wy masses about the
grounds--the garden gave promise of beauty as the season advanced. How
the children ran over the house! how charmed we were with every nook and
corner of it! Our own bed-room was a comfortable, large room, opening
into a very roomy dressing-room, in which my wife placed two cribs for
our youngest boys, Hal and Jack--"

"Don't forget to say that our bed-chamber opened from a sitting-room,"
interrupted Mrs. Henniker.

"Well, for three weeks we all slept the sleep of the just in our really
splendid suite of apartments. Not a grumble from our servants--nothing
but satisfaction with our rare bargain. I was on the eve of returning to
dear, dirty Dublin and the Four Courts, when--"

"When? We are all attention, Mr. Henniker."

"Angela and I were sitting in the drawing-room under the bed-chamber I
have described, when a loud cry startled us, 'Mother, mother, mother!'

"The little boys were in bed in the dressing-room. Angela dropped her
tea-cup and dashed out of the room, forgetting that there was no light
in the rooms above us.

"I caught up a candle and followed her quickly. We found the children
sobbing wildly. Jack's arms were almost strangling his mother, while he
cried in great excitement, 'Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet! The
old woman in the black bonnet! Oh--oh--oh!'

"I thought a little fatherly correction would be beneficial, but Angela
would not suffer me to interfere. She tried to soothe the little
beggars, and in a few minutes they were coherent enough in their story.
A frightful old woman, wearing a black bonnet, had been in the room. She
came close to them and bent over their cribs, with her dreadful face
near to theirs.

"'How did you see her?' we asked. 'There was no candle here."

"She had light about her, they said; at any rate, they saw her quite
well. An exhaustive search was made. No trace of a human being was to be
found. I refrained from speaking to the other children, who slept in an
upper story, though I softly entered their rooms and examined presses
and wardrobes, and peeped behind dark corners, laughing in my sleeve all
the while. Of course we both believed that Hal had been frightened by a
dream, and that his little brother had roared from sympathy. 'Don't
breathe a word of this to the servants,' whispered Mrs. Henniker. 'I'm
not such a fool, my dear,' I replied. 'But pray search the lower
regions, and see if Jane and Nancy have any visitor in the kitchen,' she