Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts: A Book of Stories

ng of January 4th. I had just finished another reading of the Tenth Vision and had tossed my book into the lap of an ar

his death. There was a passage in this last letter describing a wonderful ride he had taken alone and by moonlight on the desert; a ride (he protested) which wanted nothing of perfect happiness but me, his friend, riding beside him to share his wonder. There was a sentence wh

over the deodars upon the white gravel. And there, before the front door, sat Harry on his sorrel mare Vivandiere, holding my own Grey Sultan ready bridled and sa

s Harry in flesh and blood. I knew quite well all the while that Harry was dead and his body in his grave. But, soul or phantom- whatever relation to Harry this might bear-it had come to me, and the great joy of that

ere could be no doubt, at any rate, that the grey was real horseflesh and blood, though he seemed unusually quiet afte

. I answered as well as I could, with trivial news of their health. His mother had borne the winter better than usual-to be sure, there had been as yet no cold weather to speak of; but she and Ethel intended, I believed, to start for the south of Fran

I began, af

ight ahead between her ears; then, after a pause, "it has been a bad

"Harry, if only I had known why you

me with the old conf

ut that. That's nothin

sing-our horses had f

ce a moment: you put ou

ear boy, it isn't for u

whom,

nd he shook Vivand