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I stood motionless. Then fear mastered me. My nerves gave way. I pulled the gate after me and fled.

I entered the house with a beating heart, closed the window with eager fear, and sought my chamber in a mood of wild agitation.

It was long ere I recovered my self-control.

Taken separately, I could have recalled the dream, I might have encountered the spectral shape, without apprehension. It was the combination-it was the leaping of my dream, so to speak, into vital embodiment that had wrought my terror. Nervous enough at all times, my naturally tremulous sensibilities had not been improved by my few weeks of solitude and day dreams. I strode about my bedroom, striving by every argument of logic and philosophy to reassure myself. It was no ghost I had seen. There was a substantiality about the shape that convinced me I had been the spectator of no "shadowy being." What I had beheld was the form of a woman, sorrowful, noble, and serene. The features were stamped upon my memory-graven there by the stylet of Fear. Amid the darkness of the hours that intervened before the welcome morning streamed that countenance stood out.

The morning broke. The pale suffusion filled my room and found me awake. The sun uprose: the birds poured their matins. Soon the hall clock struck my usual hour of rising. I descended and entered the breakfast-room. The servant in attendance eyed me furtively. I could excuse her. I had noticed before she had seen me that my eyes were hollow, my complexion pale, my expression of the careworn kind which no attention to the toilet can diminish.

"Tell Mrs. Williams I want her," said I.

In a few minutes Mrs. Williams appeared. She was a tranquil woman, who was never to be surprised into any emotional outbreak. I saw by the faint lifting of her brows that she remarked my altered air, but she said nothing.

"Please take that chair, Mrs. Williams."

She seated herself and clasped her hands on her lap.

"You will see by my face that I have passed a sleepless night. My motive in desiring your presence is to put it to your female ingenuity -women are better hands at riddles than men-to solve a very mysterious conundrum that offered itself to my eyes about two o'clock this morning."

She eyed me with a sudden furtive keenness. Neither my behaviour, my language, nor my tastes during the time she had known me had quite justified my assumption of intellect in the eyes of this healthy practical woman. I was prepared to believe that she considered me a little touched.

"You don't look very well this morning, sir."

"I don't feel very well. I met with an odd adventure last night. Close against the hedge at the bottom of the grounds I saw a woman,

pacing in the moonlight. She was very beautiful; but in the calm of her beauty there was something terrible. It frightened me. It has made me ill. Is this house haunted ?"

"Haunted, sir! I have never heard of ghosts in these parts. I've slept every night for three years in this house by myself, and never met with anything of the kind."

"You are lucky. I can only assure you I distinctly saw at the time I mentioned a female form draped in white, with yellow hair and black eyes, such as you might dream of, such as I did dream of." "Are you sure, sir, it was not a dream ?"

"Quite sure," I replied impatiently, for what is more vexing than incredulity to a mind still teased with recollection? "When I dream I usually awake to find myself in bed. If last night's experience was a dream I must have dreamed it in the fields yonder, for when I awoke, or rather when I had fled, my clothes were heavy with dew and my hair moist."

"Mightn't you have gone for a stroll, sir, and on your return, having got to bed, dreamt you saw this thing?"

"Mrs. Williams, you are a sensible woman-do not vex me. I tell you I saw this person, or ghost or angel, or what the deuce else it was, as plainly as I see you. You have sense enough to judge from my appearance and excitement that there is something more in all this than a dream. You have lived here some time, pray have you ever heard of such a woman as I describe ?"

"Never, sir," she rejoined with complacent emphasis. "Think. I entreat you to think.

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This is a mystery I must solve. If I were superstitious I might think it a ghost, but I don't believe in ghosts. You now are a practical woman, what is your opinion?" I am afraid I cannot help you, sir. You see there are very few people living about this place, and it could hardly be one of them. There's Mrs. Fraser, the widow, I told you of. It's true I haven't seen her, for I'm told she keeps as close to herself as one of the nuns at Cornpool. But I know her servant; and the girl, who's very respectable, declares her missis is the most quiet and respectable person in the world, a-bed every night at ten and up early at her gardening work, which is her chief amusement."

"You say you have never seen this lady?"

"No, sir. It's not perhaps for the want of her going out-she must do that sometimes, though her servant does all her shopping for her-it's my being shut up here. Before you came, sir, I hardly ever left the house."

"I should very much like to have this lady described to me. If it be she whom I saw, there will be an end of the mystery-(in one sense)," I mentally added. "If not, we must push our inquiries until we learn who this lady is I saw. Know the truth I will."

"I don't see how I can quite get at Mrs. Fraser," began Mrs. Williams.

"You need not see her. Question the servant. I only want a description of the lady."

"I can do that. I know Lucy well, sir."

"Will you go now and see Lucy?"

"Yes, sir." She rose.

"You will contrive some excuse for calling?" Easily, sir."

"After seeing her, mind to return here at once. I shall be impatient."

She promised, and left the room. There was a half-smile upon her face as she went out. I excused it.

During her absence I opened the parcel of newspapers I received from time to time from London. But the effort to occupy my mind with their contents was idle. Like the needle to the star, my mind faithfully vibrated to its cardinal thought.

The grounds were brilliant with sunshine and flowers and the hues of ripening fruit. The air was busy with the chant of bees. Winged insects flashed like diamond-drops in their nimble flight; and the morning breeze brought to my senses the refreshing sweetness of lilacs and violets from which the sun had not yet drunk their chaplets of dew.

