little son sitting up in bed, terribly frightened. "What was the
matter?"

"The White Lady! The White Lady!" cried the boy.

"What lady," asked the bewildered parents; "there is no lady here!"

"She is gone," replied the boy, "and she looked so angry because I
would not go with her. She was a fine lady--and she sat down on my
bedside and wrung her hands and cried sore; then she kissed me and
asked me to go with her, and she would make me a rich man, as she had
buried a large box of gold, many hundred years since, down in a
vault, and she would give it me, as she could not rest so long as it
was there. When I told her I durst not go, she said she would carry
me, and was lifting me up when I cried out and frightened her away."
When the boy grew up he invariably persisted in the truth of his
statement, and at forty years of age could recall the scene so vividly
as "to make him shudder, as if still he felt her cold lips press his
cheeks and the death-like embrace of her wan arms."

Equally curious is the old tradition told of Lynton Castle, of which
not a stone remains, although, once upon a time, it was as stately a
stronghold as ever echoed to the clash of knightly arms. One evening
there came to its gates a monk, who in the name of the Holy Virgin
asked alms, but the lady of the Castle liked not his gloomy brow, and
bade him begone. Resenting such treatment, the monk drew up his
well-knit frame, and vowed:--"All that is thine shall be mine, until
in the porch of the holy church, a lady and a child shall stand and
beckon."