realm of storm
and stress in which I was bound hand and foot, and sent galloping
through infinity. Often have I wakened, with unutterable joy, to
find my Father and Miss Marks, whom my screams had disturbed,
standing one on each side of my bed. They could release me from
my nightmare, which seldom assailed me twice a night--but how to
preserve me from its original attack passed their understanding.
My Father, in his tenderness, thought to exorcize the demon by
prayer. He would appear in the bedroom, just as I was first
slipping into bed, and he would kneel at my side. The light from
a candle on the mantel-shelf streamed down upon his dark head of
hair while his face was buried in the coverlid, from which a loud
voice came up, a little muffled, begging that I might be
preserved against all the evil spirits that walk in darkness and
that the deep might not swallow me up.

This little ceremony gave a distraction to my thoughts, and may
have been useful in that way. But it led to an unfortunate
circumstance. My Father began to enjoy these orisons at my
bedside, and to prolong them. Perhaps they lasted a little too
long, but I contrived to keep awake through them, sometimes by a
great effort. On one unhappy night, however, I gave even worse
offense than slumber would have given. My Father was praying
aloud, in the attitude I have described, and I was half sitting,
half lying in bed, with the clothes sloping from my chin.
Suddenly a rather large insect--dark and flat, with more legs
than a self-respecting insect ought to need--appeared at the
bottom of the counterpane, and slowly advanced. I think it was
nothing worse than a beetle. It walked successfully past my
Father's sleek black ball of a head, and climbed straight up at
me, nearer, nearer, until it seemed all a twinkle of horns and
joints. I bore it in silent fascination until it almost tickled
my chin, and then I screamed 'Papa! Papa!' My Father rose in
great dudgeon, removed the insect (what were insects to him!) and
then gave me a tremendous lecture.

The sense of desperation which this incident produced I shall not
easily forget. Life seemed really to be very harassing when to
visions within and beetles without there was joined the
consciousness of having grievously offended God by an act of
disrespect. It is difficult for me to justify to myself the
violent jobation which my Father gave me in consequence of my
scream, except by attributing to him something of