terror. It was some seconds, so startled was I, before I could find words
to ask her the cause of her affright. She caught my wrist in her icy
grasp, and climbed, trembling violently, into bed. Notwithstanding my
repeated entreaties, she continued for a long time stupified and dumb. At
length, however, she told me, that having lain awake for a long time, she
felt, on a sudden, that she could pray, and lighting the candle, she had
stolen from beside me, and kneeled down for the purpose. She had,
however, scarcely assumed the attitude of prayer, when somebody, she
said, clutched her arm violently near the wrist, and she heard, at the
same instant, some blasphemous menace, the import of which escaped her
the moment it was spoken, muttered close in her ear. This terrifying
interruption was the cause of the scream which had awakened me; and the
condition in which she continued during the remainder of the night
confirmed me more than ever in the conviction, that she was suffering
under some morbid action of the nervous system.

After this event, which _I_ had no hesitation in attributing to fancy,
she became literally afraid to pray, and her misery and despondency
increased proportionately.

It was shortly after this that an unusual pressure of business called me
into town one evening after office hours. I had left my dear little wife
tolerably well, and little Fanny was to be her companion until I
returned. She and her little companion occupied the same room in which we
sat on the memorable evening which witnessed the arrival of our eccentric
guest. Though usually a lively child, it most provokingly happened upon
this night that Fanny was heavy and drowsy to excess. Her mamma would
have sent her to bed, but that she now literally feared to be left alone;
although, however, she could not so far overcome her horror of solitude
as to do this, she yet would not persist in combating the poor child's