spoke to her.  What she replied, or how he first became convinced that the Thing before him was no form of flesh and blood, I cannot now remember; but I recollect two particulars of the interview:  one was, that she told him to look for her in the cellar; the other, that he asked her why she wore a sun-bonnet, and she answered, “Because the lime has spoilt my face.”  At this his failing senses forsook him, and when consciousness returned his ghostly visitor had disappeared.

His hostess heard him in silence.  As soon as breakfast was over she requested him to accompany her to the cellar.  Careful examination soon revealed a spot where some of the stones with which it was paved had been removed and afterward replaced.  Assistants with proper tools were procured, the stones were lifted, and after a few minutes of vigorous digging a mass of lime was disclosed, in which was found imbedded a quantity of calcined fragments of bone, which medical authority afterward pronounced to be portions of a human skeleton.  These poor remains were carefully removed, placed in a box and interred in a neighboring cemetery, and the “woman in a sun-bonnet” was seen no more.

Subsequent investigation into the history of the old house revealed the following facts.  It had originally been occupied by a retired sea-captain and his only son, the latter a wild, reckless youth of evil character and confirmed bad habits.  A young girl went to live there as a servant, and for some months seemed well contented with her place, but afterward she became gloomy and unhappy, and was frequently seen in tears by the neighbors.  At last she disappeared, and it was given out by her employers that she had gone to visit some friends at a distance, but she did not return, and suspicion was already directed toward the old man and his son, when one morning the house was found to be shut up, its inhabitants having found it expedient to remove as silently and secretly as possible.  The girl was never heard of afterward.  The discovery of the bones led to the supposition that the younger man had seduced her, had afterward murdered her to conceal his original crime, and that he had then buried the body in the cellar, taking the precaution to cover it with quicklime.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I neither wish to propound any theories nor to deduce any conclusions from the relations I have given.  I can only reiterate my statement that they came to me from sources the reliability of which I cannot question.  I have carefully excluded everything relating to the supernatural which I ever heard from the lips of ignorant and superstitious persons, and have only recorded such incidents as bore an added weight of evidence in the shape of the sense, intelligence and unquestionable veracity of their relators.

LUCY H. HOOPER.

AFTERNOON.