The plain white curtains of the bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering.

A form reclined on the bed, but the face was _all covered_, though it was a midsummer's night.

As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept.

Sustained by unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.
"Let there be no light here but light from heaven," said I, extinguishing the fitful lamp-flame; and the room was immediately illuminated with a white, ghostly lustre.

Then kneeling by the bed, I folded back the linen sheet, gazed with folded hands, and dry, dilated eyes on the mystery of death.