left alone. Khava grew more and more uneasy as night came on, and insisted that some one should watch by her bed-side constantly. As her parents were worn out with fatigue and excitement I offered my services as nurse, and they were accepted gratefully.     I shall never forget the nights I spent by the bedside of this unfortunate girl. The creaking of a board, the very murmur of the wind made her start and shudder. She could not fall into a doze without seeing visions of horror, and from time to time would waken with a fearful start and a cry of anguish. She had had one horrible dream, and the village gossips had succeeded in completing the ruin of her mind by narrating to her all the frightful stories about vampires that they could remember or invent. Often she felt her eyes closing she would say to me, “For God’s sake do not sleep! Take my rosary in one hand and your sabre in the other and watch over me !” Nor would she sleep save with her two hands locked about my arm, locked so tightly that the convulsive grip of her fingers would leave livid marks in my flesh. Nothing could distract her mind; she was abjectly afraid of death, and believed that she must certainly perish. In a few days she became shockingly thin; her lips were colorless and livid; her great black eyes seemed even larger and more brilliant; she was a pitiable thing to see.     I tried to impress her imagination by feigning to believe as she did, but, unhappily, as I had at first derided her credulity, I could not easily gain her confidence. I told her, however, that I was possessed of a patent charm against evil

spirits and that, if she desired it, I would pronounce it. At first her natural unselfishness and gentleness would not permit her to allow me to draw he wrath of heaven on myself, but, finally, the fear of death overcame her scruples and she implored she implored me to try my spell. I pronounced loudly and solemnly some lines of Racine as an invocation; then, after rubbing her neck, pretended to draw therefrom a small red agate I had concealed between my fingers, and assured her gravely that I had removed the source of her illness and that she was saved. But, with a sad smile, she said: “You have deceived me; you had that stone in a little casket ; I had seen it before. You are not a magician.” Thus may ruse did her more harm than good. From that moment she grew worse rapidly.     On the night before her death she said to me, “If I die it is my own fault. My lover (and she named one of the young men of the village) wished me to elope with him, but I would not and asked him to bring me a sliver chain. He went to Marcaska to buy me one, and it was then that the vampire came. After all, if I had not been at the house, it might have killed my mother, or perhaps it is for the best.” Next day she made her father promise himself to cut her throat and open her veins after her death, that she might not also become a vampire; she would have no other hand but his to commit upon her corpse these needless atrocities. Then embracing her mother she desired her to take a rosary to the tomb of a local hermit, or saint, there to sanctify it; then to bring it back to her. I could not fail to admire this peasant’s thoughtfulness in finding such a pretext to keep