“Father of Heaven!” exclaimed Hanlon, “do you hear that?”

“Yes,” she replied, “I did hear a groan; but here, do you go—­oh, it would be useless to ask you—­so I must only do it myself; stand here an’ I’ll go round the rock; at any rate let us be sure that it is a ghost.”

“Don’t, Sarah,” he exclaimed, seizing her arm; “for God’s sake, don’t—­it is a spirit—­I know it—­don’t lave me.  I understand it all, an’ maybe you will some day, too.”

“Now,” she exclaimed indignantly, and in an incredulous voice; “in God’s name, what has a spirit to do with an old rusty Tobaccy-box?  It’s surely a curious box; there’s my father would give one of his eyes to find it; an’ Nelly, that hid it the other day, found it gone when she went to get it for him.”

“Do you toll me so?” said Hanlon, placing it as he spoke in his safest pocket.

“I do,” she replied; “an’ only that I promised it to you, and would not break my word, I’d give it to my father; but I don’t see myself what use it can be of to him or anybody.”

Hanlon, despite of his terrors, heard this intelligence with the deepest interest—­indeed, with an interest so deep, that he almost forgot them altogether; and with a view of eliciting from her as much information in connection with it as he could, he asked her to accompany him a part of the way home.

“It’s not quite the thing,” she replied, “for a girl like me to be walkin’ with a young fellow at this hour; but as I’m not afeard of you, and as I know you are afeard of the ghost—­if there is a ghost—­I will go part of the way with you, although it does not say much for your courage to ask me.”

“Thank you, Sarah; you are a perfect treasure.”

“Whatever I was, or whatever I am, Charley, I can never be anything more to you than a mere acquaintance—­I don’t think ever we were much more—­but what I want to tell you is, that if ever you have any serious notion of me, you must put it out of your head.”

“Why so, Sarah?”

“Why so,” she replied, hastily; “why, bekaise I don’t wish it—­isn’t that enough for you, if you have spirit?”

“Well, but I’d like to know why you changed your mind.”

“Ah,” said she; “well, afther all, that’s only natural—­it is but raisonable; an’ I’ll tell you; in the first place, there’s a want of manliness about you that I don’t like—­I think you’ve but little heart or feelin’.  You toy with the girls—­with this one and that one—­an’ you don’t appear to love any one of them—­in short, you’re not affectionate, I’m afeard.  Now, here am I, an’ I can scarcely say, that ever you courted me like a man that had feelin’.  I think you’re revengeful, too; for I have seen you look black an’ angry at a woman, before now.  You never loved me, I know—­I say I know you did not.  There, then, is some of my raisons—­but I’ll tell you one more, that’s worth them all.  I love another now—­ay,” she added, with a convulsive sigh, “I love another; and, I know, Charley, that he can’t love me—­there’s more lightnin’—­what a flash!  Oh, I didn’t care this minute if it went through my heart.”