home. The brutal treatment she had received from the highwaymen,
however, had done its fatal work, and after a few days, during which
she was alternately sensible and delirious, she succumbed to the
effects. Her one thought previous to death was her devotion to her
home, which had latterly been the ruling passion of her life; and
bidding her sisters farewell, she addressed them thus:--

"Sisters, never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave in the churchyard
unless I, or a part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home
as long as it lasts. Promise me this, dear sisters, that when I am
dead my head shall be taken from my body and preserved within these
walls. Here let it for ever remain, and on no account be removed. And
understand and make it known to those who in future shall become
possessors of the house, that if they disobey this my last injunction,
my spirit shall, if so able and so permitted, make such a disturbance
within its walls as to render it uninhabitable for others so long as
my head is divorced from its home."

Her sisters promised to accede to her dying request, but failed to do
so, and her body was laid entire under the pavement of the church.
Within a few days Burton Agnes Hall was disturbed by the most
alarming noises, and no servant could be induced to remain in the
house. In this dilemma, the two sisters remembered that they had not
carried out Anne's last wish, and, at the suggestion of the clergyman,
the coffin was opened, when a strange sight was seen. The "body lay
without any marks of corruption or decay; but the head was disengaged
from the trunk, and appeared to be rapidly assuming the semblance of a
fleshless skull." This was reported to the two sisters, and on the
vicar's advice the skull of Anne was taken to Burton Agnes Hall,
where, so long as it remained undisturbed, no ghostly noises were