This figure was seen always in the act of retreating, its back turned,
generally getting round the corner of the passage into the area, in a
stealthy and hurried way, and, when closely followed, imperfectly seen
again entering one of the coal-vaults, and when pursued into it, nowhere
to be found.

The idea of any thing supernatural in the matter had, strange to say,
not yet entered the mind of any one of the servants. They had heard some
stories of smugglers having secret passages into houses, and using their
means of access for purposes of pillage, or with a view to frighten
superstitious people out of houses which they needed for their own
objects, and a suspicion of similar practices here, caused them extreme
uneasiness. The apparent anxiety also manifested by this retreating
figure to escape observation, and her always appearing to make her
egress at the same point, favoured this romantic hypothesis. The men,
however, made a most careful examination of the back area, and of the
coal-vaults, with a view to discover some mode of egress, but entirely
without success. On the contrary, the result was, so far as it went,
subversive of the theory; solid masonry met them on every hand.

I called the man, Smith, up, to hear from his own lips the particulars
of what he had seen; and certainly his report was very curious. I give
it as literally as my memory enables me:----

His son slept in the same room, and was sound asleep; but he lay awake,
as men sometimes will on a change of bed, and having many things on his
mind. He was lying with his face towards the wall, but observing a light
and some little stir in the room, he turned round in his bed, and saw
the figure of a woman, squalid, and ragged in dress; her figure rather