Page:Emily Bronte (Robinson 1883).djvu/203

191 'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow.'

"I went here and there collecting it.

I see in you, Nelly,' she continued, dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Peniston Crag, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending while I am near that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering; you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Peniston Crag; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.'

The black press? Where is that?' I asked. 'You are talking in your sleep.'

It's against the wall as it always is,' she replied. ’It does appear odd. I see a face in it!'

There's no press in the room and never was,' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.

Don't you see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror.

"And say what I could I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.

It's behind there still!' she pursued, anxiously, ’and it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone. Oh, Nelly! the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone.'

"I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed, for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass.