She became annoyed, and sitting up called out, "Marie, what are you about ?" Instead, however, of her servant, she was astonished to see the face of an aunt by marriage peering above and between the curtains, and at the same moment--whether unconsciously she threw forward her arms, or whether they were drawn forward, as it were, in a vortex of air, she cannot be sure--one of her thumbs was sensibly pressed between the teeth of the apparition, though no mark afterwards remained on it.
All this notwithstanding, she remained collected and unalarmed; but instantly arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where she found not a creature stirring.

Her father, on coming down shortly afterwards, naturally asked what had made her rise so early; rallied her on the cause, and soon afterwards went on to his sister-in-law's house, where he found that she had just unexpectedly died.

Coming back again, and not noticing his daughter's presence in the room, in consequence of her being behind a screen near the fire, he suddenly announced the event to his wife, as being of so remarkable a character that he could in no way account for it.

As may be anticipated, Emma, overhearing this unlooked-for denouement of her dream, at once fell to the ground in a fainting condition.
_On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had been bitten in the death agony_.

{300} We have now followed the "ghostly" from its germs in dreams, and momentary hallucinations of eye or ear, up to the most prodigious narratives which popular invention has built on bases probably very slight.