mily diamonds, lost many years ago, were never really taken abroad
by the valet and sold. He only had time to conceal them in a secret
drawer behind the dining-room chimney-piece. Now she can get no nearer
expressing herself than producing a spirited imitation of the music of
the bagpipes, which wails up and down the house, and frightens the
present Sir Robert Wadham and his people nearly out of their wits. And
that's the way with almost all of us: there is literally no connection
(as a rule) between our expressions and the things we intend to express.
You know how the Psychical Society make quite a study of rappings, and
try to interpret them by the alphabet? Well, these, as I told you, are
merely a nervous symptom; annoying, no doubt, but not dangerous. The
only spectres, almost, that manage to hint what they really mean are
Banshees."

"_They_ intend to herald an approaching death?" I asked.

"They do, and abominably bad taste I call it, unless a man has neglected
to insure his life, and _then_ I doubt if a person of honour could make
use of information from--from that quarter. Banshees are chiefly the
spectres of attached and anxious old family nurses, women of the lower
orders, and completely destitute of tact. I call a Banshee rather a
curse than a boon and a blessing to men. Like most old family servants,
they are apt to be presuming."

It occurred to me that the complacent spectre himself was not an unmixed
delight to the inhabitants of Castle Perilous, or at least to their
guests, for they never lay in the Green Chamber themselves.

"Can nothing be done," I asked sympathetically, "to alleviate the
disorders which you say are so common and distressing?"

"The old system of spiritual physic," replied the spectre, "is obsolete,
and the holy-water cure, in particular, has almost ceased to number any
advocates, except the Rev. Dr F. G. Lee, whose books," said this candid
apparition, "appear to me to indicate superstitious credulity. No, I
don't know that any new discoveries have been made in this branch of
therapeutics. In the last generation they tried to bolt me with a
bishop: like putting a ferret into a rabbit-warren, you know. Nothing
came of _that_, and lately the Psychical Society attempted to ascertain
my weight by an ingenious mechanism. But they prescribed nothing, and
made me feel so nervous that I was rapping at large, and knocking
furniture about for months. The fact is that nobody unde