"Ruminating on these incidents, I returned hither. There was
no room to doubt that I had heard my wife's voice; attending
incidents were not easily explained; but you now assure me that
nothing extraordinary has happened to urge my return, and that
my wife has not moved from her seat."

Such was my brother's narrative. It was heard by us with
different emotions. Pleyel did not scruple to regard the whole
as a deception of the senses. Perhaps a voice had been heard;
but Wieland's imagination had misled him in supposing a
resemblance to that of his wife, and giving such a signification
to the sounds. According to his custom he spoke what he
thought. Sometimes, he made it the theme of grave discussion,
but more frequently treated it with ridicule. He did not
believe that sober reasoning would convince his friend, and
gaiety, he thought, was useful to take away the solemnities
which, in a mind like Wieland's, an accident of this kind was
calculated to produce.

Pleyel proposed to go in search of the letter. He went and
speedily returned, bearing it in his hand. He had found it open
on the pedestal; and neither voice nor visage had risen to
impede his design.

Catharine was endowed with an uncommon portion of good sense;
but her mind was accessible, on this quarter, to wonder and
panic. That her voice should be thus inexplicably and
unwarrantably assumed, was a source of no small disquietude.
She admitted the plausibility of the arguments by which Pleyel