The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1860-07-18
NEW SERIES.---V0L. 6, NO. 40

tWoI as soon as MS WlIe nuu suWCleutIy re- |
covered to incur the risk of a sea voyage.
Thus matters passed on-the father urg. |
ing that his daughter had never been day
sick in her life, and was one of the healthi-
est girls in the country-until the l7lh OF
this month, day memorable to the Doctor
from the fact that on that very day, fifteen
years before, his wife had died of rapid de-.
cline.
On the evening of that day, about nine
o'clock, the Doctor was sitting in his library,
smoking cigar at the open window, and
probably had been thinking Of his first wife
and her mysterious counterpart recently dis
covered at Syracuse. Intending to light the
gas, he pulled down the sash, and closed the
window-shutters, moving in the dark to.
wards bronze match box which stood on
the chimney piece.
But suddenly the room was flooded with
intense light, causing him to start; ond as
he gezed In wonder for some explanation,
this general diffusion Of light seemed to
change into one intensely white disk of
about three feet in diameter, placed In the
centre of a circle formed of converging
rOys-these rays being bright and broad
where they joined the disk, but gradually
tupering off and growing duskier, until they
finally merged as common part in the re
naming darkness Of the room.
Knowing that various appearances Of light
sometimes in mere flashes, at others in
rings, or lines, or paraIleogroms-are indi-
cations to the medical man Of nothing more
than some disorder OF dgesion--this ap-
pearance did not at first suggest anything
supernatural to Dr.. w. On the contrary, it
merely made him speculate as to what he
could have possibly eaten ct dinner which
os fcarfullY disagreed with him.
But as he gozed into the intensely bright
circle, there grew on his eye picture which
riveted his whole soul with horror. Brown
cu'ls 10y on white pillow; large blue eyes
were becoming fixed in the CLASSY stare Of
den,h; the brilliant complexion was gone
from the cheeks which had also lost their
dimped roundness; and the beautiful lips
were white, or rather a whitish blue, except
where stained by bloody iroth, which bub
bled family and more family up as respiru-
ton was becoming each moment a weaker
and yet weaker effort.
1t was that young lady of Syracuse-the
exact counterpart of his lost wife born or
the same day with her so closely resem
bling, both in voice and form, the woman he
had never ceased to regret 1t was the CIR
of about fifteen whose head he saw on the
pillow in the centre Of the white disk ane
this was "the night Of oil nights in the year
on which-6lteen years before-his frs
vile had died in his prms as they were jour
neying through Ohio:
Looking little longer at the appearance
and as his eyes became more able to endure
the clear fulness OF the Ii iIht in which thi
sad picture was aet, Dr.. w. recognize,
standing round, the couch of the dying girl
her father and two maiden aunts who resde
| in neighboring cottage ornee, two residen
physicians of Syracuse, whose ucquaintanc
he had made when attending the mother
two servant women belonging TO the house
t and-most extraordinary Of all--the face O
his own eldest son, whom he thought to b
) travelling out West, but whom he had no
seen or even corresponded with for severa
years.
, These faces and this picture gradually ia
ded into dorkness-the whole probably no
. occupying longer than a dreem-but tn
, impression made on the old Doctor was sue
. that he tainted and fell to the floor, the nois
. of this bringing in two Of his children VIII
had been sitting with their step mother i
the next room. One Of these, now o stu
: dent at the Medical College in Fourtee mt
d street, applied the restorntives usual in sue
cases and just at the time the writer of thi
article called, DR.. w. had recovered fror
| his swoon, and on recovering related wha
r he had seen-the whole foregoing story
9 the presence OF his two children Cloth grow
!, up,) and present wife, by whom he has n
d children; Mr.. H, Of Thirty. eighth stre'
o also being present.
h We set the whole affair down as on opt
q cal illusion, produced by the fact that tt
d Doctor had been sitting modify for an no,
n or so in the fading twilight, thinking abo,
9 his first wife and recalling the circumstance
y of her death upon that day. 1t was not, "
g contended, vision which he had seen pr
y vious to the swoon, and causing the swoo
but dream which had come to him whi
r, he was swooning from other and purely ph!
Is sical causes.
d swell, WE'LL" he would reply, "it may
" so. But il so, can't have long to live.
10 was awake and in my senses when l sa
10 that picture, or thought saw it. Or ii
s. was really an illusion, my liver must be
q. lady out OF order. that 1 may as we'll pr
pare at once for the last shuttle. The thin
,e however; which puzzles me most to accou
Iy for, was the presence Of NJ" mention
Q. ing the name of his eldest son, with who
10 he was not on good terms, "at that girl
le bedside Either he must be living und
ns an assumed name; or the family could n
III have known him while was staying
<. their house. Surely nothing would be mo
ID natural, than for them to have mention
Of that thar, knAu 4 Intinn mar Of INV n ar