But for the dream that had been the harbinger of the form, I think that busy sparkling morning would have subdued, if it did not erase, the recollection from my mind. Superstition and sunlight are no friends; and it taxed memory and fancy to associate with those brilliant lights and dancing shadows, the spectral landscape, the wan moonshine, the tall and stirless shadows of the night that was gone. Some time elapsed before Mrs. Williams returned. At length her footsteps sounded in the hall. She knocked and entered.

"Have you seen the servant?" I asked eagerly.

"Yes, sir."

"Did she describe Mrs. Fraser ?"

"There was no need, sir. Whilst I was talking at the gate the lady came out to pick a flower."

"What is she like?"

"She is about my height. Her eyes are black. She has a pretty face, but very mournful. She didn't stay above a minute or two; and perhaps she was just then a little troubled. But she did look as though she cried a good deal on the quiet, or went about with a trouble she wouldn't confess. She has little white hands, and is a good figure. Her hair is straw-colour, which makes her face peculiar, and not easy forgot. Her black eyes shouldn't match it; and yet they do, somehow."

VOL. XXXIX.

C

"This is the lady I saw last night,” said I.

She was silent.

"Do you doubt me still, Mrs. Williams?"

"I should be sorry to have taken the liberty to doubt you before, sir. I am sure you believe in what you say you saw."

"You still think that I was dreaming?"

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Indeed, sir, I don't think at all," she responded deprecatingly, marking my incensed eye. "I only know when I saw Mrs. Fraser, and noticed she was like the person you described, that I asked Lucy if her missis was given to walking out alone in the garden and fields at two o'clock in the morning. And Lucy answers, firing up, that she wondered what could put such notions into my head-for she had never known her missis do such a thing; and if she didn't know it, no one else in Cliffegate could."

"Well, well. I am obliged to you for the trouble you have taken."

"The trouble's a pleasure, sir," she answered cheerfully, pausing at the door. She hesitated, and then said, "You'll pardon my boldness, sir, but I think you'd be acting wisely were you to give over reading in those books for a little, and think more of your health."

"My reading won't injure my health," said I, laughing. "But if you were to see a little company now"

"I shall have company soon," I interrupted.

"I am very glad to hear it, sir," she remarked, and withdrew. I sank into deep thought.

"Oh God!" cries Hamlet, "I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a thing of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."

CHAPTER IV.

How was I to get to know Mrs. Fraser? If she was of the nun-like disposition Mrs. Williams had portrayed her, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to establish an acquaintance.

I tried to laugh at myself when I discovered that I, the staunch bachelor, the student who had plighted his troth to solitude, was taxing my brains for a means of introduction to a pretty woman. But my sneer was a poor attempt. Yet I was sensible enough of some degree of absurdity attaching to my fancies, which restrained me from soliciting any further help from Mrs. Williams. The smile which I had remarked, my horror of ridicule made me very resolute not to provoke again. Doubtless she would have proved a useful auxiliary-have precipitated by some ingenious stratagem the introduction to Mrs. Fraser. But I would not ask her aid. Whatever part was to be played, I resolved should be played by me alone.

Strolling about the grounds, I came across one of the gardeners. An idea struck me.

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Farley," said I, "I want you to make me up a bouquet. The garden should yield a handsome one."

"I should think it could, zur," he replied, looking proudly around

him.

"Let me have it as soon as you can."

He was long about it. I saw his form stooping in all directions, finally disappearing in the greenhouse. He was an old man, slow and exact, intensely knowing, and rather patronising. I curbed my impatience, for I knew what he brought me would be good. Presently he emerged, his furrowed gravity full of the anticipation of applause. I marched off with the superb bouquet to the house.

"Mary," said I to a maid, "I want you to take this bouquet to Elmore Cottage-Mrs. Fraser's, you know-and desire the servant to present it to her with my respectful compliments."

This will break the ice, I thought. This bouquet will enchant her.

I gazed at her house, which I could descry through the trees. Was she in her garden now? I wondered. If so, I might see her by going into the fields; there study unseen that face by sunlight which had gleamed upon me with such supernatural beauty in the moonshine. No. I would not risk detection. It might anger her, should she detect me, to find herself watched. She would resent the incivility as it deserved, and render my introduction more difficult. Before long the girl returned. She held the bouquet.

Why," I cried, " didn't you deliver it."

"Yes, sir. I gave it to the servant, who took it in, but brought it back again, saying, her missis's compliments, had plenty of flowers, was much obliged, but begged to decline it."

"Put the flowers in water, and place them in the drawingroom."

Saying which I took my hat, snatched up a book, and marched from the house piqued, angry, and humiliated. I walked quickly, making my way to the cliffs; and it was not until I reached them that my mind sobered. Indeed, it would have been difficult for any unpleasant feeling to have long held its own before the summer glory of the scene that unfolded itself. The sea lay before me still as a lake. A group of black rocks half a mile out found a perfect reflection in the azure calm. The thin long breakers crawled up and down the long beach, making a shrill salt clatter as they rolled the large pebbles from their place. From my feet the cliff fell sheer-a fall of a hundred feet. The fishermen mending their nets on the esplanade; the shrimper waist-deep in the water; the sailors tarring the bottom. of the smack that lay heeled upon the shingle, were dwarfed to

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