Year: 1875

arms around him, u promise you thai
LII come and l gazed into his hand


some, pale face, sadly conscience-stricken


that'such nightly cries could have gone


on SO long unheeded. "And yet, mused


|, there can be no real foundation for


such suffering" l left them much mys-
| titled, and determined that sleep should
not again visit my eyelids until the
enigma was solved.


After tea, pleading fatigue as an excuse
for participating in some entertainment
for the evening, l was allowed to retire
to my room; and once there, my prep
arations were made by donning a warm,
loose wrapper, and, taking a book for
| the long, weary hours before me, re-
paired to the bedroom adjoining the
nursery.


Two little beds stood side by side, but
only from one peered two pairs of large
brown eyes that looked as though sleep
would long be a stranger to them.
Maidie had crawled in with her brother
and was nesting close to him, as if she
expected protection from that small FIVE
year-old form.


They welcomed me with bright looks
that would have repaid the greatest sac
rifce, and l sat by them on the bed talk
ing and soothing them for hours.


Margaret came home and retired, and
gradually the house grew quiet, but it
was not until near midnight that Harry
succumbed to WEAKNESS in short
snatches of sleep. l dimmed the gas as
the twelve strokes from the city clocks
pealed on the night air, and, throwing
myself into an easy chair in a remote
corner of the room, began my watch.


For what? 1 actually grew nervous in
the loneliness of the hour, and it was a
relief when it was past and one struck
l was beginning to feel-perhaps hoping
that no developments would be made
that night, when suddenly click from
the door startled me, and 10! an appari-
tion appeared and moved cautiously to-
ward the children's bed.


Of all horrible sights may heaven spare
me from repetition The face was old,
wrinkled, and surrounded with an
abundance of white hair that flew wildly
in all directions, reminding one of the
quilts of the fretful porcupine. The eyes
were large and glaring, almost bursting
from their sockets, and the hands were
like claws, clawing the air as she moved
while from her lips escaped low, whis-
pered howl The whole was enough to
make the blood freeze.


l sat for those few minutes like one
petrifed, and this halfclothed visitant |





and gone before could arouse myself to
action.


My boots were off, and l flew to the |
door just in time to see her disappear
through another door at the far |
end of the hall. l followed. This
door led into large closet, in which was
a narrow stairway leading to the roof.
She was nearly outside, and a bright |
moon lighted mp the haggard face and |
white figure, making it fearfully weird
and unnatural as she stopped to close the
window and looked into the darkness
where l stood, her eyes fairly glaring. 1
her as she seemed to glide over
one or two roofs and then she disap-
oeared.


Whether, in the shadow of the chin
neys, she slipped and fell to the pave
nent below, or whether she were really
supernatural visitor, l did not stop to
but the latter belief seemed
plausible to my excited state of mind as
hurried back through that long, dark
entry.


l found Maidie clinging convulsively
% her brother, while he lay with one
rm thrown protectingly over her, his
title form rigid, his eyes wide open and
ixed. This fright was one too many.
Brain fever ensued, and in ten days that
ufly neaQ was lalQ TO steep Wnere Ine
7aters of the Schuylkill hum their low
nusic near his bed. Upon close inves-
igation it was discovered that an insane ,
roman was confined in the upper story :
f house near by. She had careful at :
but the cunning of insanity s
luded their vigilance, and brought suf !
sring and remorse upon their once happy '
ONE.
Was this a dispensation of Provi- l
ence? Too often we lay at the door of
rovidence the consequences of our own
vii doings. forgetting that the laws of Y
cd, though formed in mercy, yet when 4 4
roken are inevitable in their fearful re-
llts.
Let every mother remember that the e
oes of childhood are as real as those of .
ature years Let her listen to what
lay seem petty nothings with the same
lrnestness that she will heed higher e
evelopments of joys and sorrows, and D
ay the sad experience of one mother P
> sufficient in its warming for hundreds q
others who read this paper. 81
My friend learned life lesson, but it
as too late to restore the earthly exist
ice of this boy of pride and promise. il
x years have passed since Harry left Il
J, and the echoes of that agonizing cry h
conscience is still heard repeating, IA a
n