THE FIRE ISLANDS. 89 



them in the stormy night. I love a lighthouse, with 

 its constant guard over human welfare. After a long 

 voyage at sea, baffled by calms and frightened by 

 storms, when I have caught the friendly flame of the 

 lighthouse welcoming me back to the green earth — 

 the first to meet me and to greet me — I have felt an 

 affection for it as if it were a living thing. That 

 steady watch-fire burning over the deep, through the 

 long tempestuous night, for the sake of the anxious 

 mariner, is not a bad emblem of the watch and care 

 of the Deity over his creatures, tossed and benighted 

 on the sea of life. 



How long I gazed on that revolving light I know 

 not, but it was the last thing my eye fell on as I 

 turned to my couch, and I thought, as I left it blazing 

 through the tempest, that it 



" looked lovely as Hope, 



That star on life's tremulous ocean." 



I slept this first night in the ''haunted room." 

 I like so mysterious a cognomen to rooms and stair- 

 cases in old castles and dilapidated buildings : it is 

 in harmony with the place. A fine, elegant mansion 

 here on the ocean shore would not have possessed half 

 the interest this old time-worn building did. This 

 "haunted room" derived its sobriquet horn, a sound 

 frequently heard by those who slept in it, as if car- 

 riage wheels were rolling up to the door. This sound 

 had often waked up the owner of the mansion, and 

 roused him to look out and see what visitors were 

 coming at so late an hour of the night. The frequent 

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