doors there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the Lady
Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the
evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated
frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon
the threshold--then, with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon
the person of her brother, and, in her violent and now final
death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse and a victim to the
terrors he had anticipated.

From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The storm was
still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old
causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I
turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued, for the vast
house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that; of
the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through
that once barely discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as
extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the
base. While I gazed this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fierce
breath of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at once
upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
asunder--there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound like the voice of
a thousand waters--and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed
sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.




NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

UNSEEN SPIRITS.