Page:Tales of the Dead.djvu/91

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The Fated Hour.
75

had been transported to heaven, where she had played with angels; to which incident she attributed her disinclination to all infantine games.

“My father strenuously combated this idea, as well as the event to which I had been witness, of her sudden disappearance from the garden.

‘Do not torment me any longer,’ said he, ‘with these phænomena, which appear complaisantly renewed every day, in order to gratify your eager imagination. It is true, that your sister’s person and habits present many singularities; but all your idle talk will never persuade me that she holds any immediate intercourse with the world of spirits.’

“My father did not then know, that where there is any doubt of the future, the weak mind of man ought not to allow him to profane the word never, by uttering it.

“About a year and half afterwards, an event occurred which had power to shake even my father’s determined manner of thinking to its very foundation. It was on a Sunday, that Seraphina and I wished at last to pay a visit which we had from time to time deferred: for notwithstanding my sister was very fond of being with me, she avoided even my society whenever she could not enjoy it but in the midst of a large assembly, where constraint destroyed all pleasure.

“To adorn herself for a party, was to her an