hich used to
enchant the artist long before in his happy days.

A feeling of awe and of interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted
him to follow the spectre, if spectre it were. She descended the
stairs--he followed; and, turning to the left, through a narrow passage,
she led him, to his infinite surprise, into what appeared to be an
oldfashioned Dutch apartment, such as the pictures of Gerard Douw have
served to immortalise.

Abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and
in one corner stood a four-post bed, with heavy black-cloth curtains
around it; the figure frequently turned towards him with the same arch
smile; and when she came to the side of the bed, she drew the curtains,
and by the light of the lamp which she held towards its contents, she
disclosed to the horror-stricken painter, sitting bolt upright in the
bed, the livid and demoniac form of Vanderhausen. Schalken had hardly
seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until
discovered, on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the
passages into the vaults. He was lying in a cell of considerable size,
which had not been disturbed for a long time, and he had fallen beside
a large coffin which was supported upon small stone pillars, a security
against the attacks of vermin.

To his dying day Schalken was satisfied of the reality of the 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 we 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, as
close and faithful as one taken from memory can be, of his early love,
Rose Velderkaust, whose mysterious fate must ever remain matter of
speculation.

The picture represents a chamber of antique masonry, such as might be
found in most old cathedrals, and is lighted faintly by a lamp carried
in the hand of a female figure, such as we have above attempted to
describe; and in the background, and to the left of him who examines the
painting, there stands the form of a man apparently aroused from sleep,
and by his attitude, his hand being laid upon his sword, exhibiting
considerable alarm: this last figure is illuminated only by the expiring
glare of a wood or charcoal fire.

The whole production exhibits a beautiful specimen of