An aged
grey-headed man, bent double, clad in a loose gown, and leaning on a
staff, crept out of the very pile which she had been so fearfully
contemplating all night. He was attended by a female figure, who
carefully seated him on a bank opposite her window. The occupation of
these spectres was no less extraordinary than the time of their
appearance, for they seemed engaged in what, she thought, ghosts always
omitted--devotion. Yet ghosts they must be, since nothing human could
have dared to pass the night in such a scene of desolation. She
continued to gaze, in petrified horror, till the female apparition
rising from its knees, after adjusting the hair, and wiping the face of
its companion, sung the following stanzas, with a voice resembling that
of human beings, except that its harmonious notes exceeded in sweetness
any thing Mrs. Abigail had ever heard:
Oh, sooth me with the words of love,
Heal me with pity's balsams dear;
For I have heard the proud reprove,
And felt the wrongs of men austere.
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