without being aware of it, and that, if she
did not mind, I'd like to be reminded of it again. So she said that
these objections had all been replied to (just as clergymen always say in
sermons), and then she told me the history of the room. It only came to
this, that, three generations before, the family butler (whom every one
had always thought a most steady, respectable man), dressed himself up
like a ghost, or like his notion of a ghost, and got a ladder, and came
in by the window to steal the diamonds of the lady of the house, and he
frightened her to death, poor woman! That was all. But, ever since,
people who sleep in the room don't sleep, so to speak, and keep thinking
that some one is coming in by the casement. That's all; and I told you
it was not an interesting story, but perhaps you will find more interest
in the scientific explanation of all these things."

The story of the maiden aunt, so far as it recounted her own experience,
did not contain anything to which the judicial faculties of the mind
refused assent. Probably the Bachelor of Arts felt that something a good
deal more unusual was wanted, for he instantly started, without being
asked, on the following narrative:--

"I also was staying," said the Bachelor of Arts, "at the home of my
friends, the aristocracy in Scotland. The name of the house, and the
precise rank in the peerage of my illustrious host, it is not necessary
for me to give. All, however, who know those more than feudal and
baronial halls, are aware that the front of the castle looks forth on a
somewhat narrow drive, bordered by black and funereal pines. On the
night of my arrival at the castle, although I went late to bed, I did not
feel at all sleepy. Something, perhaps, in the mountain air, or in the
vicissitudes of baccarat, may have banished slumber. I had been in luck,
and a pile of sovereigns and notes lay, in agreeable confusion, on my
dressing-table. My feverish blood declined to be tranquillized, and at
last I drew up the blind, threw open the latticed window, and looked out
on the drive and the pine-wood. The faint and silvery blue of dawn was
just wakening in the sky, and a setting moon hung, with a peculiarly
ominous and wasted appearance, above the crests of the forest. But
conceive my astonishment when I beheld, on the drive, and right under my
window, a large and well-appointed hearse, with two white horses, with
plumes complete, and attended by mutes, whos