ever did any harm to anyone were ----, mentioning a well-known brand of
the wine of the country. Whether this priestly admonition was the cause
or not, for some time we heard no more tales of ghostly manifestations.

"After a while, however, my wife and I began to hear a noise which, while
in no sense alarming, has proved to be both remarkable and inexplicable.
If we happen to be sitting in the dining-room after dinner, sometimes we
hear what sounds like the noise of a heavy coach rumbling up to the hall
door. We have both heard this noise hundreds of times between eight P.M.
and midnight. Sometimes we hear it several times the same night, and then
perhaps we won't hear it again for several months. We hear it best on
calm nights, and as we are nearly a quarter of a mile from the high
road, it is difficult to account for, especially as the noise appears to
be quite close to us--I mean not farther away than the hall-door. I may
mention that an Englishman was staying with us a few years ago. As we
were sitting in the dining-room one night after dinner he said, 'A
carriage has just driven up to the door'; but we knew it was only the
'phantom coach,' for we also heard it. Only once do I remember hearing it
while sitting in the drawing-room. So much for the 'sound' of the
'phantom coach,' but now I must tell you what I _saw_ with my own eyes as
clearly as I now see the paper on which I am writing. Some years ago in
the middle of the summer, on a scorching hot day, I was out cutting
some hay opposite the hall door just by the tennis court. It was between
twelve and one o'clock. I remember the time distinctly, as my man had
gone to his dinner shortly before. The spot on which I was commanded
a view of the avenue from the entrance gate for about four hundred yards.
I happened to look up from my occupation--for scything is no easy
work--and I saw what I took to be a somewhat high dogcart, in which two
people were seated, turning in at the avenue gate. As I had my coat and
waistcoat off, and was not in a state to receive visitors, I got behind a