SELF TO SELF.

GEORGE was reading a strange story the other day, and -

One cannot think of it without an indefinable personal sense of terror, as if what he that night saw was impending over the life of every man, a sword hung by a thread. To his keen, sharp, sensitive temperament an apparition truly tragic was anywhere possible. And the phantasm which appeared to Shelley shortly before his death came from reading a weird drama by Calderon, - a work so rare as to be wellnigh inaccessible.

Why my friend George ever fell in love with Alice Hadden is - well, inexplicable. His is one of those swift-dividing intellects that seem perpetually to hover about the line that sunders reason and madness, subject to strange dreams and fancies, imaginative to an unhealthy degree. And she was whole matter-of-fact and commonplace, pretty enough, but - pah! what is such a woman when she grows old? But George was undoubtedly, uncompromisingly in love. And so matters came about that they were engaged to be married.

It was a week before the wedding-day, just at nightfall, when George went out alone, to walk over to the Haddens,' - no very great distance. He had gone but a little way when a stranger who had been following him along the sidewalk stepped quickly up behind and laid a quiet hand upon his shoulder.

"You are wanted," he said.

At that touch, George shivered: it was an awful, compelling, overmastering touch. And the words sounded in his ears like the sea-waves at night, - distant, yet distinct and inevitable. "You must come!"

"Where?" But he could hardly move his lips, and a mist had covered his eyes.

"We must be friends, you know," continued the stranger. "I am your best friend - in disguise; and you are to come with me and see Alice. I am her friend, too. And the sun is down, and there is a great flag hung across the sky . . . Do you see that long keen sword over there? That is mine - and yours."

Irresistibly was he held by the arm and drawn along. He had no more volition than a dead man. He could not speak - hardly see, now; but he could hear. It seemed as if all the distant clamors of the city were sounding along that single quiet street. Then he heard a clock strike.

"That is Park Street Church," whispered the voice. "Come on! How slow you walk! Alice is waiting, waiting - and you do not come. I have travelled all the way from the planet Mars to see her, and you are trying to deceive me. But you cannot - you cannot. Come on!"

Thus, arm in arm, they hurried forward. The lamps were being lighted; and it was growing very cold and windy.

"How hot these tedious lamps are! In Mars we burn snow, and that is not so trying to the eyes. Come on, come on!"

Then they were arrived at the Haddens' door. He saw Alice at the window of the front parlor. She was leaning out, waving a long white robe.

"That is your shroud," whispered the stranger, with a laugh. "She embroidered it. Is it not finely worked? Come on!"

The front door opened and they stood within. Alice came forward quickly; but she stopped short, seeing George. Then she hurried to the stranger in a shy, confused way.

"Pray who is that?" she whispered, looking at her lover with frightened eyes.

"Alice!" cried George, stepping toward her.

"Alice! Don't listen to him. He is a madman, from - from Mars."

The stranger smiled. "He followed me here : he is mad, you see. Alice and I are to be married, you madman. Are we not, Alice?"

"Send that man away, do!" And she shuddered as if George had been a monster frightful to look upon.

He tried to move, and could not; he tried to speak, and could not. He felt himself turning to marble as he stood there.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded the stranger sternly. "Look and see!"

The face that he hitherto had seen but indistinctly was growing terribly clear to him. Line by line it assumed form and proportion. He looked and saw an awful phantasm - HIMSELF.