Charles Dickens

“ It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, Sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.'
Mr. James and I looked at one another. 'Wilhelm,' said he, 'this is strange. I wish you to come with me!' I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses' iron shoes between Poland Street and the Forest.
Now, mind! (said the German courier) I went with Mr. James into his brother's room, and I saw and heard myself what follows.
His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. ”

“ But, one day she told me the secret.
‘If you must know,’ said Carolina, ‘I find, from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.’
‘How haunted?’
‘By a dream.’
‘What dream?’
‘By a dream of a face. For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face, and only One.’
‘A terrible face?’
‘No. The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache—a handsome man except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. ”

“ You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to have been weighed and measured—or to have been unweighable and unmeasurable—or in either case to have been completely disposed of, for all time—ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother.’
I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it.
‘I have just now seen,’ Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, ‘the phantom of my brother John. ”

“ Dark, handsome man in black, reserved and secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly at mistress out of darkness?—no.
At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well kept, being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady. In one place there was a rustic theatre, open to the sky; the stage a green slope; the coulisses, three entrances upon a side, sweet-smelling leafy screens. Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene ”

“ Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went all through the palazzo. I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows and the lattice-blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozing mosquito, or a monstrous, fat, blotchy, Genoese spider.
When I had let the evening light into a room, master, mistress, and la bella Carolina, entered. Then, we looked round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting with the likeness of that face—we all had ”

“ When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money’s worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. ”

“ James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the matter.
‘Is that Mr. James?’ said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up.
‘It is,’ said Mr. James, ‘and you are my brother’s man, Robert.’
‘Yes, Sir. I am sorry to say, Sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, Sir. ”