sentence, when the same mysterious voice
exclaimed, "You shall not go. The seal of death is on her lips. Her
silence is the silence of the tomb." Think of the effects which accents
like these must have had upon me. I shuddered as I listened. As soon as
I recovered from my first amazement, "Who is it that speaks?" said I,
"whence did you procure these dismal tidings?" I did not wait long for
an answer. "From a source that cannot fail. Be satisfied. She is dead."
You may justly be surprised, that, in the circumstances in which I heard
the tidings, and notwithstanding the mystery which environed him by whom
they were imparted, I could give an undivided attention to the facts,
which were the subject of our dialogue. I eagerly inquired, when and
where did she die? What was the cause of her death? Was her death
absolutely certain? An answer was returned only to the last of these
questions. "Yes," was pronounced by the same voice; but it now sounded
from a greater distance, and the deepest silence was all the return made
to my subsequent interrogatories.

"It was my sister's voice; but it could not be uttered by her; and yet,
if not by her, by whom was it uttered? When we returned hither, and
discovered you together, the doubt that had previously existed was
removed. It was manifest that the intimation came not from her. Yet if
not from her, from whom could it come? Are the circumstances attending
the imparting of this news proof that the tidings are true? God forbid
that they should be true."

Here Pleyel sunk into anxious silence, and gave me leisure to ruminate
on this inexplicable event. I am at a loss to describe the sensations
that affected me. I am not fearful of shadows. The tales of apparitions
and enchantments did not possess that power over my belief which could
even render them interesting. I saw nothing in them but ignorance and
folly, and was a stranger even to that terror which is pleasing. But
this incident was different from any that I had ever before known. Here
were proofs of a sensible and intelligent existence, which could not
be denied. Here was information obtained and imparted by means
unquestionably super-human.

That there are conscious beings, beside ourselves, in existence, whose
modes of activity and information surpass our own, can scarcely be
denied. Is there a glimpse afforded us into a world of these superior
beings? My heart was scarcely large enough to give admittance to
so swelling a thou