Mrs. M——­ was fond of narrating this story, and, having a pretty talent that way, she had versified it; though I am bound to say that in plain prose it was much more effective.  She was an Englishwoman, had seen much of the world, and was a person of considerable reading and cultivation.  She had moral and physical courage in an uncommon degree, and was thoroughly reliable, so that this story is to me as well authenticated as one can well be at second hand.

I have another incident of the same shadowy and quasi-supernatural kind to relate, which took place in the same street of that town, formerly much affected by ghosts and other supernatural appearances.  I say formerly, for what spirit, however perturbed, could revisit the glimpses of the moon in a modern villa, or abide long within the sound of the steam-whistle?

Some years ago I was living in Newport in an old-fashioned house, also built by a retired sea-captain in the early part of the century, but, unlike the other, there were no tales of terror connected with it that I ever heard of.  At 1 p.m. on a winter’s day, in the midst of a furious snow-storm, as we sat at dinner, we heard a commotion in the kitchen.  Instead of the expected joint, enter a pallid woman:  “Oh, please come out and see Martha!” The lady of the house hastened to the kitchen, and found Martha, the cook, almost fainting upon a chair.  “What is the matter?” As soon as she could speak she gasped out, “Oh, that face at the window!” The window of the kitchen looked out upon the garden, which had a high fence all around it.  I at once ran out to see if any person was there:  the ground was covered with a pure and untrodden surface of snow six or eight inches deep.  This was rather startling, when inside the window a woman was fainting at the sight of some fearful appearance on the outside.  I looked out on the street, which ran alongside the garden fence, and which was not much of a thoroughfare.  There were no tracks to be seen in the snow.  No human foot had lately been in the garden.

When the woman came to herself, she said that, suddenly looking up, she saw a female face with an agonized expression looking in at her from the window.  On being asked if it was any one whom she knew, she replied that the face seemed familiar, but that she could not recall the name that belonged to it.  After reflection she said that it looked like a daughter of hers whom she had not seen since she was a child.  The girl had been brought up by a lady in another State, and was now a married woman, living in Vermont.

About a week afterward, Martha received a letter from the lady who had brought up her daughter, informing her that the young woman had recently died after a short illness, and that her great anxiety seemed to be to see her mother before she died.  Some time after I wrote to the town indicated to ascertain the exact time of the young woman’s death.  The husband had moved away immediately after the funeral,