en, twelve years ago, governess in the S---- family at B----
House. (I need not say that I was now intensely interested.) 'Why did
she leave?' 'Well, sir, so many people complained of queer noises in
the house, that I got alarmed and left.' I asked her had she seen
anything? She said No, and the noises were only heard in certain
rooms, and the servants inhabited quite a different part of the house.
When I closely questioned her she located the queer noises precisely
in the two rooms I had successively occupied. She did not learn from
me that I had ever been there. Pressed for a concrete case of fright
and abrupt leavetaking (I _think_), she told me two military officers
had 'left next morning.'

"In conclusion, as against all the above, my own, and this good
woman's account, I must set it down that, before I left the house, two
young ladies, relatives of the family, occupied the rooms in
question, and certainly, to my surprise, did not seem at breakfast as
if they had spent an unquiet night."

Inquiry shows that Miss Y----'s residence at B---- must have been
about the years 1878-80.

The earliest witnesses in chronological sequence would be the S----
family themselves; but though much information has been contributed by
them to various persons interested in B---- House during the tenancy
both of Mr. H---- and Colonel Taylor, the present Editors are
unwilling to make use of it without permission.

A statement in _The Times_ article, of the character of which the
reader can here judge for himself, elicited the following letter from
Mrs. S----, which is to be found in the issue of that journal for June
18, 1897:--

"May I ask of your courtesy to insert this in the next issue of your
paper. Seeing myself dragged into publicity in _The Times_ of June 8,
as 'having made admissions under pressure of cross-examination,' I beg
to state that I as well as the rest of my family had not the remotest
idea that our home was let to other than ordinary tenants. In my
intercourse with them I spoke as one lady to another, never imagining
that my private conversations were going to be used for purposes
carefully concealed from me--a deceit which I deeply resent."

It will be observed that Mrs. S---- here leaves no doubt as to the
nature of the information with which she was so good as to favour Miss
Freer, but, notwithstanding this fact, and the language which Mrs.
S---- has considered it right to use--or, at least, to sign--with
r