulders, high, resolute features, a
commanding figure garbed in aristocratic black, and not yet verging into
the proportions of obesity--take him for all in all, a very fine and
favorable specimen of the solid men of Boston. And seen in contrast (oh!
could he but have known it!) with the attenuated figure of the poor, dim
ghost!

Hark! a very light foot on the stairs--a rich rustle of silks.
Everything still again--Dr. Renton looking fixedly, with great
sternness, at the half-open door, from whence a faint, delicious perfume
floats into the library. Somebody there, for certain. Somebody peeping
in with very bright, arch eyes. Dr. Renton knew it, and prepared to
maintain his ill-humor against the invader. His face became triply armed
with severity for the encounter. That's Netty, I know, he thought. His
daughter. So it was. In she bounded. Bright little Netty! Gay little
Netty! A dear and sweet little creature, to be sure, with a delicate and
pleasant beauty of face and figure, it needed no costly silks to grace
or heighten. There she stood. Not a word from her merry lips, but a
smile which stole over all the solitary grimness of the library, and
made everything better, and brighter, and fairer, in a minute. It
floated down into the cavernous humor of Dr. Renton, and the