yard of the local morgue. They were wrapped
up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque on February
9, where Mr. Hoffman opened the bundle in Pat's presence. Inside the
old grey shirt was found a pocket of red stuff, sewn with a man's
long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five
dollars.

The girl did not see the body in the coffin, but asked about the _old_
clothes, because the figure of her father in her dream wore clothes
which she did not recognise as his. To dream in a faint is nothing
unusual. {50}

THE DEAD SHOPMAN

Swooning, or slight mental mistiness, is not very unusual in ghost
seers. The brother of a friend of my own, a man of letters and wide
erudition, was, as a boy, employed in a shop in a town, say Wexington.
The overseer was a dark, rather hectic-looking man, who died. Some
months afterwards the boy was sent on an errand. He did his business,
but, like a boy, returned by a longer and more interesting route. He
stopped as a bookseller's shop to stare at the books and pictures, and
while doing so felt a kind of mental vagueness. It was just before
his dinner hour, and he may have been hungry. On resuming his way, he
looked up and found the dead overseer beside him. He had no sense of
surprise, and walked for some distance, conversing on ordinary topics
with the appearance. He happened to notice such a minute detail as
that the spectre's boots were laced in an unusual way. At a crossing,
something in the street attracted his attention; he looked away from
his companion, and, on turning to resume their talk, saw no more of
him. He then walked to the shop, where he mentioned the occurrence to
a friend. He has never during a number of years had any such
experience again, or suffered the preceding sensation of vagueness.

This, of course, is not a ghost story, but leads up to the old tale of
the wraith of Valogne. In this case, two boys had made a covenant,
the first who died was to appear to the other. He _did_ appear before
news of his death arrived, but after a swoon of his friend's, whose
health (like that of Elizabeth Conley) suffered in consequence.

NOTE

"PERCEVAL MURDER." Times, 25th May, 1812.

"A Dumfries paper states that on the night of Sunday, the 10th
instant, _twenty-four hours before the fatal deed was perpetrated_, a
report was brought to Bude Kirk, two miles from Annan, that _Mr.
Perceval was shot on his way to the House of Commons,