in my pocket-book.  I wanted, however, more substantial proof of his visit, when he laid his hand, which was cold as marble, on my wrist; the sinews shrunk up, the nerves withered at the touch.  “Now,” he said, “let no mortal eye, while you live, ever see that wrist,” and vanished.  While I was conversing with him my thoughts were calm, but as soon as he disappeared I felt chilled with horror and dismay, a cold sweat came over me, and I again endeavoured but vainly to awaken Sir Tristram; a flood of tears came to my relief, and I fell asleep.

“’In the morning your father got up without disturbing me; he had not noticed anything extraordinary about me or the bed-hangings.  When I did arise I found a long broom in the gallery outside the bedroom door, and with great difficulty I unhooded the curtain, fearing that the position of it might excite surprise and cause inquiry.  I bound up my wrist with black ribbon before I went down to breakfast, where the agitation of my mind was too visible not to attract attention.  Sir Tristram made many anxious inquiries as to my health, especially as to my sprained wrist, as he conceived mine to be.  I begged him to drop all questions as to the bandage, even if I continued to adopt it for any length of time.  He kindly promised me not to speak of it any more, and he kept his promise faithfully.  You, my son, came into the world as predicted, and your father died six years after.  I then determined to abandon society and its pleasures and not mingle again with the world, hoping to avoid the dreadful predictions as to my second marriage; but, alas! in the one family with which I held constant and friendly intercourse I met the man, whom I did not regard with perfect indifference.  Though I struggled to conquer by every means the passion, I at length yielded to his solicitations, and in a fatal moment for my own peace I became his wife.  In a few years his conduct fully justified my demand for a separation, and I fondly hoped to escape the fatal prophecy.  Under the delusion that I had passed my forty-seventh birthday, I was prevailed upon to believe in his amendment, and to pardon him.  I have, however, heard from undoubted authority that I am only forty-seven this day, and I know that I am about to die.  I die, however, without the dread of death, fortified as I am by the sacred precepts of Christianity and upheld by its promises.  When I am gone, I wish that you, my children, should unbind this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist before I am consigned to the grave.’

“She then requested to be left that she might lie down and compose herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired her attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them to her bedside.  In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to the call, but all was over.  The two children having ordered every one to retire, knelt down by the side of the bed, when Lady Riverston unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had described it—­every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk.