"Retribution!" answered he. "My end was gained. Prayers were not abolished, but I, from that hour, was doomed to wander near the scene of my crime, until I should see done that which I most dreaded when alive. Nearly two centuries I have waited for the abolition of prayers, and still I see no sign of it. Until that takes place anguish unspeakable is mine!"

"And your dark friend," said I, "did he keep his promise about the ringing?"

"He did," replied the ghost with a groan, - "he did; this is the rope and I am the bell."

Saying these words, the vision gave a violent pull upon the rope, and vanished in a somersault through the door.

I picked up my Demonology. "Poor ghost!" I thought, "though perhaps rightly punished, his case is a hard one. Were his story more widely known, I am sure that there is not a man in college who would not, to relieve this spirit's pain, give up some of his own pleasures, even that of going to prayers."