s it were, in its billows of swan's down.

How long I had been in the house by this time, I cannot tell. It
seemed to me, when I looked back, to form a considerable portion of a
lifetime. Indeed, I did not very well remember the more distant events
of the night; although every now and then the fact occurred to me with
startling distinctness, that all I had gone through was only
preliminary to something still to happen; that the morning was to
come, the family to be astir, and the housebreaker to be apprehended.
My reflections were not continuous. It may be that I dozed between
whiles. How else can I account for my feeling myself grasped by the
throat, to the very brink of suffocation, by a hand without a body?
How else can I account for sister Laura standing over me where I
reclined, pointing to the stolen plate on the sofa, and lecturing me
on my horrible propensities till she grew black in the face, and her
voice rose to a wild unearthly scream which pierced through my brain?

When this fancy occurred, I started from my recumbent posture. A voice
was actually in my ears, and a living form before my eyes: a lady
stood contemplating me, with a half-scream on her lips, and the colour
fading from her cheek; and as I moved, she would have fallen to the
ground, had I not sprung up and caught her in my arms. I laid her
softly down in the _fauteuil_. It was the morning twilight. The
silence was profound. The boundaries of the room were still dim and
indistinct. Is it any wonder that I was in some considerable degree of
perplexity as to whether I was not still in the land of dreams?

'Madam,' said I, 'if you are a vision, it is of no consequence; but if
not, I want particularly to get out.'

'Offer no injury,' she replied, in a tremulous voice, 'and no one will
molest you. Take what you have come for, and begone.'

'That is sooner said than done. The doors and windows below are locked
and bolted; and beneath those of this room the area is deep, and the
spikes sharp. I assure you, I have been in very considerable
perplexity the whole of last night;' and drawing a chair, I sat down
in front of her. Whether it was owing to this action, or to my
complaining voice, or to the mere fact of her finding herself in a
quiet tete-a-tete with a housebreaker, I cannot tell; but the lady
broke into a low hysterical laugh.

'How did you break in?' said she.

'I did not break: it is far from being my character, I assure you. But
the ar