ress!!"
exclaimed the ploughman. "Yes, John, _your mistress_," replied the
ghost. "But ride home, my bonny man, for it's growing late: you and I
will be better acquainted ere long." John accordingly rode home and told
his story.

Next evening, about the same hour, as two of the laird's servant-maids
were engaged in washing in an out-house, there came a slight tap to the
door. "Come in," said one of the maids; and the lady entered, dressed,
as on the previous night, in green. She swept past them to the inner
part of the washing-room; and, seating herself on a low bench, from
which, ere her death, she used occasionally to superintend their
employment, she began to question them, as if still in the body, about
the progress of their work. The girls, however, were greatly too
frightened to make any reply. She then visited an old woman who had
nursed the laird, and to whom she used to show, ere her departure,
greatly more kindness than her husband. And she now seemed as much
interested in her welfare as ever. She inquired whether the laird was
kind to her, and looking round her little smoky cottage, regretted she
should be so indifferently lodged, and that her cupboard, which was
rather of the emptiest at the time, should not be more amply furnished.
For nearly a twelvemonth after, scarce a day passed in which she was not
seen by some of the domestics; never, however, except on one occasion,
after the sun had risen, or before it had set. The maids could see her,
in the gray of the morning flitting like a shadow round their beds, or
peering in upon them at night through the dark window-panes, or at
half-open doors. In the evening she would glide into the kitchen or some
of the out-houses,--one of the most familiar and least dignified of her
class that ever held intercourse with mankind,--and inquire of the girls
how they had been employed during the day; often, however, without
obtaining an answer, though from a cause different from that which had
at first tied their tongues. For they had become so regardless of her
presence, viewing her simply as a troublesome mistress, who had no
longer any claim to be heeded, that when she entered, and they had
dropped their conversation, under the impression that their visitor was
a creature of flesh and blood like themselves, they would again resume
it, remarking that the entrant was "only the green lady." Though always
cadaverously pale, and miserable looking, she affected a joyous
disp