troops of horse and
armies marching and countermarching, which were in fact only the
reflection of horses pasturing upon an opposite height, or of the forms
of peaceful travellers.

A very curious case of this kind was communicated to me by the son of
the lady principally concerned, and tends to show out of what mean
materials a venerable apparition may be sometimes formed. In youth this
lady resided with her father, a man of sense and resolution. Their house
was situated in the principal street of a town of some size. The back
part of the house ran at right angles to an Anabaptist chapel, divided
from it by a small cabbage-garden. The young lady used sometimes to
indulge the romantic love of solitude by sitting in her own apartment in
the evening till twilight, and even darkness, was approaching. One
evening, while she was thus placed, she was surprised to see a gleamy
figure, as of some aerial being, hovering, as it were, against the
arched window in the end of the Anabaptist chapel. Its head was
surrounded by that halo which painters give to the Catholic saints; and
while the young lady's attention was fixed on an object so
extraordinary, the figure bent gracefully towards her more than once, as
if intimating a sense of her presence, and then disappeared. The seer of
this striking vision descended to her family, so much discomposed as to
call her father's attention. He obtained an account of the cause of her
disturbance, and expressed his intention to watch in the apartment next
night. He sat accordingly in his daughter's chamber, where she also
attended him. Twilight came, and nothing appeared; but as the gray light
faded into darkness, the same female figure was seen hovering on the
window; the same shadowy form, the same pale light-around the head, the
same inclinations, as the evening before. "What do you think of this?"
said the daughter to the astonished father. "Anything, my dear," said
the father, "rather than allow that we look upon what is supernatural."
A strict research established a natural cause for the appearance on the
window. It was the custom of an old woman, to whom the garden beneath
was rented, to go out at night to gather cabbages. The lantern she
carried in her hand threw up the refracted reflection of her form on the
chapel window. As she stooped to gather her cabbages the reflection
appeared to bend forward; and that was the whole matter.

Another species of deception, affecting the credit o