almost entirely colorless. His complexion | He was an intensely hard student, and I was not so much what is described by the speedily came to the conclusion that one word pale, as of that dull, dead tint conveyed object of his exhausting intellectual labor by the French word mat. His forehead was was to escape from his haunting melancholy. lofty, and edged by short brown hair brush- His attendance on lectures was unremitting, ed back from the temples, and his features and at two o'clock in the morning the light were delicate and indicative of refinement. burning in his chamber indicated that he What impressed you most in his appearance was still engaged in study. His studies took was the dreamy, introspective expression of the direction, almost exclusively, of auathis eyes. They were large, dark, and deeply omy; and this was not singular, as he insunken in the sockets, and their absent and formed me that he intended to make medimelancholy expression haunted you. This cine his profession. It was the particular deep melancholy seemed ingrained in his department, if I may so say, of anatomy to character. He scarcely ever spoke, and did which he devoted himself, which excited my not mingle with the rest of the students, interest: he had evidently a passion for with whom he appeared to have nothing the science of craniology, and was a thorwhatever in common; and I can best de-ough believer in phrenology. Like the mascribe his absent and reserved air by saying jority of persons, I had myself given no that he seemed to be haunted by some pos- special attention to this singular branch of sessing idea which prevented him from tak- physical science, and was disposed to be ing interest in any thing around him. He entirely incredulous of the ability of any invariably dressed in black, and was very one to read the character of an individual neat in his appearance. It was easy to see from the shape of his head. But Hamilton that he was poor, from the scantiness of his Theack had an implicit belief in this abiliwardrobe, but as easy, also, to see that he ty. He seemed to feel that it existed. The was a gentleman. He was not disliked by sight of a human skull thrilled through his his fellow-students, for his manners were frame, arousing his dormant impulses, and courteous, however reserved; but the young brought the blood to his cheeks. He had exmen of the university plainly knew not erted himself with the utmost activity and what to make of him. The hopeless mel- perseverance to make a collection of these, ancholy of his face raised up a barrier be- to me, hideous objects, and had managed, tween them and himself; and setting him in some manner unknown to me, to obtain down as an "odd" character, they allowed plaster casts of the skulls of Goethe, Nahim to go upon his way, to take his long poleon, Frederick the Great, and other cesolitary walks, and to live his quiet and re- lebrities, which he was never tired of extired life in peace. patiating upon. When I visited him, as I frequently did, late at night in his room, he would manage speedily to divert the conversation from other subjects to his favorite one, and, skull in hand, would dwell with deep earnestness and a strange eloquence upon the unerring indications furnished by the bony receptacle of the human brain of the character of the individual while alive.

I scarcely remember what led to the sort of intimacy which gradually grew up between us; but before the end of the session he seemed to banish much of his reserve when we were thrown together, and to regard me almost in the light of a friend. I was glad to respond to this sentiment. As I came to know him better, he greatly interested me; and I was flattered at hav- "See this depression," he would exclaim, ing thus succeeded in piercing the outer exhibiting a cast of the head of Goethe. husk, at least, of a character which seemed "Here is where the organs of reverence and wrapped against others in so many folds of faith are situated, and you may see for reserve. I discovered very soon that he yourself that the indications are absolutely was by no means as cold as he seemed to be; wanting. Here is the organ of incredulity: indeed, I came more and more to the conclu- it is enormous, you see. And look at benevosion that, instead of being chill and unim-lence: there is nothing there. And now for pressible in temperament, he was a person Frederick. See how the forehead retreats, of very strong feelings. His melancholy how narrow the temples are, how the infewas evidently not the result of a dull, phleg-rior portion of the facial structure protrudes. matic, and depressed disposition, but of some It is the head of a magnificent brute; of a definite cause; and I was seized with an irresistible desire to ascertain what was "on his mind." The attempt seemed hopeless. He rarely made the most distant allusion to himself; and at the end of months of intimacy I had only been able to discover that he was from the city of New York, was an orphan, and had only managed with the utmost difficulty to secure sufficient means to acquire a college education.

passionate, pitiless, intellectual animal; of the man who acknowledged with brutal frankness that he went to war to make the newspapers speak of him! Of this head of Napoleon I need say little. You will tell me that I find in this, as in the rest, the traits which familiarity with the characters and careers of the individuals induced me to look for. So be it. But can you mistake the extraordinary indications of the

Napoleonic skull ?—the piled-up forehead, place, and I at once stopped, went to the as full of imagination as Shakspeare's; the straight superior lines of the ocular cavities, betraying resolution; and here, where I place my finger, the entire absence of the organs of pity, philanthropy, and philoprogenitiveness? And this head of Poe, the wonderful poet, the man of vast and sombre genius: look at the development of the temples, where the analytical and mathematical organs lie. Can you feel any surprise at finding that from this man's brain issued those extraordinary results of intellectual analysis, the Gold Bug, the Murders in the Rue Morgue, and the Mystery of Marie Rouget ?" He would discourse thus by the hour if I would only listen to him. I give but a brief and bald report of his vivid language. As he spoke, his eyes would glow, his face flush, and his low voice grow sonorous and full of a strange excitement. When at length some other visitor would come in-some chance acquaintance, bringing with him the atmosphere of the outer world and gay student life-Hamilton Theack would suddenly cease speaking, restore the object of his discourse to the shelf, concealed by a green curtain, from which he had taken it, and all at once his excitement would disappear, and he would relapse into silence and melancholy.

