serene, and happy with the happiness of heaven. Looking up into that beautiful, wan face,—so tranquil,—so radiant; watching, with a childlike awe, the star-fire in those shadowy eyes; smiling faintly, with a great, unutterable love thrilling slowly through his frame, in answer to the smile of light that shone upon the phantom countenance; so he passed a space of time which seemed a calm eternity, till, at last, the communion of spirit with spirit—of mortal love with love immortal—was perfected, and the shining hands were laid on his forehead, as with a touch of air. Then the phantom smiled, and, as its shining hands were withdrawn, the thought of his daughter mingled in the vision. She was bending over him! The dawn, the room, were the same. But the ghost of Feval had gone out from earth, away to its own land! 

 "Father, dear father! Your eyes were open, and they did not look at me. There is a light on your face, and your features are changed! What is it,—what have you seen?" 

 "Hush, darling: here—kneel by me, for a little while, and be still. I have seen the dead." 

 She knelt by him, burying her awe-struck face in his bosom, and clung to him with all the fervor of her soul. He clasped her to his breast, and for minutes all was still. 

 "Dear child, good and dear child!" 

 The voice was tremulous and low. She lifted her fair, bright countenance, now convulsed with a secret trouble, and dimmed with streaming tears, to his, and gazed on him. His eyes were shining; but his pallid cheeks, like hers, were wet with tears. How still the room was! How like a thought of solemn tenderness the pale gray dawn! The world was far away, and his soul still wandered in the peaceful awe of his dream. The world was coming back to him,—but oh! how changed!—in the trouble of his daughter's face. 

 "Darling, what is it? Why are you here? Why are you weeping? Dear child, the friend of my better days,—of the boyhood when I had noble aims, and life was beautiful before me,—he has been here! I have seen him. He has been with me—oh! for a good I cannot tell!" 

 "Father, dear father!"—he had risen, and sat upon the couch, but she still knelt before him, weeping, and clasped his hands in hers,—"I thought of you and of this letter, all the time. All last night till I slept, and then I dreamed you were tearing it to pieces, and trampling on it. I awoke, and lay thinking of you, and of ——. And I thought I heard you come down stairs, and I came here 

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