My mother’s mind broke down under the shock and worry, and she had to be taken away, and we girls were left fatherless, as bad as motherless, and penniless into the bargain. Our home was sold up, we paid our debts and got out of that disastrous house as soon as we could. As for our uncanny experiences there—we were awakened more than once by sounds as if all the heavy furniture we possessed downstairs was being dragged about, also by footsteps coming up the flagged path that led to the front door, and by raps at the window. Also, one evening, I remember distinctly we four girls were all sitting quietly sewing, when, all at once, we jumped nearly out of our skins at a loud rat-tat-tat at the front door. “Whoever can that be at this time of night?” we said. My eldest sister snatched up a light and ran to answer, and came back saying: “There's no one there.” At this moment, our dog, chained in the back yard, snapped his chain and ran round the house howling piteously. Who it was, or what it was, I know not; we saw nothing, but I don’t think anyone would have played a trick on us at such a time when we were in deep trouble. Then, too, it was a lonely place, and the house stood back from the road enclosed with high garden hedges, and in those days country folk were not wont to travel the dark lanes at nine or ten at night to frighten their neighbours or, indeed, for any purpose unless necessity compelled them. Only once during our stay there did we see anything. One night my second sister was awakened by the feeling that someone or something was in the room, and was horrified to see the figure of an old woman, with thin grey wisps of hair, bending over the bed. As she lay, too frightened to call to the rest of us, the figure gradually retreated in the direction of the door, which led into the best bedroom. I don’t care to recall these things, for even after the lapse of many years their remembrance both saddens and terrifies. Was there some sinister influence surrounding this spot? Or were our misfortunes just the chances and changes of this mortal life which might have occurred anywhere? Who can rightly say? What happened to the next tenant (if there was one) I do not know. We removed to a distant county, and I have long lost touch with any I used to know who might give me news of it. The Lady with the Thimble MY aunt has often told me that, when she was staying with her mother at a friend's house in the city, at night time a curious tapping, as if with a thimble, on the door of her room used to awaken her, and then something seemed to appear at the bottom of the bed which was one of the old-fashioned four-post type. Then she would feel the bed shake beneath her, the shaking increasing in volume. The tapping was heard about a quarter to twelve, and everything ceased on the stroke of midnight.