I was convinced that his devotion to craniology and belief in it was simply an eccentricity-the chance bias of a mind prone to busy itself with what was outré, and aiming to reduce to a science the vague speculations of erratic thinkers, for the intellectual satisfaction of clearing up what was misty, and defining what hitherto had remained indefinite. It was only some years afterward, when I met with him again on a brief visit to the city of New York, that I had this theory in regard to him completely overturned, and ascertained from his own lips that, in studying thus profoundly the science of craniology, he had a distinct and important object in view.

The visit I refer to took place in the year 1863, about seven years after my parting with him at Harvard. These years had been for me full of vicissitudes. The hot current of the great civil war had swept me on, as it swept so many thousands of persons, and I had completely lost sight, and scarcely remembered the existence, of the young student with whom I had spent so much of my time at college. He was now to be recalled to me. Soon after my arrival in New York I was walking along one of the streets in the vicinity of the Park-what one precisely I do not now remember when, chaucing to raise my eyes, I saw before me a small sign in front of a dingy building, containing the words, "Dr. Hamilton Theack." It is always pleasant to meet with an old friend or see a familiar name in a strange

door above which the small sign hung, and knocked. It was opened by my friend in person, and I took in at one glance the small office and its owner. Between Hamilton Theack the physician and Hamilton Theack the student there was little difference, except that all the personal traits of the individual seemed to have deepened and become more pronounced and salient. He was utterly pale, and his dark eyes were sunk more deeply in their sockets than before. The expression of haunting melancholy had also increased in intensity, and his thin lips were contracted by what seemed the habitual presence of mental depression. His dress was black, as before, but had become a little threadbare, and but for its extreme neatness, would have appeared povertystricken. As to his surroundings, these indicated very clearly that there had been no improvement in his fortunes. The office was small, dingy, and almost bare of furniture. A pine table containing some medical books stood in the middle of the room on the bare floor; there were only three or four chairs of the plainest and cheapest sort; and in the grate (for the season was autumn, and quite cold) a very few coals diffused only a sickly glimmer. The poor apartment was rich in one feature only-the long ranges of skulls and casts of skulls covering nearly one side of the room. These grinned at me in a manner which was far from enlivening; and a part of the weird and melancholy character of my surroundings seemed to enter into my mood as I sat down.

Dr. Theack met me with evident pleasure. His pale face lit up, he grasped my hand warmly, and then began that interchange of personal intelligence in reference to ourselves which old acquaintances, meeting after long separation, are apt to indulge in. I gave him an account of my life in Virginia after leaving college, and he informed me, in turn, of his own movements. He had be gun the practice of his profession in New York, and hoped, he said, in course of time to make a comfortable, if moderate, living. The competition, however, he added, was very great; his personal address—a matter of very great importance in his professionwas not, he feared, such as to promise him very rapid success; meanwhile he had reduced his personal expenditure to the lowest possible point, was careful, above all, not to run in debt, and hoped that in due time he would attain to a fair practice.

"When you ought to marry," I said, laughing. "All physicians should marry. In your profession, my dear Theack, it is the married, not the unmarried, man who is called in to treat a certain and very remunerative class of ailments."

At these words his face suddenly colored. "Ah," I said, "I see I have struck home!

You have a Mrs. Theack in view, I see. Who matrimony-or, at least, it is a bar which in

"You are right. Why should I have any ing in my profession to the requisite extent." concealments from you, friend?" "The requisite extent ?"

"She is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who loves money more than he loves black silk ribbon, which he opened and held all else put together in this world. He is a

THE LOCKET CONTAINED A MINIATURE ON PORCELAIN OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL."

toward me. The locket contained a minia- | millionaire; I am nearly a pauper. He aims ture on porcelain of a beautiful girl of about seventeen-one of the sweetest faces I have

"I shrink from speaking plainly. You "One which-which I have—which there would understand that, if Let me preis but one means of removing."

"You could not have made a greater mis- was a little girl of about twelve—was neartake."

"Indeed?" "I had a special object in view from first ing from the little sufferer where she lived, to last."

"An end which I hope in a very short time carriage drove away. now to attain."

"You are speaking in riddles, and even more mysteriously than before," I said.

