LITMIR.BIZ

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in front of the stove, engaged apparently in polishing the fender, was a servant-girl with RED hair; I started back in astonishment. ‘Who could she be?’

      “Too intent at first to notice my advent, she kept on at her work, giving me time to observe that she was wearing a very dirty dress, and that her ‘rag’ of a cap was quite askew. Satisfied she was not ‘Jane,’ and wondering whether some one else’s maid had mistaken our kitchen for her own—the houses in the terrace being all alike—I called out, ‘Who are you? what do you want?’—whereupon, dropping the fire-irons with a clatter, she quickly turned round, displaying an ashen-pale face, the expression on which literally froze me with horror.

      “Never! never had I seen such an awful look of hopeless, of desperate, of diabolical abandonment in any one’s eyes as in those of hers when their glance met mine.

      “For some seconds we glared at one another without moving, and then, still regarding me with a furtive look from out of the corner of her horrible eyes, she slowly rose from the hearth, and gliding stealthily forward, disappeared in the diminutive scullery opposite.

      “Curiosity now overcoming fear, I at once followed. She was nowhere to be seen; nor was there any other mode of exit by which she could have made her departure than a tiny window, some four feet or so from the floor and directly overlooking the deep waters of the pond to which I have already alluded.

      “Here, then, was a mystery! What had I seen? Had I actually encountered a phantasm, or was I but the victim of an exceedingly unpleasant and falsidical hallucination? I preferred to think the former.

      “Not wishing to frighten my mother, I intended keeping the incident to myself, writing, however, a complete account of it in my diary for the current year, but, a further incident occurring to my youngest sister within the next few days, I determined to reveal what I had seen and compare notes.”

      The eldest Miss Rudd now concluded, and on my expressing a desire to hear more, her youngest sister very obligingly commenced:

      “I had been out shopping in the Triangle one morning,” she said, “and having omitted to take the latchkey, I was obliged to ring. Jane answered the summons. There was nothing, of course, unusual in this, as it was her duty to do so, but there was something extremely singular in what appeared at her elbow.

      “Standing close beside—I might almost say, leaning against her (though Jane was apparently unaware of it)—was a strange, a VERY STRANGE, servant-girl, with RED HAIR and the most uncanny eyes; she had on a bedraggled print dress and a cap all askew; but it was her expression that most attracted my attention—it was HORRID.

      “ ‘Oh Jane!’ I cried, ‘whoever is it with you?’

      “Following the direction of my gaze, Jane immediately turned round, and, without a word, FAINTED.

      “That is all. The apparition, or whatever you may please to call it, vanished, and the next time I saw it was under different circumstances.”

      “Will you be so kind as to relate them?” I inquired.

      Miss Rudd proceeded: “Oh! it is nothing very much!” she exclaimed, “only it was very unpleasant at the time—especially as I was all alone.

      “You see, mother, being delicate, went to bed early, my sisters were at a concert, and it was Jane’s ‘night out.’

      “I never, somehow, fancied the basement of the house; it was so cold and damp, reminding me not a little of a MORGUE or charnel-house; consequently I never stayed there a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and on this night in question I was in the act of scurrying back to the drawing-room when a gentle tap! tap! at the scullery-window made me defer my departure. Entering the back kitchen, somewhat timidly I admit, I saw a face peering in at me through the tiny window.

      “Though the night was dark and there was no artificial lighting at this side of the house, every feature of that face was revealed to me as clearly as if it had been day. The little, untidy cap, all awry, surmounting the shock-head of red hair now half-down and dripping with water, the ghastly white cheeks, the widely open mouth, and the eyes, their pupils abnormally dilated and full of lurid light, were more appallingly horrible than ever.

      “I stood and gazed at it, my heart sick with terror, nor do I know what would have happened to me had not the loud rap of the postman acted like magic; the THING vanished, and ‘turning tail,’ I fled upstairs into the presence of my mother. That is all.”

      I was profuse in my thanks, and the third Miss Rudd then spoke:

      “My bedroom,” she began, “was on the top landing—the window over-looking the water. I slept alone some months after the anecdotes just related, and was awakened one night by feeling some disgusting, wet object lying on my forehead.

      “With an ejaculation of alarm I attempted to brush it aside, and opening my eyes, encountered a ghastly white face bending right over me.

      “I instantly recognised it, by the description my sisters had given, as the phantasm of the red-headed girl.

      “The eyes were TERRIBLE! Shifting its slimy hand from my forehead, and brandishing it aloft like some murderous weapon, it was about to clutch my throat, when human nature would stand it no longer—and—I fainted. On recovering, I found both my sisters in the room, and after that I never slept by myself.”

      “Did your mother ever see it?” I asked.

      “Frequently,” the eldest Miss Rudd replied, “and it was chiefly on her account we relinquished our tenancy—her nervous system was completely prostrated.”

      “Other people saw the ghost besides us,” the youngest Miss Rudd interrupted, “for not only did the long succession of maids after Jane ALL see it, but many of the subsequent tenants; the house was never let for any length of time.”

      “Then, perhaps, it is empty now?” I soliloquised, “in which case I shall most certainly experiment there.”

      This proved to be the case; the house was tenantless, and I easily prevailed upon the agent to loan me the key.

      But the venture was fruitless. Three of us and a dog undertook it. We sat at the foot of the gloomy staircase; twelve o’clock struck, no ghost appeared, the dog became a nuisance—and—we came away disgusted.

      A one-night’s test, however, is no test at all; there is no reason to suppose apparitions are always to be seen by man; as yet we know absolutely nothing of the powers or conditions regulating their appearances, and it is surely feasible that the unknown controlling elements of one night may have been completely altered, may even have ceased to exist by the next. At all events, that was my opinion. I was by no means daunted at a single failure. But it was impossible to get any one to accompany me. The sceptic is so boastfully eager by day. “Ghosts,” he sneers, “what are ghosts? Indigestion and imagination! I’ll challenge you to show me the house I wouldn’t sleep in alone! Ghosts indeed! Give me a poker or a shovel and I will scare away the lot of them.” And when you do show him the house he always has a prior engagement, or else the weather is too cold, or he has too much work to do next day, or it isn’t really worth the trouble, or—well! he is sure to have some very plausible excuse; at least, that has been my invariable experience.

      There is no greater coward than the sceptic, and so, unable to procure a friend for the occasion, I did without one; neither did I have the key of the house, but—taking French leave—gained admittance through a window.

      It was horribly dark and lonely, and although on the former occasion I did not feel the presence of the superphysical, I did so now, the very moment I crossed the threshold. Striking a light, I looked around me: I was in the damp and mouldy den that served as a kitchen; outside I saw the moon reflected on the black and silent water.

      A long and sleek cockroach disappeared leisurely in a hole in the skirting as I flashed my light in its direction, and I thought I detected the movement of a rat or some large animal in the cupboard at the foot of the stairs. I forthwith commenced a search—the

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