ach of some one
through the wood. But before I could see who this newcomer might be,
once more the darkness settled down upon the scene.

This time I knew the interval between the succeeding visions and I
waited without impatience; and in due season I found myself gazing at a
picture as different as might be from any I had yet beheld.

In the broad parlor of a house that seemed to be spacious, a
middle-aged lady, of an appearance at once austere and kindly, was
looking at a smiling gentleman who was coming towards her pulling along
a little negro girl about eight or nine years of age. She was one of
the blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering as
glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in
the room. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which
stuck out in every direction. She was dressed in a single filthy,
ragged garment, made of bagging; and altogether there was something odd
and goblin-like about her appearance. The severe old maid examined this
strange creature in dismay and then directed a glance of inquiry at the
gentleman in white. He smiled again and gave a signal to the little
negro girl. Whereupon the black eyes glittered with a kind of wicked
drollery, and apparently she began to sing, keeping time with her hands
and feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her knees
together, in a wild, fantastic sort of time; and finally, turning a
somersault or two, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with
her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and
solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she
shot askance from the corners of her eyes. The elderly lady stood
silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement, while the smiling gentleman
in white was amused at her astonishment.

Once more the vision faded. And when, after the same interval, the
darkness began to disappear again, even while everything was dim and
indistinct I knew that the scene was shifted from the South to the
North. I saw a room comfortably furnished, with a fire smouldering in a
porcelain stove. In a corner stood a stripped Christmas-tree, with its
candles burned out. Against the wall between the two doors was a piano,
on which a man was playing--a man who twisted his head now and again to
look over his shoulder, sometimes at another and younger man standing
by the stove, sometimes at a young woman who was dancing alone in the