An account

This is the first experience I have ever had of the kind, and I have not walked in my sleep more than three times in my life • the last time was about a year ago ; on no occasion have I left the room. I do not have startling or vivid dreams as a rule. I did not look at my watch after waking, but the clock struck 5 o'clock. In answer to inquiries, Miss Elliott says : — Although I am accustomed to have very vivid dreams, I have never had one of this kind before. When I found my friend was not in the room, and that the doors were securely fastened on the inside, I looked at my watch ; it was a few minutes past 5. I have never, I believe, walked in my sleep. There are two doors to my bedroom. One was locked on the inside ; the handle was broken off the other on the outside. Thus it was impossible for anyone to open it except from the inside. [No one, probably, will regard this as an accidental coincidence ; but the hypothesis of sleep-walking had to be carefully considered. I have seen the rooms, and examined the door of which the handle is described as having been broken off. Miss Bevan had been (as was often the case) in 320 DREAMS WHICH MAY BE REASONABLY [chaf. Miss Elliott's room over-night, and on her shutting the door at her departure, the outside handle fell off. She remembers its doing so ; and Miss Elliott heard it fall, and saw it on the floor outside when she left her room in the morning. Miss Elliott says that it remained unscrewed, and so liable to be shaken off every time the door closed, for about two months that summer. I unscrewed it, and tried to move the latch by turning the stump, but found it utterly impossible ; and to fit the handle on again without pushing the stump inwards, and so losing all chance of opening the door, was a work of very considerable care. But even on the violent supposition that Miss Bevan left her room noiselessly in her sleep, picked up the handle, deftly adjusted it, turned it, and entered — there remains an additional difficulty. For, in departing, she must have shut the door after her in such a way as to jerk the handle off again. This would make a loud sound ; yet it was not heard by Miss Elliott, who, on the hypothesis in question, was awake ; nor did it wake Miss Bevan herself, nor an aunt of hers who was sleeping in a room with which Miss Elliott's communicated. It seems almost incredible that she should have shut the door carefully after her, taken off the handle, and deposited it on the floor. Both the door of communication between Miss Elliott's and the