Swooning, or slight mental mistiness, is not very unusual in ghostseers. The brother of a friend of my own, a man of letters and wideerudition, was, as a boy, employed in a shop in a town, say Wexington.The overseer was a dark, rather hectic-looking man, who died. Somemonths afterwards the boy was sent on an errand. He did his business,but, like a boy, returned by a longer and more interesting route. Hestopped as a bookseller's shop to stare at the books and pictures, andwhile doing so felt a kind of mental vagueness. It was just beforehis dinner hour, and he may have been hungry. On resuming his way, helooked up and found the dead overseer beside him. He had no sense ofsurprise, and walked for some distance, conversing on ordinary topicswith the appearance. He happened to notice such a minute detail asthat the spectre's boots were laced in an unusual way. At a crossing,something in the street attracted his attention; he looked away fromhis companion, and, on turning to resume their talk, saw no more ofhim. He then walked to the shop, where he mentioned the occurrence toa friend. He has never during a number of years had any suchexperience again, or suffered the preceding sensation of vagueness.This, of course, is not a ghost story, but leads up to the old tale ofthe wraith of Valogne. In this case, two boys had made a covenant,the first who died was to appear to the other. He _did_ appear beforenews of his death arrived, but after a swoon of his friend's, whosehealth (like that of Elizabeth Conley) suffered in consequence.
