occupied by a magnificent Exchange or a brick block lettered all over with various signs, or the large house itself might have made a noble tavern with the “King’s Arms” swinging before it and guests in every chamber, instead of the present solitude.  But, owing to some dispute about the right of inheritance, the mansion had been long without a tenant, decaying from year to year and throwing the stately gloom of its shadow over the busiest part of the town.

Such was the scene, and such the time, when a figure unlike any that have been described was observed at a distance down the street.

“I espy a strange sail yonder,” remarked a Liverpool captain—­“that woman in the long white garment.”

The sailor seemed much struck by the object, as were several others who at the same moment caught a glimpse of the figure that had attracted his notice.  Almost immediately the various topics of conversation gave place to speculations in an undertone on this unwonted occurrence.

“Can there be a funeral so late this afternoon?” inquired some.

They looked for the signs of death at every door—­the sexton, the hearse, the assemblage of black-clad relatives, all that makes up the woeful pomp of funerals.  They raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilt spire of the church, and wondered that no clang proceeded from its bell, which had always tolled till now when this figure appeared in the light of day.  But none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its home that afternoon, nor was there any token of a funeral except the apparition of the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.

“What may this portend?” asked each man of his neighbor.

All smiled as they put the question, yet with a certain trouble in their eyes, as if pestilence, or some other wide calamity, were prognosticated by the untimely intrusion among the living of one whose presence had always been associated with death and woe.  What a comet is to the earth was that sad woman to the town.  Still she moved on, while the hum of surprise was hushed at her approach, and the proud and the humble stood aside that her white garment might not wave against them.  It was a long, loose robe of spotless purity.  Its wearer appeared very old, pale, emaciated and feeble, yet glided onward without the unsteady pace of extreme age.  At one point of her course a little rosy boy burst forth from a door and ran with open arms toward the ghostly woman, seeming to expect a kiss from her bloodless lips.  She made a slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with an expression of no earthly sweetness, so that the child shivered and stood awestruck rather than affrighted while the Old Maid passed on.  Perhaps her garment might have been polluted even by an infant’s touch; perhaps her kiss would have been death to the sweet boy within the year.

“She is but a shadow,” whispered the superstitious.  “The child put forth his arms and could not grasp her robe.”