l."

"Na, na, od wite it! no story, ouer true for that, I sid it a wi my
aan eyen. But the barn here, would not like, at these hours, just
goin' to her bed, to hear tell of freets and boggarts."

"Ghosts? The very thing of all others I should most likely to hear
of."

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Jenner, "if you are not afraid, sit ye down
here, with us."

"She was just going to tell me all about her first engagement to
attend a dying old woman," says Mrs. Jenner, "and of the ghost she saw
there. Now, Mrs. Jolliffe, make your tea first, and then begin."

The good woman obeyed, and having prepared a cup of that companionable
nectar, she sipped a little, drew her brows slightly together to
collect her thoughts, and then looked up with a wondrous solemn face
to begin.

Good Mrs. Jenner, and the pretty girl, each gazed with eyes of solemn
expectation in the face of the old woman, who seemed to gather awe
from the recollections she was summoning.

The old room was a good scene for such a narrative, with the
oak-wainscoting, quaint, and clumsy furniture, the heavy beams that
crossed its ceiling, and the tall four-post bed, with dark curtains,
within which you might imagine what shadows you please.

Mrs. Jolliffe cleared her voice, rolled her eyes slowly round, and
began her tale in these words:--

MADAM CROWL'S GHOST

"I'm an ald woman now, and I was but thirteen, my last birthday, the
night I came to Applewale House. My aunt was the housekeeper there,
and a sort o' one-horse carriage was down at Lexhoe waitin' to take me
and my box up to Applewale.

"I was a bit frightened by the time I got to Lexhoe, and when I saw
the carriage and horse, I wished myself back again with my mother at
Hazelden. I was crying when I got into the 'shay'--that's what we used
to call it--and old John Mulbery that drove it, and was a good-natured
fellow, bought me a handful of apples at the Golden Lion to cheer me
up a bit; and he told me that there was a currant-cake, and tea, and
pork-chops, waiting for me, all hot, in my aunt's room at the great
house. It was a fine moonlight night, and I eat the apples, lookin'
out o' the shay winda.

"It's a shame for gentlemen to frighten a poor foolish child like I
was. I sometimes think it might be tricks. There was two on 'em on the
tap o' the coach beside me. And they began to question me after
nightfall, when the moon rose, where I was going to. Well, I told them
it was to wait on Dame Arabel