"The Poor Clare" by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell is a gothic short story first serialized in 1856. A young lawyer recounts extraordinary events from his past involving Bridget FitzGerald, an Irish servant who loses everyone she loves. When a man kills her beloved dog, she calls down a terrible curse—unknowingly condemning her own granddaughter to be haunted by a demonic doppelganger. The lawyer must race to lift the curse before it destroys the young woman he loves. (This is an automatically generated summary.)