“A little séance. We sit down together, Winnie and I; and some responses, in my mind, can hardly refer to anything else, and most sweet and comforting they have been.”
Once on this subject, my aunt was soon deep in it, and told her story of the toad which turned into a hand; whereupon William related his dream, and the evidences afforded by his waking senses of the reality of the visitation. My aunt was at once awe-struck and delighted.
“Now, William, you’ll read, I’ve no doubt, the wonderful experiences of others, having had such remarkable ones of your own. Since my hand was held in that spirit-hand—no doubt the same which seized yours—I have become accessible to impressions from the invisible world, such as I had no idea of before. You need not be uncomfortable or nervous. It is all benevolent—or, at worst, just. I’ve never seen or felt that hand but once; the relation is established for ever by a single pressure. I have satisfied Dr. Drake—a very intelligent man, and reasonable—convinced him, he admits. And now, dear William, there is another link between us; and if in the mysterious ways of Providence, you should after all be taken first, I shall have the happiness of communion with you. Good-night, dear, and God bless you, and be careful to put out your candle.”
So William departed, and notwithstanding Miss Perfect’s grisly conversation, he slept soundly, and did not dream of the shadowy giant, nor even of Trevor and Violet.
Pleasant, listless Gilroyd Hall! thought William, as, after breakfast, he loitered up and down before the rich red-brick front of the old gabled house, with its profusion of small windows, with such thick, white sashes, and casings of white stone; and the pointed gables, with stone cornice and glittering weather-vane on the summit. That house, somehow, bore a rude resemblance to the old world dandyism which reigned in its younger days, and reminded William of the crimson coats, the bars of lace and quaint, gable-like cocked hats, which had, no doubt, for many a year passed in and out at its deep-porched door; where I could fancy lovers loitering in a charmed murmur, in summer shade, for an enchanted hour, till old Sir Harry’s voice and whistle, and the pound of his crutch-handled cane, and the scamper and yelp of the dogs, were heard in the oak hall approaching.
Under the old chestnuts, clustered with ivy, Violet joined him.
“Well, how are we to-day? I think we were a little cross last night, weren’t we?” said William, with his old trick of lecturing little Vi.
“We! One of us may have been, but it was not I,” she answered.
“I think my watch is wrong. Did you happen to look at the clock as you passed?”
“Half-past eleven.”