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UNOPENED PARCELS. 143 by his brothers and sisters, of the abhorred hoax as if it had been truth The very mention of the word 'ghosts,' he assured me, filled him with horror in those days, living in dread as he did of some personal allusion. 'By-the-bye, Tommy, you're the one to tell us all about ghosts. I wonder why yours has left off coming,' &c. His only resource, and it was a miserable one, was to turn angry, and bid them not talk nonsense. In this way he did succeed at last in checking these allusions, but it was pain and grief to him, a burden upon his spirit, young and happy as he was otherwise. Yet, by God's grace, he rose instead of sinking under it, though he suffered what I should be sorry to hear of any one dear to me suffering again. St. Augustine's ladder is a hard one to climb by, Honor. Thrice happy those to whom the steps are not so steep as they were to my dear friend! The great fact remains, however, that up them he reached a scrupulousness of conscience he might not have aimed at but for the hateful sense of the infirmity by which he had once fallen.