I could not sleep! I seldom can the first night in a strange house, and this was--such a house! I felt quite alone--as much alone as if the heavy sleepers in the next bed were a thousand miles away, for farther still in spirit were they. I thought of the isolated situation of the house we were in; of the crimes, real or reputed, that had stained its hearthstone; of the superstitious terror attaching to the haunted place; of the hard facts that three several families, not reputed less wise or brave than their neighbors, had been driven from the spot by supernatural disturbance as yet unexplained; of the coincidence that this dreary night was the ghostly Hallow E'en; then of the superstition that spirits, when they wish to appear to only one in a room, have the power of casting all others into a profound sleep, from which the haunted one cannot awake them; and of isolating their victim from all the natural world--even from the very bedfellow by their side. The room was very dark and still--solid blackness and dead silence. It oppressed me like a nightmare. At last, when my senses grew accustomed to the scenes by straining my eyes, I could dimly perceive beyond the foot of the bed the segment of a circle formed by the fan-light window, that now only seemed a thinner darkness; and, by straining my ears, I could faintly hear the stealthy fall of the drizzling rain. It was almost worse than the first total silence and darkness; for it kept my nerves on a strange _qui vive_ of attention. Presently this was over, too. The muffled sound of the drizzling ceased. Yet darker clouds must have lowered over the earth, for the faint outline of the fan-light window was no longer visible. All was once more black darkness and intense silence, and again I felt oppressed almost to suffocation. Welcome now would have been the faint fall of the fine rain or the dim outline of the window. I strained my senses in vain; no sight or sound responded. I felt the silence and the darkness settling like the clods of the ground upon my breast. Hoo-oo-o!--went something. Hark! what was that? I thought, starting. Hoo-oo-o----! Oh! the wailing voice of some low, wandering wind, I concluded. Whirirr-rr-r-r----! Yes! the wind is rising, but how like a lost spirit it wails. Urr-rr-rr-r-r-r----! My Lord! it's not the wind! What is it? Great Heavens! Urr-rr-rr-rr-r-r-r-r! I started up in a sitting posture, and, bathed in a cold perspiration, remained listening, my hair bristling with terror. Urr-rr-rr-rr-r-r-r-r--"Ha--ha--ha!" I could bear no more! Springing out, I called: "Grandmother! Grandmother!" "What's the matter? Why, what ails the child?" exclaimed Mrs. Hawkins. "Oh! listen! listen!" "Listen at what? You are dreaming!" "Dreaming, am I? Oh! wait! Listen----" Urr-rr-rr-r-r-r-r--"Ha!--ha!--ha!" It was, as plainly as I ever heard, the sound of the rolling of a ball, followed by a peal of demoniac laughter. I turned on Mrs. Hawkins an appalled look.