thy falsehood and pride
My Ghost at thy marriage should sit by thy side,
Should tax thee with perjury, claim thee as Bride
And bear thee away to the Grave!'

Thus saying, his arms round the Lady He wound,
While loudly She shrieked in dismay;
Then sank with his prey through the wide-yawning ground:
Nor ever again was Fair Imogine found,
Or the Spectre who bore her away.

Not long lived the Baron; and none since that time
To inhabit the Castle presume:
For Chronicles tell, that by order sublime
There Imogine suffers the pain of her crime,
And mourns her deplorable doom.

At midnight four times in each year does her Spright
When Mortals in slumber are bound,
Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white,
Appear in the Hall with the Skeleton-Knight,
And shriek, as He whirls her around.

While They drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave,
Dancing round them the Spectres are seen:
Their liquor is blood, and this horrible Stave
They howl.--'To the health of Alonzo the Brave,
And his Consort, the False Imogine!'

The perusal of this story was ill-calculated to dispel Antonia's
melancholy. She had naturally a strong inclination to the marvellous;
and her Nurse, who believed firmly in Apparitions, had related to her
when an Infant so many horrible adventures of this kind, that all
Elvira's attempts had failed to eradicate their impressions from her
Daughter's mind. Antonia still nourished a superstitious prejudice in
her bosom: She was often susceptible of terrors which, when She
discovered their natural and insignificant cause, made her blush at her
own weakness. With such a turn of mind, the adventure which She had
just been reading sufficed to give her apprehensions the alarm. The
hour and the scene combined to authorize them. It was the dead of
night: She was alone, and in the chamber once occupied by her deceased
Mother. The weather was comfortless and stormy: The wind howled
around the House, the doors rattled in their frames, and the heavy rain
pattered against the windows. No other sound was heard. The Taper,
now burnt down to the socket, sometimes flaring upwards shot a gleam of
light through the room, then sinking again seemed upon the point of
expiring. Antonia's heart throbbed with agitation: Her eyes wandered
fearfully over the objects around her, as the trembling flame
illuminated them at intervals. She attempted to rise from her seat;
But her li