third had not only met and talked with this inconvenient connection, expostulating with it on its depraved appetites, and generally arguing the point on moral as well as sanitary grounds, but had induced it by her persuasions, and the power of a certain amulet she wore, to abstain from persecuting a damsel in the neighbouring village for the same ghastly purpose, or, at least, to put off its visits till the horrid craving should be no longer endurable. Still I could meet nobody who had actually seen one in person; and that is why I asked you just now if you believed there was such a thing as a Vampire?” He nodded gravely. “They are rare,” said he; “but I believe in such beings, because I have not only seen one, but had the advantage of its personal notice, and a very pretty, pleasing acquaintance it was! You would like to know something more? Well, it compromises nobody. You will not quote me, of course. Indeed I don’t see how you can, for I still mention no real names. I don’t mind telling you the story of a life, such as I knew it; a life that by some fatality seemed to drag down every other that came within the sphere of its attractions to sorrow, humiliation, and disgrace. I have no brain to swim, no pulses to leap, no heart to ache left, and yet the memory stirs me painfully even now. “In early manhood,” he continued, bending down, as though to scan his own fleshless proportions, with an air of consciousness that was almost grotesque, “I paid as much heed to my personal appearance, and flourished it about in public places as persistently as others of like age and pursuits. Whether I should do so if I had my time to come again, is a different question, but we will let that pass. Being then young, tolerably good-looking, sufficiently conceited, and exceedingly well-dressed, I had betaken myself one evening to your Italian Opera, the best, and I may add the dearest, in Europe. I was fond of music and knew something about it, but I was fonder still of pretty women, though concerning these I enjoyed my full share of that ignorance which causes men so to exaggerate their qualities both good and bad; an ignorance it is worth while to preserve with as much care as in other matters we take to acquire knowledge, for there is no denying, alas! that those who know them best always seem to respect them least. “I rose, therefore, from my stall at the first opportunity and turned round to survey the house. Ere I had inspected a quarter of it, my glasses were up, and I will tell you what they showed me—the most perfect face I ever saw. Straight nose, thin and delicately cut, large black eyes, regular eyebrows, faultless chin, terminating a complete oval, the whole set in a frame of jet-black hair. Even my next neighbour, who, from an observation he let fall to a friend, belonged apparently to the Household Troops, could not refrain from ejaculating, ‘By Jove, she’s a ripper!’ the moment he caught sight of the object on which my gaze was fixed.