The ghost, if ghost there is, is undoubtedly the spirit of this unfortunate and nameless young woman. A World reporter watched the Bleecker street ruins with the crowd last night and was there at the midnight hour, but never a sign of a ghost did he see. There were those in the crowd, nevertheless, who thought or pretended to think that they did. Once there was a rattling sound in the ruins, which caused a commotion among the lookers-on, but it was only because a small boy had shied a brick at the old wall. The living spirits boomed the liquor business in the saloons of the vicinity. A skull and cross-bones over one of these bars was surmounted with the somewhat appropriate legend freshly painted:
"In the midst of life we are in debt."
FOOTNOTES:
[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it.
[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's "obsession."
[C] I.e., The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de Mauléon. Versicle. O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci.). Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701. The "Gallia Christiana" gives the date of the Canon's death as December 31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.
[E] From "True Irish Ghost Stories."
[F] Scott's Lady of the Lake, notes to Canto III (edition of 1811).