figures worked on the faded arras, began by degrees to force ideas of spectral apparitions on her mind. A slight motion of the figure, whatever it was, at last put all doubt at rest, and convinced her it lived and moved; but whether it was human or brutal she could not decide. Miss Chamberlain was naturally courageous, but the unusual combination of circumstances kept her spell-bound. She tried to scream, but the will refused to obey the impulse, her eyes were riveted on the figure, and a cold shivering rushed through her nerves, and paralized every effort to master fear. With eyes strained to their utmost power, she at length fancied she could distinguish a pair of thin, bony hands, or paws, extended over the embers as if to gather warmth from them. Then she imagined she could see a long grizzly gray beard hanging down stiff from its breast or chin, but the head appeared to be so low there was no appearance of neck. There, however, the being or spectre certainly sat, in the posture of an Egyptian mummy. A cloud having passed from before the moon, a greater degree of light was now thrown into the chamber, and, as the spectral visitant turned toward the place whence the ray proceeded, the lady perceived, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that it was a man, whose head was entirely bald, having an immensely long white beard! The certainty appalled her—she had neither power to move nor speak, but lay as in a trance. Although reason did not desert her, horror overpowered every faculty, particularly when, at last, she saw him slowly rise from the hearth—a man of gigantic stature—with nothing upon him but the remains of a thin ragged garment. His rising upward was so exceedingly slow, as if to avoid noise or alarm, that before he attained a fully erect position his head seemed to touch the ceiling of the lofty room; his long spider-like limbs were of enormously disproportionate length, and the idea entered the appalled gazer’s mind, that the shriveled fingers she had observed were those of a goule coming to strangle her. The moon now showed her his giant figure distinctly, and the dismayed lady became petrified with horror on seeing him slowly and softly approach the bed where she lay. Silent and stealthily he moved until he was quite near, when, gently raising the bed clothes on the opposite side to where Miss Chamberlain reposed, he slid under them, apparently perfectly unconscious that there was any person there except himself. Who can describe the overpowering terror and dismay which now seized our appalled heroine? In the same bed with a loathsome and monstrous being whose purpose was unknown, and whose power, if exerted, was evidently irresistible. Although utterly deprived of volition, the lady yet retained presence of mind sufficient to know that her only safety depended on remaining as if perfectly unconscious and immovable. She did not dare to draw a breath—and surgeons know how astonishingly,