254 ACCOUNT OF MARGARET LYALL, WHO CONTINUED 



ing. About eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, her father, a 

 shrewd intelligent man, and of a most respectable character, 

 anxious to avail himself of her recovered sense of hearing, and 

 hoping to rouse her faculties by alarming her fears *, sat down 

 at her bed-side, and told her that he had now given consent, (as 

 was in fact the case,) that she should be removed to the Mon- 

 trose Infirmary ; that, as her case was remarkable, the Doctors 

 would naturally try every kind of experiment for her recove- 

 ry ; that he was very much distressed, by being obliged to put 

 her entirely into their hands ; and would " fain hope," that this 

 measure might still be rendered unnecessary, by her getting 

 better before the time fixed for her removal. She gave evident 

 signs of hearing him, and assented to his proposal of having 

 the usual family-worship in her bed-room. After this was 

 over, she was lifted into a chair till her bed should be made ; 

 and her father, taking hold of her right hand, urged her 

 to make an exertion to move it. She began to move first the 

 thumb, then the rest of the fingers in succession, and next her 

 toes in like manner. He then opened her eye-lids ; and, pre 

 senting a candle, desired her to look at it, and asked, whether 

 she saw it. She answered, " Yes," in a low and feeble voice. 

 She now proceeded gradually, and in a very few minutes, to 

 regain all her faculties ; but was so weak as scarcely to be able 

 to move. Upon being interrogated respecting her extraordi- 

 nary 



* Lest it might be supposed, that this procedure of the father implied a sus- 

 picion on his part of some deception being practised by the young woman, it may 

 be proper to state, that it was suggested by his own experience in the case of 

 another daughter, who had been affected many years before in a very extraordi- 

 nary degree, with St Vitus's dance, or, as it is termed in this country, " The 

 " loupin<* ague ;" and who was almost instantaneously cured by the application 

 of terror. 



