I passed on to the back of the house, by the servants' ordinary path, round the east wing. It was a good opportunity for seeing what the place was like. But I did not bargain for the great flood of light into which I was thrown on turning the angle. It proceeded from the corner room; the windows were thrown wide open, and some maid-servants were ironing at a long board underneath. Not caring that they should see me, I drew under the cover of a projecting shed, that I believe belonged to the brewhouse, and took a leisurely survey. Plenty of life here; plenty of buildings; it seemed like a colony. Lights shone from several windows of the long edifice—as long as it was in front. The entrance was in the middle; a poultry-yard lay at the other end; a pasture for cows opposite; the range of stables could be seen in the distance. Harriet and Emma were the two maids ironing; Lizzy Dene, a very dark young woman of thirty, with a bunch of wild-looking black curls on either side her face, sat by the ironing-stove, doing nothing. Why they added her surname, Dene, to her Christian name in speaking of her, I did not know, but it seemed to be the usual custom. These three, it may be remembered, have been mentioned as the housemaids. Another woman, whom I did not recognise, but knew her later for the laundry-maid, was at the back, folding clothes. They were talking fast, but very distinctly, in that half-covert tone which betrays the subject to be a forbidden one. The conversation and the stove's heat were alike wafted to me through the open window. "You may preach from now until to-morrow morning," were the first words I heard, and they came from Harriet; "but you will never make me believe that people's ghosts can appear before they die. It is not in nature's order." "_His_ appears. I'll stand to that. And what's more, I'll stand to it that I saw it last night!" cried Lizzy Dene, looking up and speaking in strong, fierce jerks, as she was in the habit of doing. "I sat up in the bedroom sewing. It's that new black silk polka of mine that I wanted to finish, and if I got it about downstairs, Madam Hill would go on above a bit about finery. Emma got into bed and lay awake talking, her and me. Before I'd done, my piece of candle came to an end, and I thought I'd go into Harriet's room and borrow hers. It was a lovely night, the moon shone slantways in at the turret window, and something took me that I'd have a look out. So I went up the turret stairs and stood at the casement. I'd not been there a minute before I saw it—the living image of Mr. Chandos!—and I thought I should have swooned away. Ask Emma." "Well, I say it might have been Mr. Chandos himself, but it never was his ghost," argued Harriet.