e vision
which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him a curious evidence of
the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed
shortly after the event I have narrated, and which is valuable as
exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made Schalken's
pictures sought after, but even more so as presenting a portrait of his
early love, Rose Velderkaust, whose mysterious fate must always remain
matter of speculation.

An Account of Some Strange
Disturbances in Aungier Street

It is not worth telling, this story of mine--at least, not worth
writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been called upon to tell it,
to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good
after-dinner fire on a winter's evening, with a cold wind rising and
wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone off--though I
say it, who should not--indifferent well. But it is a venture to do as
you would have me. Pen, ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the
marvellous, and a "reader" decidedly a more critical animal than a
"listener." If, however, you can induce your friends to read it after
nightfall, and when the fireside talk has run for a while on thrilling
tales of shapeless terror; in short, if you will secure me the _mollia
tempora fandi_, I will go to my work, and say my say, with better heart.
Well, then, these conditions presupposed, I shall waste no more words,
but tell you simply how it all happened.

My cousin (Tom Ludlow) and I studied medicine together. I think he would
have succeeded, had he stuck to the profession; but he preferred the
Church, poor fellow, and died early, a sacrifice to contagion,
contracted in the noble discharge of his duties. For my present purpose,
I say enough of his character when I mention that he was of a sedate but
frank and cheerful nature; very exact in his observance of truth, and
not by any means like myself--of an excitable or nervous temperament.

My Uncle Ludlow--Tom's father--while we were attending lectures,
purchased three or four old houses in Aungier Street, one of which was
unoccupied. _He_ resided in the country, and Tom proposed that we should
take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue
unlet; a move which would accomplish the double end of settling us
nearer alike to our lecture-rooms and to our amusements, and of
relieving us from the weekly charge of rent for our lodgings.

Our furniture was very sca