On the next morning I called on him again. He was not at his office, and he had not given me the address of his lodgings. On the He did not reply for nearly five minutes. next day I called again, with the same want He then raised his head-I saw a singularly of success; and as I was obliged to take the reckless expression upon his countenance-night train south, I left New York without and he said, abruptly, "Do you believe in craniology?"

"Then I need say no more. You would the locality of this great historical event to not understand me."

I reached the village, sleepily reposing near the great York River, on a beautiful "We are one and all dreamers in this day of summer, and proceeded to explore world. Go on."

no smoke rose from any chimney. All was silent, lonely, desolate, deserted. So that when I pushed open the half-closed door, and suddenly saw before me, on the dusty floor of the passage, those footsteps, which extended from the front-door to a door on the left, then to a door on the right-or rather to the two doorways, for the doors had disappeared-and then ascended the staircase, and did not descend again, the impression produced upon my mind was weirdest of the weird.

the commissioners met; and the spot where owls. No household utensils were visible; the British laid down their arms. Among these localities I was particularly interested by the Moore House, or, as it was called formerly, "Temple Farm." This interest was not from its connection with the surrender. It had associations more attractive as the country residence of Alexander Spotswood, formerly Governor of Virginia, a man of striking character, in whom I had always taken a deep interest. It was he who had acted as Marlborough's aid-decamp at Blenheim, who had marched with his "Horseshoe Knights" to the Blue Ridge and founded an order of Virginia chivalry, and had proved himself so mighty a worker in iron that he was called the "Tubal-cain of Virginia."

Highly pleased now with the opportunity of visiting a spot which I associated in fancy with the tall form of the brave old soldier, whose grave was in a dilapidated inclosure near at hand, I strolled across the grass-plot in front of the half-ruined mansion, which seemed entirely uninhabited, and finding the front-door ajar, pushed it open and entered.

For some moments I stood looking at the footsteps in silence. Not a sound disturbed the profound stillness of the locality, and this circumstance contributed to heighten the effect produced upon me. I seemed in a few moments to have left behind me at an immeasurable distance all abodes of men, and to have entered some strange region full of loneliness and mystery. What should I do? The unknown is always the uncertain, sometimes the dangerous. Reason acting coolly ought, no doubt, to have persuaded me that there was nothing threatening in the mere trace of footsteps on a dusty floor, however deserted the spot; but imagination at such moments asserts its sway, and I found myself hesitating what course I should pursue.

Curiosity at last gained the day, and having remained for some time listening with

My first impression was that I had been mistaken in supposing, from the lonely and deserted appearance of the building and grounds, that the house was unoccupied. In the heavy layer of dust on the floor of the passage and the steps of the staircase I distinctly observed traces of human foot-out hearing any noise, I slowly ascended the steps. They were evidently, however, not the steps of the members of a family ascending and descending. A single human being had plainly left these traces, and this human being, it was obvious, must still be in the house, unless he had descended by some other means than this, the main and apparently the only staircase.

staircase, upon which the dust lay so deep as to form a species of carpet, muffling the noise of my steps. A straight flight of steps led first to a small landing, where the staircase turned to the left, and by a shorter flight reached an open space on the second floor, lit by a narrow window. On this space opened the doors of two or three chambers, It would be difficult to describe the sin- and as the doors were not closed, I could see gular impression which these foot-prints that the chambers contained no furniture made upon me. There was something in whatever, and were tapestried with cobtheir appearance inexpressibly weird and webs, evidently the result of long disuse. A even startling; and this effect was no doubt glance indicated these features of the second produced by the extreme silence and lone- floor. I then concentrated my whole attenliness which wrapped the whole mansion. tion on the footsteps, which, on reaching the As I had approached the house I had seen top of the staircase, turned toward a room no evidence whatever that any human be- on the right, into which, from my position ing had occupied it for years. The fence at the moment, I was unable to look. around the grass-plot was half fallen; the this room I now thought that I heard a low grass had grown over a pathway formerly rustling issue. With a slight acceleration leading to the door from a small gate, which of the pulse, I slowly and silently approachnow hung by one rusty hinge; and a squired the open door, reached the threshold, and, rel, which had been playing, evidently with a sense of perfect security and isolation, within a few feet of the ruined porch, overgrown with tangled and neglected vines, fled affrighted at my approach, and dodged out of sight around the trunk of a tree, plainly startled by the appearance of a strange intruder a human being. The house itself was forlornest of the forlorn, and seemed to have been definitely abandoned to the

From

looking in, saw in front of a closet in the wall, the door of which was open, the figure of a man on his knees, with his back turned to me, engaged in some occupation which I was not able to discover. I was not conscious of having made the least noise, but instinct seemed to warn him of the presence of another human being near him. He rose quickly to his feet, turned round, and I recognized Hamilton Theack.