s
of her family, and associated with the happiest recollections in her
life. She was very fond of company, and there was scarcely a week in
the year in which she had not some one staying with her. I can only
remember her as widow, her husband, a major in the Gordon Highlanders,
having died in India before I was born. She had two daughters,
Margaret and Alice, both considered very handsome, but some years
older than I. This difference in age, however, did not prevent our
being on very friendly terms, and I was constantly invited to their
house--in the summer to croquet and archery, in the winter to balls.
Like most elderly ladies of that period, Lady Holkitt was very fond of
cards, and she and my mother used frequently to play bezique and
cribbage, whilst the girls and I indulged in something rather more
frivolous. On those occasions the carriage always came for us at ten,
since my mother, for some reason or other--I had a shrewd suspicion it
was on account of the alleged haunting--would never return home after
that time. When she accepted an invitation to a ball, it was always
conditionally that Lady Holkitt would put us both up for the night,
and the carriage used, then, to come for us the following day, after
one o'clock luncheon. I shall never forget the last time I went to a
dance at "The Old White House," though it is now rather more than
fifty years ago. My mother had not been very well for some weeks,
having, so she thought, taken cold internally. She had not had a
doctor, partly because she did not feel ill enough, and partly because
the only medical man near us was an apothecary, of whose skill she had
a very poor opinion. My mother had quite made up her mind to accompany
me to the ball, but at the last moment, the weather being appalling,
she yielded to advice, and my aunt Norah, who happened to be staying
with us at the time, chaperoned me instead. It was snowing when we
set out, and as it snowed all through the night and most of the next
day, the roads were completely blocked, and we had to remain at "The
Old White House" from Monday evening till the following Thursday. Aunt
Norah and I occupied separate bedrooms, and mine was at the end of a
long passage away from everybody else's. Prior to this my mother and I
had always shared a room--the only really pleasant one, so I thought,
in the house--overlooking the front lawn. But on this occasion there
being a number of visitors, belated like ourselves, we had to