moon-light was once more universal and
brilliant, and yet, as far as I could see no human or moving figure
was discernible. If she had returned to the house, she must have used
wondrous expedition to have passed already beyond the reach of my eye.
I exerted my voice, but in vain. To my repeated exclamations, no answer
was returned.

"Ruminating on these incidents, I returned hither. There was no room
to doubt that I had heard my wife's voice; attending incidents were not
easily explained; but you now assure me that nothing extraordinary has
happened to urge my return, and that my wife has not moved from her
seat."

Such was my brother's narrative. It was heard by us with different
emotions. Pleyel did not scruple to regard the whole as a deception of
the senses. Perhaps a voice had been heard; but Wieland's imagination
had misled him in supposing a resemblance to that of his wife, and
giving such a signification to the sounds. According to his custom
he spoke what he thought. Sometimes, he made it the theme of grave
discussion, but more frequently treated it with ridicule. He did not
believe that sober reasoning would convince his friend, and gaiety, he
thought, was useful to take away the solemnities which, in a mind like
Wieland's, an accident of this kind was calculated to produce.

Pleyel proposed to go in search of the letter. He went and speedily
returned, bearing it in his hand. He had found it open on the pedestal;
and neither voice nor visage had risen to impede his design.

Catharine was endowed with an uncommon portion of good sense; but her
mind was accessible, on this quarter, to wonder and panic. That her
voice should be thus inexplicably and unwarrantably assumed, was a
source of no small disquietude. She admitted the plausibility of the
arguments by which Pleyel endeavoured to prove, that this was no more
than an auricular deception; but this conviction was sure to be shaken,
when she turned her eyes upon her husband, and perceived that Pleyel's
logic was far from having produced the same effect upon him.

As to myself, my attention was engaged by this occurrence. I could not
fail to perceive a shadowy resemblance between it and my father's death.
On the latter event, I had frequently reflected; my reflections never
conducted me to certainty, but the doubts that existed were not of a
tormenting kind. I could not deny that the event was miraculous, and
yet I was invincibly averse to that method of so