I had not anticipated in the least the difficulty which thus encountered and upset our plans.  I had so set my heart upon effecting the immediate retirement of our inauspicious inmate, that the disappointment literally stunned me for a moment.  I, however, returned to the charge:  I urged, and prayed, and almost besought him to give up his apartments, and to leave us.  I offered to repay every farthing of the sum he had paid me—­reserving nothing on account of the time he had already been with us.  I suggested all the disadvantages of the house.  I shifted my ground, and told him that my wife wanted the rooms; I pressed his gallantry—­his good nature—­his economy; in short, I assailed him upon every point—­but in vain, he did not even take the trouble of repeating what he had said before—­he neither relented, nor showed the least irritation, but simply said—­

“I can’t do this; here I am, and here I stay until the half-year has expired.  You wanted a lodger, and you have got one—­the quietest, least troublesome, least expensive person you could have; and though your house, servants, and furniture are none of the best, I don’t care for that.  I pursue my own poor business and enjoyments here entirely to my satisfaction.”

Having thus spoken, he gave me a sort of nod, and closed the door.

So, instead of getting rid of him the next day, as we had hoped, we had nearly five months more of his company in expectancy; I hated, and my wife dreaded the prospect.  She was literally miserable and panic-struck at her disappointment—­and grew so nervous and wretched that I made up my mind to look out for lodgings for her and the children (subversive of all our schemes of retrenchment as such a step would be), and surrendering the house absolutely to Mr. Smith and the servants during the remainder of his term.

Circumstances, however, occurred to prevent our putting this plan in execution.  My wife, meanwhile, was, if possible, more depressed and nervous every day.  The servants seemed to sympathise in the dread and gloom which involved ourselves; the very children grew timid and spiritless, without knowing why—­and the entire house was pervaded with an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear.  A poorhouse or a dungeon would have been cheerful, compared with a dwelling haunted unceasingly with unearthly suspicions and alarms.  I would have made any sacrifice short of ruin, to emancipate our household from the odious mental and moral thraldom which was invisibly established over us—­overcasting us with strange anxieties and an undefined terror.

About this time my wife had a dream which troubled her much, although she could not explain its supposed significance satisfactorily by any of the ordinary rules of interpretation in such matters.  The vision was as follows.