to answer, and would by no means return to her chair—of which the back was turned to the door. At length, looking round the room with a pale timid expression, she confessed that, just as Florentine had pronounced the last words “nor did any one appear,”—she had felt on her neck the pressure of an ice-cold hand. “There indeed we had no proof of delusive imagination;” exclaimed Maria, “as the ice-cold hand, it was no other than mine, for I had been leaning on your chair, and when, as I thought, Florentine was about to tell us of another ghost, I felt an impulse to cling, as if for protection, to some being that I knew was living and corporeal. But, what happened then?” “It was strange enough!” continued Florentine, “I started when the door opened, drew nearer to my father, and asked him whether he did not perceive a kind of effulgence coming from the door? It was not the gleam of the moon—nor of a candle, nor lamp—but I thought of what Seraphina had described of the figure seen by its own light, and believed that the spectre was again there. My father answered me with a calmness which I thought was affected—for his voice faltered, ‘Well, Florentine, if
