ery nervous; more so for the
awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement--with stern lips and
upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at
you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of
darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out
of her senses, in that lonely place!'

Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn from
good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the
course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very
circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to
read one of their books upon the future state--heaven and hell; but I grew
after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me
to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw amazing visions,
which, so far from superseding, confirmed and interpreted the language of
the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking
that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.

Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and
shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the
visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour,
and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier
associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
and a sadder tinge.

CHAPTER IV

_MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE_

On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure--a very tall woman
in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily
low, and rather fantastically.

I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow
features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the
moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling
and cackling shrilly--I could not distinctly hear _what_ through the
window--and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.

As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang the bell
frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that she might break
into the room, I flew out of the door, very much frightened, and met
Branston the butler in the lobby.

'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away, please.'

If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent
forward a