not seen her for some days, but that she was
dangerously ill I was not told. Indeed, from
her native kindness of heart, I am sure all those
about me were studiously warned not to alarm
or distress me by speaking to me of Lady M.'s
precarious state. Yet, though I felt that the
watchful care of this lady was still over me,
that through her invisible attention my meals
were brought to me as usual, and my pony came
to the door at the accustomed hour, I was rather
pining for the society of my kind friend, and
often asking, 'When shall I be allowed to see
Lady M.?' The answers to this question were
evasive. But the last thing a child thinks of
is death. I had no fear that Lady M. would
die.

"One night I was lying in my little bed. It
was winter. The fire cast a bright light all over
the room. I had not long been in bed: I had
not been asleep. Indeed, I know that I was at
that moment as wide awake as I am now.
Suddenly, though I neither saw nor heard the
door open, I saw Lady M. quite distinctly,
advancing as if from the door towards my bed.
She was dressed in a white wrapper. The fire
shone upon her face. I never doubted that it
was herself. Stretching out my arms, I cried,
'Oh! Lady M., are you indeed come once more
to see your little prince?' (her favourite name
for me). But she did not answer a word. She
came on to within a certain distance of my bed,
then stood still, and looked upon me with such
an intense expression of kind affection that I
never saw equalled. Then, somehow, I can
hardly tell in what manner, she seemed to
retreat from me, and, as it were, to go out through
the wall. She was gone. But I did not feel
frightened. I supposed that Lady M., having
come, as she sometimes did, to my room, to see
I had everything comfortable, had feared to
disturb me by speaking, and so had gone out
quietly somehow by the door, or a door, of course
So I fell asleep, greatly comforted and pleased by
having seen Lady M.

"The next morning there was a mixture of
silence and mysterious sound in the house
Strange persons crept about. I was hindered
from going near the door of Lady M.'s chamber
At last I was told, in answer to my reiterated
entreaties that I should see Lady M., for she was
now well, I said (had she not come herself to
my room the preceding night?), that Lady M
was dead—had expired at the very moment (as
far as could be ascertained) when I had seen
her, the evening before, come to my bedside
and look at me so yearningly."

I, of course, asked the Professor if, by possibility,
Lady M. (unwatched during that, moment
might really (as in the case of some other
supposed spectre) have come to his bedside, and
returned to die in her own room? The Professor
declared that such a thing was imposible,
for Lady M.'s own mother, knowing her
daughter's moments were numbered, had never
left the sick-bed for a single moment, and in
her arms the poor patient breathed her last, at
the identical time when the appearance visited
Mr. W——n.

The second story told me by mathematical
Reverend W——n, runs thus:

At St. John's College, Cambridge, was a professor
of the name of Fallowes, ci-devant senior
wrangler, "a rosy man right plump to see."
He was an especial friend of Mr. W——n, who
was in the habit of seeing him constantly. One
morning calling upon him, Mr. W——n found
his friend in his dressing-gown at a later hour
than usual, reclining on his sofa, and looking
pale and dispirited. To continue in the words
of Mr. W——n: " I asked Fallowes, 'What is
the matter with you? Are you ill?' 'No! I
am not ill.' I rallied him on his despondency,
and entreated him to tell me the cause. He
said, 'You will laugh at me if I tell you.' I
assured him, I promised him, that I would not.'
At length, after much pressing, he said, 'If ever
I saw any one, I saw my friend M. last night at
the foot of my bed.' 'Why,' replied I, 'he is
in Scotland.' 'I know it!' said Fallowes, 'and
that is the wonder of it, and the horrible thing.
For he appeared to me with dripping hair, and
swollen features, and with all the appearance of
a drowned corpse. And I cannot get it out of
my head that something has happened to him.'
'My dear friend,' I said, 'you have only had a
horrible dream, and be sure nothing will come
of it.' However, do all I could, I found it impossible
to remove the impression from Fallowe's
mind. For days he continued melancholy, and at
length one morning he put a letter into my hands
with merely these words: 'You see I was right!'
The letter was to narrate that on the very
night when Fallowes had received the impression,
his friend had been drowned in crossing a
ford in Scotland."

Many of my contemporaries at Cambridge will
remember that portions and distortions of this
story (of which I now give the correct version)
were dimly bruited about, and that it was reported
(which was the truth) that Fallowes could
never endure to be interrogated on the subject.
They will also bear witness that Fallowes did
not look like a man addicted to seeing ghosts.

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