s candor; but the fact of a universal
superstition of some description or other was considered to be very
prettily established.

But the conversation did not end here; and one who had before borne
little part in it--a man of some distinction in literary as well as
political life,--was drawn out by what had occurred, to make a statement
with reference to himself which exhibited another phenomenon in
supernaturalist belief--_a man who not only had a superstition and
acknowledged it, but could give a reason for holding it._

"Humph!" he said, "some of you have superstitions and acknowledge them
without showing that you have any grounds for your belief; and the
Doctor, who has also a superstition, does not seem to have been aware of
it before. Now _I_ am a believer in the supernatural, and I have had
cause to be so."

"Indeed I and how?" asked some member of the company.

"As thus," answered the believer. "And I will tell you the story as
briefly as I can and still make it intelligible,--from the fact that a
severe head-ache is the inevitable penalty of telling it at all. I
resided in a country section of a neighboring State, some twenty
years-ago; and about three miles distant, in another little hamlet of a
dozen or two houses, lived the young lady to whom I was engaged to be
married. My Sundays were idle ones, and as I was busy most of the week,
I generally spent the afternoon of each Sunday, and sometimes the whole
of the day, at the house of my expectant bride, whom I will call
Gertrude for the occasion. I kept no horse, and habitually walked over
to the village. I had never ridden over, let it be borne in mind, as
that is a point of interest. I very seldom rode anywhere, and Gertrude
had never seen me on horseback.

"It happened, as I came out from my place of boarding, one fine Sunday
afternoon in mid-winter, that one of the neighbors, who kept a number of
fine horses, was bringing a couple of them out for exercise. They were
very restive, and he complained that they stood still too much and
needed to have the spirit taken out of them a little. I laughingly
replied that if he would saddle one, I would do him that favor; and he
threw the saddle on a very fast running-mare, and mounted me.
Accordingly, and of course from what appeared a mere accident, I rode
over to the place of my destination.

"There was a small stable behind the house occupied by the family of my
betrothed, across a little garden-lot, and I ro