The Argosy — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 On the Supernatural. They were both anxious that the marriage should take place before Mr. S embarked ; but the young lady’s father would not hear of it until his future son-in-law had obtained his promotion (he being at that time only a lieutenant) and should be in a more suitable position to marry. When that time arrived, he might return to Ireland to claim his bride. Before they parted, Miss B gave him a favourite spaniel, to which they were both attached, making him promise never, under any circumstances, to part with it. One night, some time after Lieutenant S—— had sailed, Miss B was awakened by the curtains at the right hand side of her huge four-post bed being drawn apart. Standing there, in full- dress uniform, with the spaniel under his arm, she saw her friend the lieutenant. He spoke not, but, fixing his eyes on her with a sad and sorrowful expression, after some little time vanished. Miss B mentioned the circumstance to her family in the morning, and made a note of the day and hour. As soon as a sufficient time had elapsed for a letter to reach them, they received the sad tidings that Lieutenant S——— had died of fever, almost immediately after his arrival in India, and on the very day and at the very hour at which he appeared to Miss B——. These are strange facts, but they are mysteries which we cannot penetrate or attempt to understand. The appearing of Lieutenant S was strange ; but to my mind the appearing of the dog was stranger still, as that was doubtless alive and in India. It is useless to speculate on these things ; but the facts are incontrovertible. There is yet another instance which comes to my mind, though somewhat different from the foregoing, inasmuch as the person who appeared was still living. The lady was an aunt of my own, my father’s only sister ; she was a very beautiful woman, who had married, when scarcely more than fourteen, a man nearly three times her own age. The marriage was an unhappy one; and six years of wretchedness brought her to an early grave, when she had scarcely completed her twenty-first year. She was really ill only a few weeks ; and the end drew on so rapidly that the doctor expected every time he went to the house to find that all was over. On the morning of the day she died, as the servant opened the front door to the doctor (till then quite a sceptic in such matters), he declared that he distinctly saw my aunt leave the dining-room, and walk upstairs. Not only so, but he heard the rustle of her silk dress in passing up the staircase. Greatly astonished, he asked the servant how it was that his mistress was down stairs, when he had not expected to find her living. comniclooo ks (C(O)