force, and still there came no one to her relief.

Again Willie stood by her, offering her a goblet overflowing with
water; but when she attempted to take it, Willie changed into Lenora,
who laughed mockingly at her distress, telling her there was water in
the well and ice on the curbstone. Once more the phantom faded away,
and the old porter was there, wading through a limpid stream and
offering her to drink a cup of molten lead.

"Merciful Heaven!" shrieked the sick woman, as she writhed from side
to side on her bed, which seemed changed to burning coals; "will no
one bring me water, water, water!"

An interval of calmness succeeded, during which she revolved in her
mind the possibility of going herself to the kitchen, where she knew
the water-pail was standing. No sooner had she decided upon this than
the room appeared full of little demons, who laughed, and chattered,
and shouted in her ears:

"Go--do it! Willie did, when the night was dark and chilly; but now it
is warm--nice and warm--try it, do!"

Tremblingly Mrs. Hamilton stepped upon the floor, and finding herself
too weak to walk, crouched down, and crept slowly down the stairs to
the kitchen door, where she stopped to rest. Across the room by the
window stood the pail, and as her eye fell upon it the mirth of the
little winged demons appeared in her disordered fancy to increase; and
when the spot was reached, the tumbler seized and thrust into the
pail, they darted hither and thither, shouting gleefully: