ghost himself in the heart of the night, an'
him that sound sleepin' that I couldn't wake
him!"

At breakfast I said nothing to Frank of my
strange adventures. He had rested well, he
said, and boasted of his enchanting dreams. I
asked him to describe them, when he grew
perplexed and annoyed. He remembered nothing,
but that his spirit had been delightfully
entertained whilst his body reposed. I now felt a
curiosity to go through the old house, and was
not surprised, on pushing open a door at the
end of a remote mouldy passage, to enter the
identical chamber into which I had followed the
pale-faced girl when she beckoned me out of the
drawing-room. There were the low brooding
roof and slanting walls, the short wide latticed
windows to which the noonday sun was trying
to pierce through a forest of leaves. The hangings
rotting with age shook like dreary banners
at the opening of the door, and there in the
middle of the room was the cradle; only the
curtains that had been white were blackened
with dirt, and laced and overlaced with cobwebs.
I parted the curtains, bringing down a shower
of dust upon the floor, and saw lying upon the
pillow, within, a child's tiny shoe, and a toy. I
need not describe the rest of the house. It was
vast and rambling, and, as far as furniture
and decorations were concerned, the wreck of
grandeur.

Having strange subject for meditation, I
walked alone in the orchard that evening. This
orchard sloped towards the river I have
mentioned before. The trees were old and stunted,
and the branches tangled overhead. The ripe
apples were rolling in the long bleached grass.
A row of taller trees, sycamores and chesnuts,
straggled along by the river's edge, ferns and
tall weeds grew round and amongst them, and
between their trunks, and behind the rifts in
the foliage, the water was seen to flow. Walking
up and down one of the paths I alternately
faced these trees and turned my back upon them.
Once when coming towards them I chanced to
lift my eyes, started, drew my hands across my
eyes, looked again, and finally stood still gazing
in much astonishment. I saw distinctly the
figure of a lady standing by one of the trees,
bending low towards the grass. Her face was
a little turned away, her dress a bluish white,
her mantle a dun brown colour. She held a
spade in her hands, and her foot was upon it,
as if she were in the act of digging. I gazed
at her for some time, vainly trying to guess at
whom she might be, then I advanced towards
her. As I approached, the outlines of her figure
broke up and disappeared, and I found that she
was only an illusion presented to me by the
curious accidental grouping of the lines of two
trees which had shaped the space between them
into the semblance of the form I have described.
A patch of the flowing water had been her robe,
a piece of russet moorland her cloak. The spade
was an awkward young shoot slanting up from
the root of one of the trees. I stepped back
and tried to piece her out again bit by bit, but
could not succeed.

That night I did not feel at all inclined to
return to my dismal chamber, and lie awaiting
such another summons as I had once received.
When Frank bade me good night, I heaped
fresh coals on the fire, took down from the
shelves a book, from which I lifted the dust in
layers with my penknife, and, dragging an
armchair close to the hearth, tried to make myself
as comfortable as might be. I am a strong,
robust man, very unimaginative, and little troubled
with affections of the nerves, but I confess that
my feelings were not enviable, sitting thus alone
in that queer old house, with last night's strange
pantomime still vividly present to my memory.
In spite of my efforts at coolness, I was excited
by the prospect of what yet might be in store
for me before morning. But these feelings
passed away as the night wore on, and I nodded
asleep over my book.

I was startled by the sound of a brisk light
step walking overhead. Wide awake at once, I
sat up and listened. The ceiling was low, but
I could not call to mind what room it was that
lay above the library in which I sat. Presently
I heard the same step upon the stairs, and the
loud sharp rustling of a silk dress sweeping
against the banisters. The step paused at the
library door, and then there was silence. I got
up, and with all the courage I could summon
seized a light, and opened the door; but there
was nothing in the hall but the usual heavy
darkness and damp mouldy air. I confess I
felt more uncomfortable at that moment than I
had done at any time during the preceding
night. All the visions that had then appeared
to me had produced nothing like the horror of
thus feeling a supernatural presence which my
eyes were not permitted to behold.

I returned to the library, and passed the
night there. Next day I sought for the room
above it in which I had heard the footsteps, but
could discover no entrance to any such room.
Its windows, indeed, I counted from the outside,
though they were so overgrown with ivy I
could hardly discern them, but in the interior
of the house I could find no door to the chamber.
I asked Frank about it, but he knew and cared
nothing on the subject; I asked the old man at
the lodge, and he shook his head.

"Och!" he said, " don't ask about that room.
The door's built up, and flesh and blood have
no consarn wid it. It was her own room."

"Whose own?" I asked.

"Ould Lady Thunder's. An' whisht, sir I
that's her grave .'"

"What do you mean?" I said. " Are you
out of your mind?"

He laughed queerly, drew nearer, and lowered
his voice. " Nobody has asked about the room
these years but yourself," he said. " Nobody
misses it goin' over the house. My grandfather
was an ould retainer o' the Thunder family, my
father was in the service too, an' I was born
myself before the ould lady died. Yon was her