THE CRYSTAL : A RECORD OF 1665. 



before, the verses I enclose, having written them down when I came 

 home that evening so exactly as I could recollect them.* 



Notwithstanding the Doctor had disclaimed it, I was disposed to 

 suspect some trickery in this some intention so to excite my mind 

 as to make it the instrument of its own delusion. Whether so or 

 not, I was certainly much moved more moved than I have often 

 been by having verse sung or said before me ; for the Doctor has a 

 voice astonishingly effectual to move all passion and feeling ; and I 

 have not often heard any thing finer than the rise and fall of his 

 voice where the sense or metre required, especially in the passage 

 which I have marked. 



After having repeated this invocation, he was for a brief space 

 silent and motionless, still forcibly compressing the globe within his 

 hands, which were a little elevated. Then for a moment a strong 

 convulsion seemed to shake his frame ; but it was quickly over, and 

 turning to me he desired me to form my wish. When I told him I 

 had done so, he breathed gently on the Crystal, near the perforation 

 mentioned before, and saying aloud and distinctly, " Tehi chemedath 

 lebu lo," f placed it in my hands. 



My first question was " What is Margaret doing now ?" 



Margaret had then been three weeks with her aunt Grace, at Win- 

 chester, and this was naturally the first question that occurred to me. 

 I looked in the glass, and, to my inexpressible astonishment, the 

 house and garden of her aunt appeared before me. In the garden, 

 seated on a bench under that old sycamore tree which you wot of, I 

 saw Margaret with her lute. As if this were but the reflection of an 

 external and living object, her delicate fingers actually moved over 

 the strings ; her lips also moved, and her head, with that graceful 

 motion peculiar to her when singing. I seemed almost to hear her 

 voice ; a voice mute now, my brother, in all its silver tones, but 

 which has been all the music my heart delighted in. On one side of 

 her sat her aunt, and on the other that fine youth, her cousin. I sat 

 watching till the song was over ; and then the young man took the 

 lute from her, and as he did so, laid his hand upon her wrist, and 

 pressed it a little too tenderly I thought. 



" Pish!" said I. 



The Doctor, who was watching me keenly, said, " You are not 

 pleased, Master Dinford." 



" Not altogether, Doctor." 



" But are you convinced ?" 



" I confess, Sir, that I am surprised, very much surprised ; but till 

 some weeks have passed I shall not know whether the scene now re- 

 presented be true or not. I am not therefore convinced, though I 

 admit my incredulity is shaken. But do you know the lady?" 



"What lady?" " 



" What! don't you see!" 



" No : I have no wish, Master Dinford, to pry into your secrets. 



* The verses are not in the MS. 



f This would seem to be Hebrew : if so, man Tin V? nnb, would appear to 

 signify " let him have the desire of his mind (or heart)." 



M.M. No. 95. 3 Z 



