Chapter I: AM not superstitious neither do I believe in ghosts, but the

following tale may interest some of your readers.

Some time ago I used to stay at an old rectory in a Kentish village. The rectory stood in a beautiful garden joining the churchyard, and was approached by a carriage drive bordered by thick hedges and trees. The house was low, gloomy-looking and rambling, containing many rooms and winding passages and had three staircases, but it had been somewhat modernised. One room was supposed to be haunted.

I once slept in this room, but the ghost did not visit me; neither did I see or hear anything unusual. The room was a large one with two windows overlooking the carriage drive. A niece of the rector came on a visit and was given as a bedroom the haunted chamber. It was early autumn, a warm, beautiful moonlight night, not a leaf moving. The rector's niece had gone to her room, but wishing to finish a book, sat reading between the two open windows. Just as the church clock struck twelve, the door (which was fastened) opened. There was a sound of a scuffle, a rush past, a swish of skirts, a loud groan which seemed to end at the window, and a deep thud as if a heavy body had fallen. The window curtains, which were thick and heavy, blew straight out into the room.

At breakfast next day, the lady related her experience and was told she had seen, or rather heard the ghost. Other members of the family had had a similar experience. The story goes:

Many years ago a certain rector murdered his wife at midnight in this room, and threw the body out of the window.

At certain periods the lady's ghost is supposed to visit the scene of the murder.

A HARMLESS APPARITION

MANY years ago one of my workmates went to live in a house not more than five minutes walk from my address. One night, whilst he and his wife were sitting in the house, they noticed a hand draw aside the curtain, which hung at the middle door—the door near the pantry—and then there stood revealed to them an old lady who looked at them for a minute or so and vanished. One day they invited some of their relations to tea. After they had had the meal, a young man of the party got up from his chair and stood with his back to the fire-place, while the other members of the party were still sitting around the table talking. All at once, they noticed the hair on the young man’s head stand straight up, and there was a horror-stricken look on his face. He couldn't speak. He was looking past the table to the kitchen door. Every member of the party turned to look in that direction, and there stood the old lady revealed to all. My friend inquired of the neighbours as to who had lived in the house previous to him taking possession. They told him a young woman who was living in the next street. He went to see her and told her about the old lady whom he described. The young woman told him that it was her mother who had died in that house. He told the landlord about it, saying that the old lady seemed to come out of the pantry.

The landlord sent workmen who took up the flags in the pantry, and then replaced them. Since that was done the old lady has never reappeared. I asked my friends if they were not afraid of living in the house, but they both answered, “No, the old lady seemed harmless enough.” They are still living in the same house.

EVEN THE LANDLORD LEFT