In it sat a man turned sideways towards me. He was lying back with his legs stretched straight out in front of him towards the fire. One of his arms hung over the arm of the chair, and in his clenched hand was a large piece of paper or parchment. His finely cut profile was clearly outlined, he was clean shaven, and he stared into the fire, his chin sunk in a high black stock. His hair was powdered and tied behind by a large black bow, and he wore bright blue cloth knee breeches, white stockings, silver buckled shoes, and many gold buttons on his blue coat. I did not take in all those details at once; I had ample leisure to do so later. For, I suppose, a full two minutes, I stared very hard at him, and lay very still, knowing full well I was looking at a ghost. Then very cautiously I drew the bedclothes over my head, and shut out the startling vision. I was invaded by wild panic. I have never been one of those timid women who are frightened by their own shadows. I require to be face to face with a tangible danger before I put faith in its existence, yet, I confess that at that moment I knew what actual fear meant. My heart beat thickly, then seemed to stop, and I was instantly bathed in cold perspiration. I knew that the servants were all in bed two flights of stairs below me, and my husband was out of London, so no calling for help was any use. I therefore forced a sort of spurious desperate courage, and began to be angry with myself for being thus afraid when no cause for fear existed. I treated myself to a scornful lecture. "You who profess to know all about ghosts, you who have actually seen several ghosts, you coward to quail before this one! Don't you know perfectly well that he won't hurt you, that he has a perfect right to sit in that chair, and that it is your duty to speak to him should he show any desire for conversation?" "I am so terribly alone," pleaded my other self in feeble self-defense. "Well, what of it? If the whole household was in the room what could they do? You are not a child. Uncover your head and look the specter boldly in the face." The stillness and hush of deep night, at the hour when sleepers slumber soundest, was upon the house. The traffic of London was muffled in a heavy fall of snow. I could hear nothing but the feeble crackling of the expiring fire in the grate, but gradually I rallied my courage and faculties and peeped stealthily out. There sat that dark form between me and the fire; there he lay in an attitude of moody carelessness, watching the cooling embers as they faded from scarlet to pink, from pink to yellow, and then fell tinkling into heaps of white ashes. No statue was ever stiller. He did not move in the least, but sat more like an effigy of a man carved out of stone than a creature of flesh and blood.