contenance. Heaven and earth! she beheld the Spectre Bridegroom! A loud shriek at that moment burst upon her ear, and her aunt, who had been awakened by the music, and had followed her silently to the window, fell into her arms. When she looked again, the spectre had disappeared.
Of the two females, the aunt now required the most soothing, for she was perfectly beside herself with terror. As to the young lady, there was something, even in the speetre of her lover, that seemed endearing. There was still the semblanee of manly beauty; and though the shadow of a man is but little ealeulated to satisfy the affections of a love-sick girl, yet, where the substanee is not to be had, even that is eonsoling. The aunt deelared she never would sleep in that ehamber again; the nieee, for once, was refractory, and declared as strongly that she would sleep in no other in the eastle: the eonsequenee was, that she had to sleep in it alone: but she drew a promise from her aunt not to relate the story of the speetre, lest she should be denied the only melaneholy pleasure left her on earth—that of inhabiting the chamber over whieh the guardian shade of her lover kept its nightly vigils.
How long the good old lady would have observed this promise is uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk of the marvellous, and there is a triumph in being the first to tell a frightful story; it is, however, still quoted in the neighbourhood, as a memorable instance of female seerecy, that she kept it to herself for a whole week; when she was suddenly absolved from all further restraint, by intelligenee brought to the breakfast-table one morning that the young lady was not to be fonnd. Her room was empty—the bed had not been slept in—the window was open, and the bird had flown!
The astonishment and eoneern with whieh the intelligenee was received, ean only be imagined by those
