There was something in the imagination and constitution of the poor girl which generated and cherished the superstitions which prevailed in her day.

She could not throw them off her mind, but dwelt upon them with a kind of fearful pleasure which we can understand from those which operated upon our own fancies in our youth.

These prepare the mind for the reception of a thousand fictions concerning ghosts, witches, fairies, apparitions, and a long catalogue of nonsense, equally disgusting and repugnant to reason and common-sense.

It is not surprising, then, that poor Alice's mind on that night was filled with phantasms of the most feverish and excited description.

As far as she could, however, she concealed her agitation from her parents, but not so successfully as to prevent them from perceiving that she was laboring under some extraordinary and unaccountable depression.