I have referred in the preceding pages to the loss of several letters, which I should have been glad to insert here. The following very interesting ones I have fortunately retained. I give them verbatim, only suppressing the names of the writers, as requested. * * * * * LETTER I. _Aug. 18, 1854._ MADAM, I have received your kind favor of the 15th, and I really feel that I must now apologize to you, for venturing so quickly to call in question the accuracy of your details. Being unaware, however, of the marvellous coincidence of the _two dreams_, I feel assured you at once appreciated the motives which alone impelled me to write. Allow me, then, to attempt a narration of the particulars referred to in my last, as having come under my own observation. Two intimate friends of mine (clergymen of the Church of England) and one of whom is unmarried, have for the last three years occupied a large old-fashioned house in the country. It is a very pretty place--stands within its own grounds--and is quite aloof from any other dwellings. It has long had the reputation in the neighbourhood of being haunted, in consequence, it is said, of a former proprietor having committed suicide there. The story goes thus, he was _laid out_ in a chamber which is now called the spare room, and is the scene of what I am about to relate. I may as well tell you that it was only on my last visit, some six weeks since, that I became at all aware of the _character_ of the mansion, for my friends felt so annoyed at what has taken place, that they purposely avoided communicating to their visitors what they thought might make them anything but comfortable. On that occasion there happened to be on a visit to my friend's wife, a lady very nearly related to him. She had the spare room assigned to her as a chamber, and on the very first night of her arrival was so terrified by what took place that she would not again sleep there without company.