all the vague and monstrous misgivings that agitated my mind. I regarded
it as the arbiter of my destiny. It possessed the power either to
transport me with happiness, or to plunge me into utter, irretrievable
misery. In that brief moment I endured an age of agony and suspense. With
a faltering step, with a whirling brain, I advanced toward the glass. I
stood opposite to it; I looked into it. Distraction! horror of horrors! It
was not my own face I beheld! I swooned--fell backward.

When I recovered, I found myself in the arms of a man, who bathed my
temples with water. I quickly made my escape from the house. I was pale
and haggard, like one stricken with some sudden and grievous calamity. I
fancied, as I passed along, that the passengers whom I met stared at me,
laughed in my face, and seemed to consider my misfortune a fit subject for
their mirth and ridicule. Every hubbub in the street, every screeching
voice that assailed my ear, I conceived to be attributable to my horrible
transformation. I was afraid to look around; I dared not arrest my
progress for a moment, lest any of the mocking fiends should make sport of
my unhappy situation, and drive me to some act of desperation. On, on, I
hurried. I gained the fields. Thank Heaven! the village lay at a distance
behind me. The haunts of men were no place for me. I was something more
than mortal. I had undergone a change, of which I had never conceived
myself susceptible. I sped forward; naught could impede my course. My only
relief was in action. Any thing to dissipate the thoughts that flitted
across my distracted brain. Bodily pain might be endured--fatigue, hunger,
any corporeal suffering; but to think, was death--destruction. Oh! could I
have evaded thought for one moment, what joy, what transport! I fled
onward; there was no time to pause--to consider. The sun had already sunk
behind the hills, and night was about to spread her mantle o'er the earth,
when I threw myself down, exhausted and overpowered. Slumber sealed my
eyes, and I lay upon the ground, an outcast of men, an isolated and
wretched being, to whom the common lot of humanity had been denied.

I will hurry this painful narrative to a close. I have but a vague idea of
the events that occurred during the next few weeks. I remember being told,
as I lay in bed, by a young woman who attended me, that I had been found
by some workpeople, on the night above referred to, in the vicinity of my
former residence, a