My seat，to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted，was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high，dark wardrobe，with subdued，broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move，I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning，I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me，with a white face and arms specking the gloom，and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still，had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms，half fairy，half imp，Bessie"s evening stories represented as ing out of lone，ferny dells in moors，and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.

Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for plete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.

All John Reed"s violent tyrannies，all his sisters" proud indifference，all his mother"s aversion，all the servants" partiality，turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.