fancied I heard a single hollow plunge in the black water far below.
When the lightning came, I turned, and took my path in another
direction. After walking for some time across the heath, I fell. The
fall became a roll, and down a steep declivity I went, over and over,
arriving at the bottom uninjured.

Another flash soon showed me where I was--in the hollow valley, within a
couple of hundred yards from nurse's cottage. I made my way towards it.
There was no light in it, except the feeblest glow from the embers of
her peat fire. "She is in bed," I said to myself, "and I will not
disturb her." Yet something drew me towards the little window. I looked
in. At first I could see nothing. At length, as I kept gazing, I saw
something, indistinct in the darkness, like an outstretched human form.

By this time the storm had lulled. The moon had been up for some time,
but had been quite concealed by tempestuous clouds. Now, however, these
had begun to break up; and, while I stood looking into the cottage, they
scattered away from the face of the moon, and a faint, vapoury gleam of
her light, entering the cottage through a window opposite that at which
I stood, fell directly on the face of my old nurse, as she lay on her
back outstretched upon chairs, pale as death, and with her eyes closed.
The light fell nowhere but on her face. A stranger to her habits would
have thought that she was dead; but she had so much of the appearance
she had had on a former occasion, that I concluded at once she was in
one of her trances. But having often heard that persons in such a
condition ought not to be disturbed, and feeling quite sure she knew
best how to manage herself, I turned, though reluctantly, and left the
lone cottage behind me in the night, with the death-like woman lying
motionless in the midst of it.

I found my way home without any further difficulty, and went to bed,
where I soon fell asleep, thoroughly wearied, more by the mental
excitement I had been experiencing, than by the amount of bodily
exercise I had gone through.

My sleep was tormented with awful dreams; yet, strange to say, I awoke
in the morning refreshed and fearless. The sun was shining through the
chinks in my shutters, which had been closed because of the storm, and
was making streaks and bands of golden brilliancy upon the wall. I had
dressed and completed my preparations long before I heard the steps of
the servant who came to call me.

What a wonderful