oded
grounds so indescribably charming, that, despite my inartistic and
unpoetical nature, I was entranced--entranced as I had never been
before, and never have been since. "Ghosts!" I said to myself,
"ghosts! how absurd! how preposterously absurd! such an adorable spot
as this can only harbour sunshine and flowers."

I well remember, too--for, as I have already said, I was not
poetical--how much I enjoyed my first dinner at Glamis. The long
journey and keen mountain air had made me hungry, and I thought I had
never tasted such delicious food--such ideal salmon (from the Esk) and
such heavenly fruit. But I must tell you that, although I ate
heartily, as a healthy girl should, by the time I went to bed I had
thoroughly digested my meal, and was, in fact, quite ready to partake
of a few oatmeal biscuits I found in my dressing-case, and remembered
having bought at Perth. It was about eleven o'clock when my maid left
me, and I sat for some minutes wrapped in my dressing gown, before the
open window. The night was very still, and save for an occasional
rustle of the wind in the distant tree-tops, the hooting of an owl,
the melancholy cry of a peewit and the hoarse barking of a dog, the
silence was undisturbed.

The interior of my room was, in nearly every particular, modern.
The furniture was not old; there were no grim carvings; no
grotesquely-fashioned tapestries on the walls; no dark cupboards; no
gloomy corners;--all was cosy and cheerful, and when I got into bed no
thought of bogle or mystery entered my mind.

In a few minutes I was asleep, and for some time there was nothing but
a blank--a blank in which all identity was annihilated. Then suddenly
I found myself in an oddly-shaped room with a lofty ceiling, and a
window situated at so great a distance from the black oaken floor as
to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of
phosphorescent light made their way through the narrow panes, and
served to render distinct the more prominent objects around; but my
eyes struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the wall, one of
which inspired me with terror such as I had never felt before. The
walls were covered with heavy draperies that were sufficient in
themselves to preclude the possibility of any save the loudest of
sounds penetrating without.

The furniture, if such one could call it, puzzled me. It seemed more
fitted for the cell of a prison or lunatic asylum, or even for a
kennel, than for an