It said, "Lay down, can't you!" I hearn it as one in a dream.

I couldn't sense where I wuz nor who wuz talkin', when agin I hearn-- "Dum it all! why can't you fall as you ort to ?" Wuz some struggle a-goin' on in my room?
The bed wuz in an alcove, and I could not see the place from where the voice proceeded.
I reached my hand out.

My worst apprehensions wuz realized.

Josiah wuz not there.
Wuz some one a-killin' him, and a-orderin' him to lay still and fall as he ort to?
Wuz such boldness in crime possible?
I raised my head and looked out into the room, and then with a wild shriek I covered up my head.

Then I discovered that there wuz only one thin sheet over me.
The sight I had seen had driv' the blood in my veins all back to my heart.
A tall white figger wuz a-standin' before the glass, draped from head to foot in heavy white drapery.
I'd often turned it over in my mind in hours of ease which I'd ruther have appear to me in the night--a burglar or a ghost.
And now in the tumultous beatin's of my heart I owned up that I would ruther a hundred times it would be a burglar.
Anything seemed to me better than to be alone at night with a ghost.
But anon, as I quaked and trembled under that sheet, the voice spoke agin-- "Samantha, are you awake ?" And I sprung up in bed agin, and sez I-- "Josiah Allen, where are you?
Oh, save me, Josiah! save me!" The white figger turned.