ss of a believer in ghosts and
apparitions than I have always been. Never in my life till now have I
ever met with anything in the least out of the common, and I had never
had the slightest experience of that strange, nervous sense of the
proximity of spiritual principles belonging to another state of being
which paralyzes both body and mind; but let me tell you what happened
the very first night I spent in the house.'

"'Not too loud, then,' said Marzell, 'for I think our neighbours here
are doing us the favour of listening to what we are saying.'

"'They shan't hear,' said Alexander; 'indeed I scarcely like to tell
even you; however, here goes, I may as well out with it. Mistress Anne
received me, dissolved in tears, and went before me with a branched
silver candlestick in her trembling hands to the bedroom, groaning and
coughing as she went. The postboy had to bring in my trunk, and as he
pocketed, with profuse thanks, the tip I gave him, he took a survey of
the room with a grin on his face, till he fixed his eyes on the great
towering bed with the sea-green curtains.

"'"My word!" he cried, "the gentleman'll have a better night of it than
he would have had in the old coach!--and the nightgown and nightcap all
ready and waiting!"

"'Mistress Anne, almost fainting with the shock of this irreverent
mention of the maidenly night-gear, was letting the candlestick fall,
but I caught it in time, and lighted the fellow out. He cast a
facetious look at the old woman as he departed. When I came back she
was all in a tremble; she thought I would tell her to go, and proceed
coolly to desecrate the maidenly couch by sleeping in it, but she
revived when I told her I wasn't accustomed to anything so soft, and
should be obliged if she would make me up a shake-down as well as she
could in the sitting-room. Her wrinkles of annoyance vanished, and her
face lighted up, in a way it never has since, into a most gracious
smile. She dipped her long lean arms down to the ground, fingered up
the down-trodden heels of her slippers, and trotted off, half
frightened and half delighted. As I meant to have a fine long sleep, I
told her not to come with my coffee before nine o'clock; so I left the
old woman for the night almost with Wallenstein's words.

"I was tired to death, and thought I should fall asleep in a moment,
but the manifold thoughts and fancies which began to cross each other
in my brain drove sleep away. I seemed to be only be