ted me from recalling to mind, as I
should otherwise have done, certain circumstances associated with a
proper name--that of her mother's family, which she spoke with peculiar
emphasis--and having done so, and in so doing (as she seemed persuaded)
"spoken daggers" to my conscience, she signified by a stately sign to
the ladies who had accompanied her that she was ready to depart, and,
the carriage being announced, forthwith arose, and honouring me with a
farewell curtsy, as formal as that which had marked her introduction,
sailed out of the apartment, if not with swan-like grace, with much of
that sublimer majesty of motion with which a heron on a mud-bank stalks
deliberately on, with head erect and close depending pinions. And as if
subjugated by the strange influence of the sharp grey eyes, bent on me
to the last with sinister expression, unconsciously I returned my grim
visitor's parting salutation with so profound a curtsy, that my knees
(all unaccustomed to such Richardsonian ceremony) had scarcely recovered
from it, when the closing door shut out her stately figure, and it was
not till the sound of carriage-wheels certified her final departure,
that, recovering my own identity, I started from the statue-like posture
in which I had remained standing after that unwonted genuflection, and
sank back on the sofa to meditate at leisure on my strange morning
adventure.

My ungracious visitor had left me little cause, in truth, for pleasing
meditation, so far as her gaunt self was immediately concerned, but a
harsh strain, or an ungraceful object, will sometimes (as well as the
sweetest and most beautiful) revive a long train of interesting
associations, and the plea alleged for her introduction to me had been
of itself sufficient to awaken a chord of memory, whose vibration ceased
not at her departure. On the contrary, I fell forthwith into a dreaming
mood, that led me back to recollections of old stories, of old
times--such as I had loved to listen to in long-past days, from those
who had since followed in their turn the elders of our race (whose
faithful historians they were) to the dark and narrow house appointed
for all living.

Who that has ever been addicted to the idle, and I fear me profitless,
speculation of waking dreams, but may call to mind how, when the spell
was on him, as outward and tangible things (apparently the objects
of intent gaze) faded on the eye of sense, the inward vision
proportionately clear