on the floor through the diamonded casement, when, behold, a darker
shadow interposed itself, and I beheld visibly on the floor of the
apartment--

_Captain._ The White Lady of Avenel, I suppose?--You have told the
very story before.

_Author._ No--I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, and apron,
sleeves tucked up to the elbow, a dredging-box in the one hand, and in
the other a sauce-ladle. I concluded, of course, that it was my
friend's cook-maid walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value
for Sally, who could toss a pancake with any girl in the country, I
got up to conduct her safely to the door. But as I approached her, she
said,--"Hold, sir! I am not what you take me for;"--words which seemed
so opposite to the circumstances, that I should not have much minded
them, had it not been for the peculiarly hollow sound in which they
were uttered.--"Know, then," she said, in the same unearthly accents,
"that I am the spirit of Betty Barnes."--"Who hanged herself for love
of the stage-coachman," thought I; "this is a proper spot of work!"--
"Of that unhappy Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr.
Warburton, the painful collector, but ah! the too careless custodier,
of the largest collection of ancient plays ever known--of most of
which the titles only are left to gladden the Prolegomena of the
Variorum Shakspeare. Yes, stranger, it was these ill-fated hands That
consigned to grease and conflagration the scores of small quartos,
which, did they now exist, would drive the whole Roxburghe Club out of
their senses--it was these unhappy pickers and stealers that singed
fat fowls and wiped dirty trenchers with the lost works of Beaumont
and Fletcher, Massinger, Jonson, Webster--what shall I say?--even of
Shakspeare himself!"