ay, and lighting the candle, she had
stolen from beside me, and kneeled down for the purpose. She had,
however, scarcely assumed the attitude of prayer, when somebody, she
said, clutched her arm violently near the wrist, and she heard, at the
same instant, some blasphemous menace, the import of which escaped her
the moment it was spoken, muttered close in her ear. This terrifying
interruption was the cause of the scream which had awakened me; and the
condition in which she continued during the remainder of the night
confirmed me more than ever in the conviction, that she was suffering
under some morbid action of the nervous system.

After this event, which _I_ had no hesitation in attributing to fancy,
she became literally afraid to pray, and her misery and despondency
increased proportionately.

It was shortly after this that an unusual pressure of business called me
into town one evening after office hours. I had left my dear little wife
tolerably well, and little Fanny was to be her companion until I
returned. She and her little companion occupied the same room in which we
sat on the memorable evening which witnessed the arrival of our eccentric
guest. Though usually a lively child, it most provokingly happened upon
this night that Fanny was heavy and drowsy to excess. Her mamma would
have sent her to bed, but that she now literally feared to be left alone;
although, however, she could not so far overcome her horror of solitude
as to do this, she yet would not persist in combating the poor child's
sleepiness.

Accordingly, little Fanny was soon locked in a sound sleep, while her
mamma quietly pursued her work beside her. They had been perhaps some
ten minutes thus circumstanced, when my wife heard the window softly
raised from without--a bony hand parted the curtains, and Mr. Smith
leaned into the room.

She was so utterly overpowered at sight of this apparition, that even had
it, as she expected, climbed into the room, she told me she could not
have uttered a sound, or stirred from the spot where she sate transfixed
and petrified.

"Ha, ha!" he said gently, "I hope you'll excuse this, I must admit, very
odd intrusion; but I knew I should find you here, and could not resist
the opportunity of raising the window just for a moment, to look in upon
a little family picture, and say a word to yourself. I understand that
you are troubled, because for some cause you cannot say your
prayers--because what you call your