RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window andopened my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directionsto give to my representatives, which might spare them sometrouble and uncertainty in the event of my death. Disguising mylast instructions under the commonplace heading of "Memoranda onmy return to London," I began to write.

I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned tothe next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing myattention on the subject that was before it. I was at oncereminded of the similar difficulty which I felt in Shetland, whenI had tried vainly to arrange the composition of the letter to mymother which Miss Dunross was to write. By way of completing theparallel, my thoughts wandered now, as they had wandered then, tomy latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a minute or two Ibegan to feel once more the strange physical sensations which Ihad first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's house. Thesame mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to foot.I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of whatthe objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, onthat lovely summer night, as if there had been an electricdisturbance in the atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid mypocket-book and pencil on the table, and rose to go out againunder the trees. Even the trifling effort to cross the room wasan effort made in vain. I stood rooted to the spot, with my faceturned toward the moonlight streaming in at the open door.

An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, Ibecame aware of something moving far down among the trees thatfringed the shore of the lake. The first impression produced onme was of two gray shadows winding their way slowly toward mebetween the trunks of the trees. By fine degrees the shadowsassumed a more and more marked outline, until they presentedthemselves in the likeness of two robed figures, one taller thanthe other. While they glided nearer and nearer, their grayobscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with aninner light of their own as they slowly approached the open spacebefore the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostlypresence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, Ibeheld a second apparition never before revealed to me, theapparition of her child.

Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through thebright moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother'sface looked at me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyeswhich I remembered so well. But the face of the child wasinnocently radiant with an angelic smile. I waited in unutterableexpectation for the word that was to be spoken, for the movementthat was to come. The movement came first. The child released itshold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly upward, remainedpoised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out of thedark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room,and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book andpencil when I could no longer write. As before, she took thepencil and wrote on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to meto step nearer to her. I approached her outstretched hand, andfelt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch on my bosom,and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the words:"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. Thepale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. Shehad spoken. She had gone.

I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in thewriting of the ghostly hand, these words only:

_"Follow the Child."_

I looked out again at the lonely night landscape.

There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background ofthe trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child.

Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed thethreshold of the door. The softly glowing vision of the childmoved away before me among the trees. I followed, like a manspellbound. The apparition, floating slowly onward, led me out ofthe wood, and past my old home, back to the lonely by-road alongwhich I had walked from the market-town to the house. From timeto time, as we two went on our way, the bright figure of thechild paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant facelooked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little hand, andfloated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages inthe olden time.

I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hoveringover the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in theevening. I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for anotherjourney. The postilion waited for his further directions. Ilooked up. The child's hand was pointing southward, along theroad that led to London. I gave the man his instructions toreturn to the place at which I had hired the carriage. Atintervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through the window. Thebright figure of the child still floated on before me gliding lowin the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I wenton till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the easternheaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light,the figure of the child floated on before me in its changelessand mystic light. Mile after mile, it still led the waysouthward, till we left the country behind us, and passingthrough the din and turmoil of the great city, stopped under theshadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the river that runsby it.

The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had furtherneed of his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw thefigure of the child pause on its airy course. I looked upwardagain. The child's hand pointed toward the river. I paid thepostilion and left the carriage. Floating on before me, the childled the way to a wharf crowded with travelers and their luggage.A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready to sail. The child ledme on board the vessel and paused again, hovering over me in thesmoky air.

I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile,and pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. Whilemy eyes were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw itfade away upward and upward into the higher light, as the larkvanishes upward and upward in the morning sky. I was alone againwith my earthly fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me butthe remembrance of the child's hand pointing eastward to thedistant sea.

A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on thedeck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The manlooked at me in surly amazement, and answered:

"To Rotterdam."