“I was brought up by a grandfather and four aunts, all ghost-seers and believers in supernatural appearances. The former had been a sailor, and was one of the crew that sailed round the world with Lord Anson. I remember, when I was about eight years old, that I was awakened by the screams of one of these ladies, with whom I was sleeping, which summoned all the family about her to inquire the cause of the disturbance. She said that she had ‘seen Nancy by the side of the bed, and that she was slipping into it.’ We had scarcely got down stairs in the morning, before intelligence arrived that that lady had died, precisely at the moment my aunt said she saw her. Nancy was her brother’s wife. Another of my aunts, who was married and had a large family, foretold my grandfather’s death, at a time that we had no reason to apprehend it. He, also, had appeared at her bedside; he was then alive and well, but he died a fortnight afterward. But it would be tedious were I to enumerate half the instances I could recall of a similar description; and I will therefore proceed to the relation of what happened to myself. “I was, some few years since, invited to pass a day and night at the house of a friend in Hertfordshire, with whom I was intimately acquainted. His name was B——, and he had formerly been in business as a saddler, in Oxford street, where he realized a handsome fortune, and had now retired to enjoy his _otium cum dignitate_, in the rural and beautiful village of Sarratt. “It was a gloomy Sunday, in the month of November, when I mounted my horse for the journey, and there was so much appearance of rain, that I should certainly have selected some other mode of conveyance, had I not been desirous of leaving the animal in Mr. E——’s straw-yard for the winter. Before I got as far as St. John’s wood, the threatening clouds broke, and by the time I reached Watford I was completely soaked. However, I proceeded, and arrived at Sarratt before my friend and his wife had returned from church. The moment they did so, they furnished me with dry clothes, and I was informed that we were to dine at the house of Mr. D——, a very agreeable neighbor. I felt some little hesitation about presenting myself in such a costume, for I was decked out in a full suit of Mr. B——’s, who was a stout man, of six feet in height, while I am rather of the diminutive order; but my objections were overruled; we went, and my appearance added not a little to the hilarity of the party. At ten o’clock we separated, and I returned with Mr. and Mrs. B—— to their house, where I was shortly afterward conducted to a very comfortable bed-room.