At these words, the child suddenly cried out again, in precisely the same loud, strong voice--"No! no! the baby first, the baby first"--and immediately afterwards lay down, and fell, for the first time since her illness into a tranquil sleep. My good little wife sate, crying bitterly by her bedside. The child was better--_that_ was, indeed, delightful. But then there was an omen in the words, thus echoed from her dream, which she dared not trust herself to interpret, and which yet had seized, with a grasp of iron, upon every fibre of her brain. "Oh, Richard," she cried, as she threw her arms about my neck, "I am terrified at this horrible menace from the unseen world. Oh! poor, darling little baby, I shall lose you--I am sure I shall lose you. Comfort me, darling, and say he is not to die." And so I did; and tasked all my powers of argument and persuasion to convince her how unsubstantial was the ground of her anxiety. The little boy was perfectly well, and, even were he to die before his sister that event might not occur for seventy years to come. I could not, however, conceal from myself that there was something odd and unpleasant in the coincidence; and my poor wife had grown so nervous and excitable, that a much less ominous conjecture would have sufficed to alarm her. Meanwhile, the unaccountable terror which our lodger's presence inspired continued to increase. One of our maids gave us warning, solely from her dread of our queer inmate, and the strange accessories which haunted him. She said--and this was corroborated by her fellow-servant--that Mr. Smith seemed to have constantly a companion in his room; that although they never heard them speak, they continually and distinctly heard the tread of two persons walking up and down the room together, and described accurately the peculiar sound of a stick or crutch tapping upon the floor, which my own ears had heard. They also had seen the large, ill-conditioned cat I have mentioned, frequently steal in and out of the stranger's room; and observed that when our little girl was in greatest danger, the hateful animal was constantly writhing, fawning, and crawling about the door of the sick room after nightfall. They were thoroughly persuaded that this ill-omened beast was the foul fiend himself, and I confess I could not--sceptic as I was--bring myself absolutely to the belief that he was nothing more than a "harmless, necessary cat." These and similar reports--implicitly believed as they palpably were by those who made them--were certainly little calculated to allay the perturbation and alarm with which our household was filled.