New Year’s eve at
midnight
`` I should certainly be very glad to be told , '' my husband admitted , much surprised ; `` though how you can possibly know , I can not surmise . '' `` Listen , and I will tell you , '' answered Catherine ; and feeling very glad that our curiosity was at last to be gratified , we all `` pricked up our ears , '' as George would say , to listen . I here transcribe Catherine 's story word for word , as my son George subsequently wrote it down from her dictation . * * * * * `` You all remember , '' she began , `` my alarming you on New Year 's eve at midnight , and that I told you I was disturbed by a dreadful dream . `` I said so because I thought you would make fun of me if I called it a vision ; and yet it was much more like a vision , for I seemed to see it waking , and it was more vivid and consecutive than any dream I ever had . `` Before I try to describe it , I want you all to understand that I seemed intuitively to comprehend what I saw , and to recognize all the figures which appeared before me , and their relation to one another , though I am sure I never beheld them before in my life . `` When Ella left me that night , I lay propped up with pillows , staring idly at the strange shadows thrown by the hidden lamp across the laundry ceiling and over the floor .