these was included in my own small morbid mind the circumstance that
its back windows commanded an uninterrupted view of an ancient and
much-peopled churchyard.  Often of a night would I steal from
between the sheets, and climbing upon the high oak chest that stood
before my bedroom window, sit peering down fearfully upon the aged
gray tombstones far below, wondering whether the shadows that crept
among them might not be ghosts--soiled ghosts that had lost their
natural whiteness by long exposure to the city's smoke, and had
grown dingy, like the snow that sometimes lay there. 

I persuaded myself that they were ghosts, and came, at length, to
have quite a friendly feeling for them.  I wondered what they
thought when they saw the fading letters of their own names upon the
stones, whether they remembered themselves and wished they were
alive again, or whether they were happier as they were.  But that
seemed a still sadder idea. 

One night, as I sat there watching, I felt a hand upon my shoulder.
I was not frightened, because it was a soft, gentle hand that I well
knew, so I merely laid my cheek against it.