at the gentlemen told me."

His wife had also heard the bangs, but had waited for him to
speak to her of them, and the maids on the other side of the
house had been roused to come to their door and listen.

The footman, who sleeps in the basement, and the Colonel, who
was in the smoking-room in the wing till 11.30, heard nothing;
but Miss Langton, in No. 4, to whom Miss Moore mentioned the
servants' story, had heard noises "between 10.30 and 10.45," but
had not been disturbed, thinking, as we had done, that they were
probably made by the servants.

On inquiry we found that the cook had gone to bed directly after
the servants' supper, the two under maids were up by ten o'clock
(Miss Moore heard their voices when she came to my room at ten
o'clock), and the upper housemaid had gone up a few minutes
after the hall clock struck, following Miss Moore up the stairs.
The butler had come up directly after, only waiting to put out
the hall lamp, and all were in bed before 10.30. We ourselves
noticed the striking of the hall clock _after_ we heard the
noise--it had gone wrong, and only struck nine instead of eleven
o'clock--so there seems little doubt that we all heard the same
sound, and all describe it as coming from below.

In discussing the occurrence with the butler and his wife, Miss
Moore learned that they had lately heard a story [from a local
resident] which was new to us. A maid of Mrs. S----, who, though
married to the butler, still lived in the house, and performed
her duties as usual, was one night coming up the back-stairs
with a tray for Mrs. S----, when, on reaching the top, by the
door of No. 3, she met the figure of a nun, which so frightened
her that she dropped the tray and broke all the plates on it.
Mrs. S---- explained it away by saying it was "only ----" (they
could not remember her name) "come to pray with her." It was
Sunday night, but they knew there was no one there who could in
the least account for the appearance. The only explanation
offered by the narrator of the story was that "there had been a
Miss S----, a nun, who had died."

_March 14th, Sunday._--I called on Mrs. S----, and had a long
talk with her.

. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
.