"A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a fire brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I suddenly awoke and saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed where my wife was sleeping soundly. At once I sat up in the bed and gazed so intently that even now I can recall her form and features. Had I the pencil or the brush of a Millais I could transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly visitant. I remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her, with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair being most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I cannot say, but directly the apparition ceased to be, I got out of bed to see if any of my wife's garments had by any means optically deluded me. I found nothing in the line of vision but a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I rejected as out of the question, and I doubted not that I had really seen an apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours after awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's appearance. I described her colour, form, etc., all of which exactly tallied with my wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally I asked, 'But was there any special point to strike one in her appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly replied, 'we girls used to tease her at school for devoting so much time to the arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.
"I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition, and that I have not seen one since.
The following case, from "Proceedings," vol. viii. p. 178, bears a distinct resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the informant, writes under date 15th December 1891:
"Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should like my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the slightest idea that the house in which my husband and I were living was haunted, or that the family residing there for many years before us had had any family troubles. The house was delightfully situated [etc.]. The house being partly new and partly old we occupied the old part for our sleeping apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to the landing window of which I have spoken, drew the blind aside; and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl in kneeling posture before a soldier, in a general's uniform, sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon; but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared! Not in the least nervous did I feel then;--went again to my bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper and wrote down what I had seen. [Mrs M. has found and sent us this paper. The following words are written in pencil on a half sheet of notepaper:--"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on lawn:--a soldier in general's uniform,--a young lady kneeling to him. 11.40 P.M."] My husband was away from home when this event occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I went to her bedroom and told her that I had been rather frightened by some noises;--could I stay with her a little while? A few days afterwards I found myself in a very nervous state; but it seemed so strange that I was not frightened at the time.