rthly father safe for me from all the
formless dangers of the darkness; and how, when at the first gray streak
of dawn the spectre shook me, and I awoke, I held my heart and my
breathing still, to listen for his breathing, and thanked God when he
groaned in his sleep; and how, when his shaving-water was brought and he
stood before the glass, baring his throat, I crept close behind him,
still watching, gasping,--now pretending to hum a tune, now pressing my
hand upon my mouth lest I should shriek in my helpless suspense; and
how, when he drew the razor from its sheath--Well! I am forty years old
now, and I have been pursued since then by so many and such torturing
shapes of desperation and dismay as should refresh the heart of my
stupidest enemy with an emotion of relenting; but I would consent to
weep, groan, rave them all over again, beginning where that haunted
child left off, rather than begin where he began, though my spectres
should forever vanish with his.

Aunt Judy trembled and watched with me, and, accepting my phantom as if
it were a reasonable fear, hid away her share of the sacred secret in
her heart, and helped me to cover up mine with a disguise of
carelessness, lest any foolish or brutal mockery should find it out.

My darling had but few superstitions: her spiritually informed
intelligence rose superior to vulgar signs and dreams, and saw through
the little warnings and wonders of darker and less pure minds with a
science of its own, which she called Gospel light. Still, there was here
a sign and there a legend that she clung to for old acquaintance' sake,
rather than by reason of any credulity in her strong enough to take the
place of faith. But these constituted the peculiar poetry of her
personality, the fireside balladry and folk-lore of her Aunt-Judyness;
and I could no more mock them than I could mock the good fairy in her,
that changed all my floggings to feathers,--no sooner tear away their
comfortable homeliness to jeer at their honored absurdity, than I could
snatch off her dear familiar turban to mock the silver reverence of her
"wool." Ah! I wish you could have heard her tell me that I must pass
through fourteen years of trouble,--seven on account of the big old
mirror in the parlor that I, lying on the sofa beneath it, kicked clear
off its hook and into the middle of the floor,--and seven for that very
looking-glass which my father used to shave by, and which I, sparring
at my image in it,