d; "though how you can possibly know, I cannot surmise."

"Listen, and I will tell you," answered Catherine; and feeling very glad
that our curiosity was at last to be gratified, we all "pricked up our
ears," as George would say, to listen.

I here transcribe Catherine's story word for word, as my son George
subsequently wrote it down from her dictation.

* * * * *

"You all remember," she began, "my alarming you on New Year's eve at
midnight, and that I told you I was disturbed by a dreadful dream.

"I said so because I thought you would make fun of me if I called it a
vision; and yet it was much more like a vision, for I seemed to see it
waking, and it was more vivid and consecutive than any dream I ever had.

"Before I try to describe it, I want you all to understand that I seemed
intuitively to comprehend what I saw, and to recognize all the figures
which appeared before me, and their relation to one another, though I am
sure I never beheld them before in my life.

"When Ella left me that night, I lay propped up with pillows, staring
idly at the strange shadows thrown by the hidden lamp across the laundry
ceiling and over the floor. As I looked it seemed to me that a change
came over the room--a most unaccountable change.

"Instead of the blocked-up window, the rusty mangle, and the dais at the
farther end, I saw the window clear and distinct from top to bottom, and
in front of a deep window-seat at its base stood an oaken chest, exactly
corresponding to the one discovered this morning. The room seemed
brilliantly lighted, and everything was clearly and distinctly visible;
and not only was it changed, but also peopled.

"Many figures passed up and down; brocaded silks swept the floor, and
old-world forms of men in strange costumes bowed in courtly style to the
dames by their side. Among all these figures I noticed only one couple
particularly, and I knew them to be bride and bridegroom. The man was
tall and broad, with dark hair and eyes, and a sensual and cruel face.
He seemed, however, to be quite enslaved by the woman by his side, whom
I hardly even now like to think of, there was something to me so
repellent in her presence.

"She was tall and of middle age, and would have been handsome were it
not for a sinister expression in her dark flashing eyes, which was
enhanced by the black eyebrows which met over them.

"She reminded me irresistibly of the effigy on the stone mo