A sense which at times besets all imaginative minds came upon her now and then with painful force; a fantastic unreality would suddenly possess all she saw and heard; it seemed as if she had been of a sudden transported out of the old existence into this new and unrealised position; if any person spoke to her, it was difficult to feel that she was really addressed and must reply; was it not all a mere vision she was beholding, out of which she would presently awake! Such moments were followed by dark melancholy.

This life she was leading could not last, but would pass away in some fearful shock of soul.

Once she half believed herself endowed with the curse of a hideous second-sight.

Sitting with her father and mother, silence all at once fell upon the room, and everything was transfigured in a ghostly light.

Distinctly she saw her mother throw her head back and raise to her throat what seemed to be a sharp, glistening piece of steel; then came a cry, and all was darkened before her eyes in a rush of crimson mist.