“In the early part of it Lady Beresford was engaged in a kindly conversation with her old friend the clergyman, and in the course of it said:  ‘You know that I am forty-eight this day’.  ‘No, indeed,’ he replied; ’you are only forty-seven, for your mother had a dispute with me once on the very subject of your age, and I in consequence sent and consulted the registry, and can most confidently assert that you are only forty-seven this day.’  ‘You have signed my death-warrant, then,’ she cried; ’leave me, I pray, for I have not much longer to live, but have many things of grave importance to settle before I die.  Send my son and my daughter to me immediately.’  The clergyman did as he was bidden.  He directed Sir Marcus and his sister to go instantly to their mother; and he sent to the archbishop and a few other friends to put them off from joining the birthday party.

“When her two children repaired to Lady Beresford, she thus addressed them:  ’I have something of deep importance to communicate to you, my dear children, before I die.  You are no strangers to the intimacy and the affection which subsisted in early life between Lord Tyrone and myself.  We were educated together when young, under the same roof, in the pernicious principles of Deism.  Our real friends afterwards took every opportunity to convince us of our error, but their arguments were insufficient to overpower and uproot our infidelity, though they had the effect of shaking our confidence in it, and thus leaving us wavering between the two opinions.  In this perplexing state of doubt we made a solemn promise one to the other, that whichever died first should, if permitted, appear to the other for the purpose of declaring what religion was the one acceptable to the Almighty.  One night, years after this interchange of promises, I was sleeping with your father at Gill Hall, when I suddenly awoke and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting visibly by the side of the bed.  I screamed out, and vainly endeavoured to rouse Sir Tristram.  “Tell me,” I said, “Lord Tyrone, why and wherefore are you here at this time of the night?” “Have you then forgotten our promise to each other, pledged in early life?  I died on Tuesday, at four o’clock.  I have been permitted thus to appear in order to assure you that the revealed religion is the true and only one by which we can be saved.  I am also suffered to inform you that you are with child, and will produce a son, who will marry my heiress; that Sir Tristram will not live long, when you will marry again, and you will die from the effects of childbirth in your forty-seventh year.”  I begged from him some convincing sign or proof so that when the morning came I might rely upon it, and feel satisfied that his appearance had been real, and that it was not the phantom of my imagination.  He caused the hangings of the bed to be drawn in an unusual way and impossible manner through an iron hook.  I still was not satisfied, when he wrote his signature