Yet, in spite of every thing she said, my conviction remained unaltered. I could not be deceived in a fact so clearly attested by my own sensations. But the mystery was never cleared up; and I brooded over it in secret so perversely, that it exercised a blighting influence for a long time upon my imagination. Many years afterward a suspicion crossed my mind, that this woman knew more about the matter than she cared to acknowledge. It was she who carried me into the house, having discovered me, as she stated, lying insensible in the court-yard; but I had no recollection of having found my way out into the air--a circumstance which at the time did not present itself to me in the light in which I am disposed to regard it now. Nor should I, perhaps, have been led to suspect her of duplicity, had she not acted with ingratitude at a time when sorrow and misfortune had fallen upon the house that had nurtured her from infancy. III. My mother had no companion. Even the servants lived apart, and performed their allotted offices at hours when she was not present; so that our table was laid and our wants supplied, for the most part by unseen hands. Such was my mother's way of life. Solitude and early griefs had fallen heavily upon her spirits, and fretted her temper. She rarely exchanged words with the servants, and never except upon unavoidable occasions. A spoken language was almost interdicted among us, and in its place the language of books was substituted. We dwelt in a world of our own, in which the unreal was invested with a living interest. Conversation wearied her; she had no sympathy with the actual life around her, and had long closed her heart against it. But the charm of books was ever fresh and inexhaustible. She possessed in a higher degree than any person I ever knew the power of realizing their contents. Portraits stepped out of them, and became as familiar to her as if they had moved about her bodily in the flesh. This daily intercourse with the creations of the brain fed her morbid desire for seclusion, and was cultivated with an earnestness that proved fatal at last. Her taste lay entirely in one direction; the marvelous and extravagant alone interested her. She prohibited all works that treated of real life, and sought for the excitement she loved in the region of wonder and romance. Her library (a room of which I will speak more particularly presently) was filled with histories of sorcery and enchantment--of miraculous escapes and perils--providential interpositions--dreams, omens, and spectral appearances--astrology and witchcraft--church-yard legends, and the superstitions which ascribe a mysterious power to spells, charms, and incantations--traditions of giants and monsters--feats of the genii and evil spirits, and narratives that embraced the whole round of that curious lore which relates to the alchemists and diviners.