of our visitor was a surprisesurpriseto me , since I had expected a typical country practitioner .
It was Madame Nilsson 's first appearanceappearancethat winter , and what the daily press had already learned to describe as " an exceptionally brilliant audience " had gatheredgatherto hear her , transportedtransportthrough the slippery , snowy streets in private broughams , in the spacious family landau , or in the humbler but more convenient " Brown coupe . "
The case , I may mention , was that of an apparitionapparitionin just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion -- an appearanceappearance, of a dreadful kind , to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and wakingwakeher up in the terrorterrorof it ; wakingwakeher not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again , but to encounter also , herself , before she had succeeded in doing so , the same sight that had shakenshakehim .