and
pleasant talk and separated at half-past eleven. The hussar, however,
only went to his room for form's sake; he loaded his pistols, and when
all was quiet in the castle, he crept down into the court-yard and took
up his position behind a pillar which was quite hidden in the shade,
while the moon, which was nearly at the full, flooded the cloisters with
its clear, pale light.

There were no lights to be seen in the castle except from two windows,
which were those of the Countess's apartments, and soon they were also
extinguished. The clock struck twelve, and the hussar could scarcely
breathe from excitement; the next moment, however, he heard the noise
which the Count's body-servant had compared to that of bats, and almost
at the same instant a white figure glided slowly through the open
cloisters and passed so close to him, that it almost made his blood
curdle, and then it disappeared in the wing of the castle which he and
the tutor occupied.

The officer who was usually so brave, stood as though he was paralyzed
for a few moments, but then he took heart, and feeling determined to make
the nearer acquaintance of the spectral beauty, he crept softly up the
broad staircase and took up his position in a deep recess in the
cloisters, where nobody could see him.

He waited for a long time; he heard every quarter strike, and at last,
just before the close of the _witching hour_, he heard the same noise
like the rustling of bats, and then she came, he felt the flutter of her
white dress, and she stood before him--it was indeed the Countess.

He presented his pistol at her as he challenged her, but she raised her
hand menacingly. "Who are you?" he exclaimed. "If you are really a ghost,
prove it, for I am going to fire." "For heaven's sake!" the White Lady
whispered, and at the same instant two white arms were thrown round him,
and he felt a full, warm bosom heaving against his own.

After that night the ghost appeared more frequently still. Not only did
the _White Lady_ make her appearance every night in the cloisters, only
to disappear in the proximity of the hussar's rooms as long as the family
remained at the castle, but she even followed them to Vienna.

Baron T., who went to that capital on leave of absence during the
following winter, and who was the Count's guest at the express wish of
his wife, was frequently told by the footman that although hitherto she
had seemed to be confined to the old castle in Bohemia,