When night came my nerves again asserted themselves; every sound made me start apprehensively. My window was wide open; the great old lilac bushes seemed to lean caressingly in, their odor borne to me on the soft, warm wind, as it playfully lifted the thin curtain. All was so balmy, quiet and sweet that after a time it soothed my excited nerves, and I slept soundly until morning. Thus it continued for two weeks, until I began to think that I must have been dreaming. I saw nothing, I heard nothing more alarming than the rats, which scurried up and down between the plastering and the clapboards, or gnawed industriously at the narrow base. I had been roaming over the fields all day; I had climbed from rock to rock down the shallow creek as happy as a child; I had lain on the last year’s leaves, and plaited a crown of checkerberries, the glossy green of the leaf, and the brilliant red of the berries forming a lovely contrast. I gathered also a great bunch of wild forget-me-nots; it was sunset when I reached home; I placed the flowers on the little stand in front of the mirror, and hung the wreath above it, so that the mirror reflected it like a duplicate. I retired early, and immediately dropped to sleep. Some time during the night I was awakened—it might have been a shutter that slammed, or a door in one of the empty rooms—in my half-awakened state it sounded like a pistol shot. As I started up in bed I became conscious of an unusual commotion; the trees were swaying and creaking; the lilacs bent and shivered; my curtains were swept straight out into the room, and as I looked with startled eyes the luminous figure once more stood before me, fearfully distinct; the bouquet of forget-me-nots I had gathered held in her hand; the crown of leaves and berries resting on her head; even in my awful fright I observed that it was tipped coquettishly over the right side of the head, instead of being set demurely on top. She seemed to advance and recede, waving the flowers at me derisively; again the resemblance to that woman whom my soul loathed struck me with a sickening sense of pain and hatred. I had often listened to my old grandmother as she told tales of supernatural visitations and mysterious warnings; of the death watch in the wall, and that immediately following these prognostications some beloved one surely departed this life; she related instances of ghostly tappings on the headboard, and of a deadly chill, like a cadaverous finger, creeping up and down the spine, to warn the unhappy recipient that a stranger was treading on their future grave.