‘Oh yes! and such mournful noises, too. Such weeping and wailing, enough to break one’s heart. The first time I saw it, Dolly, I thought I should have died of fright.’ ‘Tell me all about it.’ ‘I had been sitting up late one Saturday night mending the children’s socks for Sunday, and Tom had been in bed for a good two hours. Everybody was in bed but myself, and I thought, as I carried my single candle up the dark staircase, how silent and ghastly everything appeared. As I turned into the corridor, I heard a gasping sound like a stifled sob. At first I could hardly believe my ears; but when it was repeated, my heart seemed to stand still. I was hesitating whether to go back or forward, and trembling in every limb, when IT—this dreadful THING—crossed me. It sprung up, I don’t know from where, in the darkness, and just looked at me once and rushed away. I nearly sunk to the ground, as you may well imagine. I had only just time to get inside my own door, when I tumbled right across the bed, and Tom had to get up and pick up the candlestick, and help undress me; and really, by the way he went on about it, you’d have thought it was all my fault.’ ‘What was IT like? that is the main thing, Bessie.’ ‘My dear, you don’t suppose I looked at it more than I was absolutely obliged. I know IT was dressed all in white, with snow-white hair hanging over its face, and fearful staring eyes. It’s a perfect wonder to me I stand alive here now.’ ‘And it has been seen since then?’ ‘Oh, several times, and we hear IT every night as regularly as possible about two o’clock in the morning. The cook has seen it—so has the housemaid; and not a servant amongst them would fetch a glass of water from downstairs after ten o’clock, if we were all dying for want of it.’ ‘A pleasant state of affairs,’ I ejaculated; ‘and will you take no steps to investigate the mystery, and dissolve the household fears?’ ‘What steps could I take?’ ‘Sit up for the apparition, and speak to it; and if it won’t answer, take hold of it and see if it is flesh and blood or air.’ ‘My dear Dolly, I would rather die.’ ‘Well, I hope you’ll wake me up when the sounds begin to-night,’ I answered, ‘for I am curious to hear them.’ But I didn’t tell Bessie that I would be the one to ‘bell the cat;’ for, though I have little fear, I have no foolhardiness; and if her ghost turned out to be a real one, I had no wish to interfere with it.