and awe-inspiring. My fancy seemed to glean from
their yellow withered faces and blinking eyes, ocular proof of the fact
that they had succeeded in establishing themselves on at least a good
footing with the ghosts who haunted the castle, as it derived auricular
confirmation of the same fact from the wretched French which they
croaked, partly between their tightly-closed blue lips and partly
through their long thin noses, and also that they themselves possessed
the power of setting trouble and dire mischief at work. My uncle, who
always had a keen eye for a bit of fun, entangled the old dames in his
ironical way in such a mish-mash of nonsensical rubbish that, had I
been in any other mood, I should not have known how to swallow down my
immoderate laughter; but, as I have just said, the Baronesses and their
twaddle were, and continued to be, in my regard, ghostly, so that my
old uncle, who was aiming at affording me an especial diversion,
glanced across at me time after time utterly astonished. So after
dinner, when we were alone together in our room, he burst out, "But in
Heaven's name, cousin, tell me what is the matter with you? You don't
laugh; you don't talk; you don't eat; and you don't drink. Are you ill,
or is anything else the matter with you?" I now hesitated not a moment
to tell him circumstantially all my terrible, awful experiences of the
previous night I did not conceal anything, and above all I did not
conceal that I had drunk a good deal of punch, and had been reading
Schiller's "Ghostseer." "This I must confess to," I add, "for only so
can I credibly explain how it was that my over-strained and active
imagination could create all those ghostly spirits, which only exist
within the sphere of my own brain." I fully expected that my uncle
would now pepper me well with the stinging pellets of his wit for this
my fanciful ghost-seeing; but, on the contrary, he grew very grave, and
his eyes became riveted in a set stare upon the floor, until he jerked
up his head and said, fixing me with his keen fiery eyes, "Your book I
am not acquainted with, cousin; but your ghostly visitants were due
neither to it nor to the fumes of the punch. I must tell you that I
dreamt exactly the same things that you saw and heard. Like you, I sat
in the easy-chair beside the fire (at least I dreamt so); but what was
only revealed to you as slight noises I saw and distinctly comprehended
with the eye of my mind. Yes, I beheld that foul