My Library

and clatter, as if fifty cannon balls were rolling on the floor; and it immediately brought the ogres and their straps from down stairs to see what was the matter. So far as terror permitted we explained, whereupon the ogres looked scaredly wise, readjusted the quilts and retreated. No sooner had they left than the cannon balls began again to roll over the floor, and mustering courage to rise and grapple for the coverlet, which had again been pulled from us, I clearly and distinctly saw a female figure calmly standing at the foot of the bed, but not upon the floor, for she floated like a vapor on the air. There was but little, if any, light in the room, save that which surrounded, and appeared to emanate from the spectral figure. She stood in the midst of a silvery or phosphoric haze. It was by no means phantasmal in appearance, but so clear, sharp, well defined did the apparition seem, that to this day I remember distinctly the figures on what appeared to be the dress she wore, which fact involves a mystery no psychologist has yet been able to fathom satisfactorily. The children who also saw this sight were terrified; I was not, for I felt she would not harm me, for the reason that mothers love their offspring, and that figure was my mother. “Some considerable time elapsed after this. I had grown into a stout and active boy, having already drifted for some years up and down the