“Ishthis prop’r language t’ address-t’-y’r-relative?” inquired Mr. Bumstead, in a severely reproachful manner.

“Relative!” repeated the apparition, sepulchrally.  “What sort of relative is he, who, when his sister’s orphaned son is sleeping at his feet, conveys the unconscious orphan, head downward, through a midnight tempest, to a place like this, and leaves him here, and then forgets where he has put him?”

“I give’t up,” said the organist, after a moment’s consideration.

“The answer is:  he’s a dead-beat.” continued the young ghost, losing his temper.  “And what, John Bumstead, did you do with my oroide watch and other jewels?”

“Musht’ve spilt’m on the road here,” returned the musing uncle, faintly remembering that they had been found upon the turnpike, shortly after Christmas, by Gospeler Simpson.  “Are you dead, Edwin?”

“Did you not bury me here alive, and close the opening to my tomb, and go away and charge everybody with my murder?” asked the spectre, bitterly.  “O, uncle, hard of head and paralyzed in recollection! is it any good excuse for sacrificing my poor life, that, in your cloven state, you put me down a cellar, like a pan of milk, and then could not remember where you’d put me?  And was it noble, then, to go to her whom you supposed had been my chosen bride, and offer wedlock to her on your own account?”

“I was acting as y’r-executor, Edwin,” explained the uncle.  “I did ev’thing forth’ besht.”

“And does the sight of me fill you with no terror, no remorse, unfeeling man?” groaned the ghost.

“Yeshir,” answered Mr. Bumstead, with sudden energy.  “Yeshir.  I’m r’morseful on ‘count of th’ umbrella.  Who-d’-y’-lend-’t-to?”

It is an intellectual characteristic of the more advanced degrees of the clove-trance, that, while the tranced individual can perceive objects, even to occasional duplexity, and hear remarks more or less distinctly, neither objects nor remarks are positively associated by him with any perspicuous idea.  Thus, while the Ritualistic organist had a blurred perception of his nephew’s conversational remains, and was dimly conscious that the tone of the supernatural remarks addressed to himself was not wholly congratulatory, he still presented a physical and moral aspect of dense insensibility.

Momentarily nonplussed by such unheard-of calmness under a ghostly visitation, the apparition, without changing position, allowed itself to roll one inquiring eye towards the opening above the step-ladder, where the moonlight revealed an attentive head of red hair.  Catching the glance, the head allowed a hand belonging to it to appear at the opening and motion downward.

“Look there, then,” said the intelligent ghost to its uncle, pointing to the ground near its feet.

Mr. Bumstead, rousing from a brief doze, glanced indifferently towards the spot indicated; but, in another instant, was on his knees beside the undefined object he there beheld.  A keen, breathless scrutiny, a frenzied clutch with both hands, and then he was upon his feet again, holding close to the lantern the thing he had found.