her bed,
and, in a thrilling voice, cried--

"No! no!--the baby first."

The mysterious sentence which had secretly tormented her for so long,
thus piercingly uttered by this delirious, and, perhaps, dying child,
with what seemed a preternatural earnestness and strength, arrested her
devotions, and froze her with a feeling akin to terror.

"Hush, hush, my darling!" said the poor mother, almost wildly, as she
clasped the attenuated frame of the sick child in her arms; "hush, my
darling; don't cry out so loudly--there--there--my own love."

The child did not appear to see or hear her, but sate up still with
feverish cheeks, and bright unsteady eyes, while her dry lips were
muttering inaudible words.

"Lie down, my sweet child--lie down, for your own mother," she said;
"if you tire yourself, you can't grow well, and your poor mother will
lose you."

At these words, the child suddenly cried out again, in precisely the same
loud, strong voice--"No! no! the baby first, the baby first"--and
immediately afterwards lay down, and fell, for the first time since her
illness into a tranquil sleep.

My good little wife sate, crying bitterly by her bedside. The child was
better--_that_ was, indeed, delightful. But then there was an omen in the
words, thus echoed from her dream, which she dared not trust herself to
interpret, and which yet had seized, with a grasp of iron, upon every
fibre of her brain.

"Oh, Richard," she cried, as she threw her arms about my neck, "I am
terrified at this horrible menace from the unseen world. Oh! poor,
darling little baby, I shall lose you--I am sure I shall lose you.
Comfort me, darling, and say he is not to die."

And so I did; and tasked all my powers of argument and persuasion to
convince her how unsubstantial was the ground of her anxiety. The little
boy was perfectly well, and, even were he to die before his sister that
event might not occur for seventy years to come. I could not, however,
conceal from myself that there was something odd and unpleasant in the
coincidence; and my poor wife had grown so nervous and excitable, that a
much less ominous conjecture would have sufficed to alarm her.

Meanwhile, the unaccountable terror which our lodger's presence inspired
continued to increase. One of our maids gave us warning, solely from her
dread of our queer inmate, and the strange accessories which haunted him.
She said--and this was corroborated by her fellow-servant--that Mr. Smith