wakened me. 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.