. If it has been granted to me to see thee before thy
death, Catherine, it is a boon which is bestowed by God's special
permission.'

"And Catherine Fontaine answered him:

"'I would die gladly enough, dear, dead lord, if I might recover the
beauty that was mine when I gave you to drink in the forest.'

"Whilst they thus conversed under their breath, a very old canon was
taking the collection and proffering to the worshipers a great copper
dish, wherein they let fall, each in his turn, ancient coins which have
long since ceased to pass current: ecus of six livres, florins, ducats
and ducatoons, jacobuses and rose-nobles, and the pieces fell silently
into the dish. When at length it was placed before the Chevalier, he
dropped into it a louis which made no more sound than had the other
pieces of gold and silver.

"Then the old canon stopped before Catherine Fontaine, who fumbled in
her pocket without being able to find a farthing. Then, being unwilling
to allow the dish to pass without an offering from herself, she slipped
from her finger the ring which the Chevalier had given her the day
before his death, and cast it into the copper bowl. As the golden ring
fell, a sound like the heavy clang of a bell rang out, and on the stroke
of this reverberation the Chevalier, the canon, the celebrant, the
servers, the ladies and their cavaliers, the whole assembly vanished
utterly; the candles guttered out, and Catherine Fontaine was left alone
in the darkness."

Having concluded his narrative after this fashion, the sacristan drank a
long draught of wine, remained pensive for a moment, and then resumed
his talk in these words:

"I have told you this tale exactly as my father has told it to me over
and over again, and I believe that it is authentic, because it agrees in
all respects with what I have observed of the manners and customs
peculiar to those who have passed away. I have associated a good deal
with the dead ever since my childhood, and I know that they are
accustomed to return to what they have loved.

"It is on this account that the miserly dead wander at night in the
neighborhood of the treasures they conceal during their life time. They
keep a strict watch over their gold; but the trouble they give
themselves, far from being of service to them, turns to their
disadvantage; and it is not a rare thing at all to come upon money
buried in the ground on digging in a place haunted by a ghost. In the
same way decease