'Instead of a grave and forbidding physician, her host, she found,
was a man of most agreeable manners. Lady Trimblestone did
everything in her power to entertain her guest, and for two or three
days the demon of ennui was banished. At length the lady's vapours
returned; everything appeared changed. Melancholy brought on a
return of alarming nervous complaints--convulsions of the limbs
--perversion of the understanding--a horror of society; in short,
all the complaints that are to be met with in an advertisement
enumerating the miseries of a nervous patient. In the midst of one
of her most violent fits, four mutes, dressed in white, entered her
apartment; slowly approaching her, they took her without violence in
their arms, and without giving her time to recollect herself,
conveyed her into a distant chamber hung with black and lighted with
green tapers. From the ceiling, which was of a considerable height,
a swing was suspended, in which she was placed by the mutes, so as
to be seated at some distance from the ground. One of the mutes set
the swing in motion; and as it approached one end of the room, she
was opposed by a grim menacing figure armed with a huge rod of
birch. When she looked behind her, she saw a similar figure at the
other end of the room, armed in the same manner. The terror,
notwithstanding the strange circumstances which surrounded her, was
not of that sort which threatens life; but every instant there was
an immediate hazard of bodily pain. After some time, the mutes
appeared again, with great composure took the lady out of the swing,
and conducted her to her apartment. When she had reposed some time,
a servant came to inform her that tea was ready. Fear of what might
be the consequence of a refusal prevented her from declining to
appear. No notice was taken of what had happened, and the evening
and the next day passed without any attack of her disorder. On the
third day the vapours returned--the mutes reappeared--the menacing