im sufficiently ready
to execute. Somewhat contrary to the custom in these cases, the major
went to bed, having left his candle burning and laid his trusty pistols,
carefully loaded, on the table by his bedside.

He had not slept an hour when he was awakened by a solemn strain of
music. He looked out. Three ladies, fantastically dressed in green, were
seen in the lower end of the apartment, who sung a solemn requiem. The
major listened for some time with delight; at length he tired. "Ladies,"
he said, "this is very well, but somewhat monotonous--will you be so
kind as to change the tune?" The ladies continued singing; he
expostulated, but the music was not interrupted. The major began to grow
angry: "Ladies," he said, "I must consider this as a trick for the
purpose of terrifying me, and as I regard it as an impertinence, I shall
take a rough mode of stopping it." With that he began to handle his
pistols. The ladies sung on. He then get seriously angry: "I will but
wait five minutes," he said, "and then fire without hesitation." The
song was uninterrupted--the five minutes were expired. "I still give you
law, ladies," he said, "while I count twenty." This produced as little
effect as his former threats. He counted one, two, three accordingly;
but on approaching the end of the number, and repeating more than once
his determination to fire, the last numbers,
seventeen--eighteen--nineteen, were pronounced with considerable pauses
between, and an assurance that the pistols were cocked. The ladies sung
on. As he pronounced the word twenty he fired both pistols against the
musical damsels--but the ladies sung on! The major was overcome by the
unexpected inefficacy of his violence, and had an illness which lasted
more than three weeks. The trick put upon him may be shortly described
by the fact that the female choristers were placed in an adjoining room,
and that he only fired at their reflection thrown forward into that in
which he slept by the effect of a concave mirror.

Other stories of the same kind are numerous and well known. The
apparition of the Brocken mountain, after having occasioned great
admiration and some fear, is now ascertained by philosophers to be a
gigantic reflection, which makes the traveller's shadow, represented
upon the misty clouds, appear a colossal figure of almost immeasurable
size. By a similar deception men have been induced, in Westmoreland and
other mountainous countries, to imagine they saw