se
forming one end of this oblong inclosure, the stable and coach-house the
other, and two parallel walls of considerable height the sides. Here, as
it afforded a perfectly safe playground, they were frequently left quite
to themselves; and in talking over their days' adventures, as children
will, they happened to mention a woman, or rather the woman, for they
had long grown familiar with her appearance, whom they used to see in
the garden while they were at play. They assumed that she came in and
went out at the stable door, but they never actually saw her enter or
depart. They merely saw a figure--that of a very poor woman, soiled and
ragged--near the stable wall, stooping over the ground, and apparently
grubbing in the loose clay in search of something. She did not disturb,
or appear to observe them; and they left her in undisturbed possession
of her nook of ground. When seen it was always in the same spot, and
similarly occupied; and the description they gave of her general
appearance--for they never saw her face--corresponded with that of the
one-eyed woman whom Smith, and subsequently as it seemed, I had seen.

The other man, James, who looked after a mare which I had purchased for
the purpose of riding exercise, had, like every one else in the house,
his little trouble to report, though it was not much. The stall in
which, as the most comfortable, it was decided to place her, she
peremptorily declined to enter. Though a very docile and gentle little
animal, there was no getting her into it. She would snort and rear, and,
in fact, do or suffer any thing rather than set her hoof in it. He was
fain, therefore, to place her in another. And on several occasions he
found her there, exhibiting all the equine symptoms of extreme fear.
Like the rest of us, however, this man was not troubled in the
particular case with any superstitious qualms. The mare had evidently
been frightened; and he was puzzled to find out how, or by whom, for the
stable was well-secured, and had, I am nearly certain, a lock-up yard
outside.

One morning I was greeted with the intelligence that robbers had
certainly got into the house in the night; and that one of them had
actually been seen in the nursery. The witness, I found, was my eldest
child, then, as I have said, about nine years of age. Having awoke in
the night, and lain awake for some time in her bed, she heard the handle
of the door turn, and a person whom she distinctly saw--for it wa