"I came to myself with the sensation of a fall from some height. You all know that every-day dream sensation; but the peculiar feeling that I experienced then I hardly know how to describe to you. It was some time before I could make out where I was, and then there was a sense as if something terrible had been happening, which a long, death-like sleep had wiped away the remembrance of. At last it all came gradually back to me, but I thought it was nothing but a painful dream. However, when I got up I noticed the portrait for the first time--the portrait in the wedding-dress; a life-size, three-quarter length portrait. A cold shiver ran down my back, for I felt sure I recognized in it the figure which I had seen in the night. But then I could see nothing in the shape of a cupboard in the room, and that confirmed me in the conclusion that I had only been dreaming. "'Mistress Anne brought my coffee. She looked me long in the face, and said, "Eh, sir! you _are_ looking pale and badly!--has anything been happening?" Far from telling her anything about it, I said an oppression in my chest had prevented me from sleeping. "It's the stomach!--it's the stomach!" said the old woman. "Eh! we've help at hand for that!" She scuffled up to the wall; opened a door in the hangings which I had not noticed before, and I saw into a cupboard where there were glasses, small bottles, and two or three silver spoons. The old woman took out one of the spoons, clattering and tinkling it as she did so; opened a bottle; poured a few drops from it into the spoon; put it back in its place, and then came towards me with her unsteady, wavering gait. I gave a scream of horror. It was the exact reproduction, in broad, waking daylight, of the scene of the previous night. "'"Well, well!" croaked the old woman, with a strange grin; "it's only a drop of medicine, sir. The mistress was troubled with her stomach too, and often had to take a little." "'I manned myself, and swallowed the stuff, which was bitter and hot. My eyes were on the bride's picture, which was just over the wall-press. "Whose portrait's that?" I asked. "'"Good gracious, sir! don't you know?" she cried. "That's poor dear mistress, that's dead and gone your aunt." The tears ran down her cheeks. The dog began to whimper, as it had done in the night. I mastered my inward shudder, and forced myself with some difficulty to be composed. I said: "'"Mistress Anne! I feel quite positive that my aunt was at that cupboard last night at twelve o'clock, taking some of those drops." "'The old woman showed no surprise. A strange, deadly pallor seemed to extinguish the last sparks of life in her wrinkled face, and she said softly, "Has the Feast of the Invention of the Cross come round again?--No; it's long past the third of May."