But laugh if you can.

I believe!" "Was the prediction very terrible, then ?" asked his wife, with a smile.
"Pray tell me all about it." "It was terrible," her husband replied, sternly.

"The living horror it has cast over me might have told you that.

Listen, Olivia! On that night of our baby boy's birth, after I left you and came here, I stood by this window and saw a spectral face gleaming through the glass.

It was the face of a man--a belated wayfarer--who adjured me, in the Savior's name, to let him in." "Well, you let him in, I suppose ?" "I let him in--a strange-looking object, Olivia, like no creature I ever saw before, with flowing beard and hair silver-white--" "False, no doubt." "He wore a long, disguising cloak and a skull-cap," went on Sir Jasper, "and his face was blanched to a dull dead white.