"I have so repeatedly expressed my unbelief in all the vulgar or popular forms of supernaturalism (says Mr. Scott), that I feel a little hesitation in recording a circumstance resembling that class of things which began the very evening after his [i.e., Rossetti's] departure. I could now get a little peace to revise my _Dürer Journal_, and my German friend Mr. Reid, who had given me an hour, stayed to dinner. Rossetti's habit, when composing or even correcting for the press, was to retire after dinner to the room above, the drawing-room of the old house, to read aloud to himself, when by himself. This he did in a voice so loud that we in the dining-room beneath could almost hear his words. Well, as we were sitting after dinner, when he must have been approaching London in the train, what could it be we heard? The usual voice reading to itself in the usual place over our heads! I looked at A. B.; she was listening intently till she could bear it no longer, and left the room. Our learned priest found me, I fancy, to be rather _distrait_, so he rose, saying it was about his time, and besides, he continued, 'I hear Miss Boyd has some friend in the drawing-room, so I won't go up. Give her my good-bye and respects.' I joined her at once, but of course we heard nothing in the room itself. Such is the circumstance as it took place. Mr. Reid, who knew nothing of the habit of D. G. R., hearing the voice as well as we did, although it sounded to him like talking rather than reading, was a sure evidence we were not deceiving ourselves. Next night it was the same, and so it went on till I left. When we tried to approach it was not audible, or when the doors of the drawing-room and its small ante-room communicating with the staircase were left open, we could make nothing of it. It gradually tapered off when Miss Boyd was left by herself; by-and-by the whole establishment was bolted and barred for the winter. Next season it had entirely ceased."] [Footnote 125: _Proc. American S.P.R._, pp. 405-408. The reader may be interested in comparing the ragged and possibly commonplace account given in the text with the following spirited version of the same incident quoted from the _Arena_, March 1892. The writer of the account states that "the story, as I tell it, was given me by the wife." But he does not, it will be observed, quote it as in Mrs. W. O. S.'s words. After describing how the doctor was awakened by a strong light in the room and saw the figure of a woman, whom he at first mistook for his wife, the writer in the _Arena_ proceeds as follows:--