of the wildest terror. I lost
consciousness.

"I came to myself with the sensation of a fall from some height. You
all know that every-day dream sensation; but the peculiar feeling that
I experienced then I hardly know how to describe to you. It was some
time before I could make out where I was, and then there was a sense as
if something terrible had been happening, which a long, death-like
sleep had wiped away the remembrance of. At last it all came gradually
back to me, but I thought it was nothing but a painful dream. However,
when I got up I noticed the portrait for the first time--the portrait
in the wedding-dress; a life-size, three-quarter length portrait. A
cold shiver ran down my back, for I felt sure I recognized in it the
figure which I had seen in the night. But then I could see nothing in
the shape of a cupboard in the room, and that confirmed me in the
conclusion that I had only been dreaming.

"'Mistress Anne brought my coffee. She looked me long in the face, and
said, "Eh, sir! you _are_ looking pale and badly!--has anything been
happening?" Far from telling her anything about it, I said an
oppression in my chest had prevented me from sleeping. "It's the
stomach!--it's the stomach!" said the old woman. "Eh! we've help at
hand for that!" She scuffled up to the wall; opened a door in the
hangings which I had not noticed before, and I saw into a cupboard
where there were glasses, small bottles, and two or three silver
spoons. The old woman took out one of the spoons, clattering and
tinkling it as she did so; opened a bottle; poured a few drops from it
into the spoon; put it back in its place, and then came towards me with
her unsteady, wavering gait. I gave a scream of horror. It was the
exact reproduction, in broad, waking daylight, of the scene of the
previous night.

"'"Well, well!" croaked the old woman, with a strange grin; "it's only
a drop of medicine, sir. The mistress was troubled with her stomach
too, and often had to take a little."

"'I manned myself, and swallowed the stuff, which was bitter and
hot. My eyes were on the bride's picture, which was just over the
wall-press. "Whose portrait's that?" I asked.

"'"Good gracious, sir! don't you know?" she cried. "That's poor dear
mistress, that's dead and gone your aunt." The tears ran down her
cheeks. The dog began to whimper, as it had done in the night. I
mastered my inward shudder, and forced myself with some difficulty to
be composed. I s