me that I had been labouring under a severe attack of nightmare. I ceased to argue, but I was not convinced: the whole scene was then too present, too awfully real, to permit me to doubt the character of the transaction; and if, when a few days had elapsed, the hopelessness of imparting to others the conviction I entertained myself, produced in me an apparent acquiescence with their opinion, I have never been the less satisfied that no cause reducible to the known laws of nature occasioned my sufferings on that hellish evening. Whether that firm belief might have eventually yielded to time, whether I might at length have been brought to consider all that had passed, and the circumstances which I could never cease to remember, as a mere phantasm, the offspring of a heated imagination, acting upon an enfeebled body, I know not--last night, however, would in any case have dispelled the flattering illusion--last night--last night was the whole horrible scene acted over again. The place--the actors--the whole infernal apparatus were the same;--the same insults, the same torments, the same brutalities--all were renewed, save that the period of my agony was not so prolonged. I became sensible to an incision in my arm, though the hand that made it was not visible; at the same moment my persecutors paused; they were manifestly disconcerted, and the companion of him, whose name shall never more pass my lips, muttered something to his abettor in evident agitation; the formula of an oath of horrible import was dictated to me in terms fearfully distinct. I refused it unhesitatingly; again and again was it proposed, with menaces I tremble to think on--but I refused; the same sound was heard--interruption was evidently apprehended,--the same ceremony was hastily repeated, and I again found myself released, lying on my own bed, with my mother and my sister weeping over me.--O God! O God! when and how is this to end!--When will my spirit be left in peace?--Where, or with whom shall I find refuge?' "It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the emotions with which this unhappy girl's narrative affected me. It must not be supposed that her story was delivered in the same continuous and uninterrupted strain in which I have transcribed its substance. On the contrary, it was not without frequent intervals, of longer or shorter duration, that her account was brought to a conclusion: indeed, many passages of her strange dream were not without the greatest difficulty and reluctance communicated at all.--My task was no easy one; never, in the course of a long life spent in the active duties of my Christian calling,--never had I been summoned to such a conference before!