ho had been alarmed in a manner, if not exactly similar,
yet just as mysterious; that visitors, like myself, had actually given
way to these terrors so far as to quit the house in consequence; and
that servants were sometimes not to be prevented from sharing in the
same contagion. At the same time they told me this, my host and hostess
declared that custom and continued residence had long exempted all
regular inmates of the mansion from any alarms or terrors. The
visitations, whatever they were, seemed to be confined to newcomers, and
to them it was by no means a matter of frequent occurrence.

In the neighbourhood, I found, this strange story was well known; that
the house was regularly set down as "haunted" all the country round, and
that the spirit, or goblin, or whatever it was that was embodied in
these appearances, was familiarly known by the name of "Silky."

At a distance, those to whom I have related my night's adventure have
one and all been sceptical, and accounted for the whole by supposing me
to have been half asleep, or in a state resembling somnambulism. All I
can say is, that my own impressions are directly contrary to this
supposition; and that I feel as sure that I saw the figure that sat
before me with my bodily eyes, as I am sure I now see you with them.
Without affecting to deny that I was somewhat shocked by the adventure,
I must repeat that I suffered no unreasonable alarm, nor suffered my
fancy to overcome my better spirit of womanhood.

I certainly slept no more in that room, and in that to which I removed I
had one of the daughters of my hostess as a companion; but I have never,
from that hour to this, been convinced that I did not actually encounter
something more than is natural--if not an actual being in some other
state of existence. My ears have not been deceived, if my eyes
were--which, I repeat, I cannot believe.

The warnings so strongly shadowed forth have been too true. The
gentleman at whose house I that night was a guest has long since filled
an untimely grave! In that splendid hall, since that time, strangers
have lorded it--and I myself have long since ceased to think of such
scenes as I partook of that evening--the envied object of the attention
of one whose virtues have survived the splendid inheritance to which he
seemed destined.

Whether this be a tale of delusion and superstition, or something more
than that, it is, at all events, not without a legend for its
foundation