a feeling of wonder approaching to fear.  As he approached, she arose slowly from her seat, held her shrivelled hand up as if to prevent his coming more near, and her withered lips moved fast, although no sound issued from them.  Ravenswood stopped; and as, after a moment’s pause, he again advanced towards her, Alice, or her apparition, moved or glided backwards towards the thicket, still keeping her face turned towards him.  The trees soon hid the form from his sight; and, yielding to the strong and terrific impression that the being which he had seen was not of this world, the Master of Ravenswood remained rooted to the ground whereon he had stood when he caught his last view of her.  At length, summoning up his courage, he advanced to the spot on which the figure had seemed to be seated; but neither was there pressure of the grass nor any other circumstance to induce him to believe that what he had seen was real and substantial.

Full of those strange thoughts and confused apprehensions which awake in the bosom of one who conceives he has witnessed some preternatural appearance, the Master of Ravenswood walked back towards his horse, frequently, however, looking behind him, not without apprehension, as if expecting that the vision would reappear.  But the apparition, whether it was real or whether it was the creation of a heated and agitated imagination, returned not again; and he found his horse sweating and terrified, as if experiencing that agony of fear with which the presence of a supernatural being is supposed to agitate the brute creation.  The Master mounted, and rode slowly forward, soothing his steed from time to time, while the animal seemed internally to shrink and shudder, as if expecting some new object of fear at the opening of every glade.  The rider, after a moment’s consideration, resolved to investigate the matter further.  “Can my eyes have deceived me,” he said, “and deceived me for such a space of time?  Or are this woman’s infirmities but feigned, in order to excite compassion?  And even then, her motion resembled not that of a living and existing person.  Must I adopt the popular creed, and think that the unhappy being has formed a league with the powers of darkness?  I am determined to be resolved; I will not brook imposition even from my own eyes.”

In this uncertainty he rode up to the little wicket of Alice’s garden.  Her seat beneath the birch-tree was vacant, though the day was pleasant and the sun was high.  He approached the hut, and heard from within the sobs and wailing of a female.  No answer was returned when he knocked, so that, after a moment’s pause, he lifted the latch and entered.  It was indeed a house of solitude and sorrow.  Stretched upon her miserable pallet lay the corpse of the last retainer of the house of Ravenswood who still abode on their paternal domains!  Life had but shortly departed; and the little girl by whom she had been attended in her last moments was wringing her hands and sobbing, betwixt childish fear and sorrow, over the body of her mistress.