inscrutable manuscript, and of intellect that was mystified and bewildered
by trying to grasp things that could not be grasped. A thing of
witchcraft, a sort of fungus-growth out of the grave, an unsubstantiality
altogether; although, certainly, she had weeded the grave with bodily
fingers, at all events. Still he had so much of the hereditary mysticism
of his race in him, that he might have held her supernatural, only that on
reaching the brow of the hill he saw her feet approach the dwelling of
Robert Hagburn's mother, who, moreover, appeared at the threshold
beckoning her to come, with a motherly, hospitable air, that denoted she
knew the strange girl, and recognized her as human.

It did not lessen Septimius's surprise, however, to think that such a
singular being was established in the neighborhood without his knowledge;
considered as a real occurrence of this world, it seemed even more
unaccountable than if it had been a thing of ghostology and witchcraft.
Continually through the day the incident kept introducing its recollection
among his thoughts and studies; continually, as he paced along his path,
this form seemed to hurry along by his side on the track that she had
claimed for her own, and he thought of her singular threat or promise,
whichever it were to be held, that he should have a companion there in
future. In the decline of the day, when he met the schoolmistress coming
home from her little seminary, he snatched the first opportunity to
mention the apparition of the morning, and ask Rose if she knew anything
of her.

"Very little," said Rose, "but she is flesh and blood, of that you may be
quite sure. She is a girl who has been shut up in Boston by the siege;
perhaps a daughter of one of the British officers, and her health being
frail, she requires better air than they have there, and so permission was
got for her, from General Washington, to come and live in the country; as