Beadle's Dime Novels No. 14 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

THE APPARITION. 97 laughed at her ‘superstition,’ as we both demned it, and avowed her purpose of wearing the jewels whenever she chose. That night I was given a well-furnished but old- fashioned chamber, whose high-post and curtained bed was an impersonation of the past. Every.thing to me was charming and novel. I went to bed by moonlight, and fell into the first light slumber dreaming, very probably, of the lovely face of my new acquaintance, but totally forgetful of any magic con- nected with the necklace, and indeed, oblivious of the neck- lace itself’ As we can feel a person in the darkness, who approaches us, before they are near enough to touch us; or as we open our eyelids when regarded steadily, while sleeping, so was I roused from my slumber, and made conscious of a presence in my apartment. The moon was shining with pe- culiar brightness, and I saw distinctly, standing in the center of the room, an old lady, dressed in the costume of fifty or eighty years ago, puffs, powder, gored skirt, short bodice. I looked at her calmly and without fear; my heart scarcely beat a thrill louder or faster. Presently she began to speak, in a high, tremulous key, that vibrated through the chamber with a power which might have rendered _it audible in other rooms. I can not now recall her precise words, but I remem- ber well their meaning. She asked me why I had mingled my destiny with that of the Pereys—spoke of my fate as being _ how irrevocably blent with theirs, and of the misfortunes sure to attend the finding, wearing, or ownersbip of the necklace —ending by declaring in a very weird and majestic way that the destiny she had invoked was immutable. . Then she glided out of the room—I could even hear the falling of the door- lateh after her. Now, I put it to your conscience, doctor, if this occurrence was not singular. I am certain that I was perfectly well, free from fever, nightmare, or excitement of any kind. Iwasa stranger in the house. There was no old lady an inmate of the house; and if there had been she would not have been dressed in that rich and ancient costume. I could distinguish the figures in the pattern of her brocaded silk.” “Well, I don’t know,” cogitated the doctor; “you're sure you've not been subject to any thing of the kind—mental dis- order, I mean. Your high-strung, poetic temperaments are frequently overstrung.” comlclbooks.com