"What are these?" said he.
"The pictures, sir, of all your predecessors; know you not, that in some of our country churches it is the custom to hang up the likenesses of all the gentlemen who ever held the living?"
Frantz, in a tone of indifference, replied, that he fancied he had heard of such a thing.
"'Tis, sir," continued the man, "a custom with which you must comply at any rate. Why, bad as was our last pastor Herr Von Weetzer, he honoured us so far, that there hangs his picture."
Frantz advanced to view a newly painted portrait, which hung last in the line of his predecessors; and then the young man started back, changed colour, and the deadly faintness of terror seized his relaxing frame; for in it he recognised, exact in costume and features, the perfect likeness of his adult spectral visiter!
"Good God!" cried Frantz, "how very extraordinary!"
"A nice looking man, sir," said the sexton, not noticing his emotion; "pity 'tis that he was so wicked."
"Wicked!" exclaimed Frantz, almost unconscious of what he said; "how wicked?"
"Oh, sir, I can't exactly say how wicked; but a bad gentleman was Mr. Von Weetzer, that's certain."
"Wicked! well—was he married?" asked Frantz, with apparent unconcern.