outside.  In an agony of terror he watched these hands groping along outside the curtains till they reached the middle.  The curtains were then drawn a little apart, and a Face peered in—­an awful, evil Face, with an expression of wickedness and hate upon it which no words could describe.  It looked at him for a few moments, then drew back again, and the curtains closed.  The clergyman had sufficient courage left to leap out of bed and make a thorough examination of the room, but, as he expected, he found no one.  He dressed himself as quickly as possible, walked home, and never again slept a night in that schoolroom.

The following tale, sent by Mr. E. B. de Lacy, contains a most extraordinary and unsatisfactory element of mystery.  He says:  “When I was a boy I lived in the suburbs, and used to come in every morning to school in the city.  My way lay through a certain street in which stood a very dismal semi-detached house, which, I might say, was closed up regularly about every six months.  I would see new tenants coming into it, and then in a few months it would be ‘To let’ again.  This went on for eight or nine years, and I often wondered what was the reason.  On inquiring one day from a friend, I was told that it had the reputation of being haunted.

“A few years later I entered business in a certain office, and one day it fell to my lot to have to call on the lady who at that particular period was the tenant of the haunted house.  When we had transacted our business she informed me that she was about to leave.  Knowing the reputation of the house, and being desirous of investigating a ghost-story, I asked her if she would give me the history of the house as far as she knew it, which she very kindly did as follows: 

“About forty years ago the house was left by will to a gentleman named ——.  He lived in it for a short time, when he suddenly went mad, and had to be put in an asylum.  Upon this his agents let the house to a lady.  Apparently nothing unusual happened for some time, but a few months later, as she went down one morning to a room behind the kitchen, she found the cook hanging by a rope attached to a hook in the ceiling.  After the inquest the lady gave up the house.

“It was then closed up for some time, but was again advertised ‘To let,’ and a caretaker, a woman, was put into it.  One night about one o’clock, a constable going his rounds heard some one calling for help from the house, and found the caretaker on the sill of one of the windows holding on as best she could.  He told her to go in and open the hall door and let him in, but she refused to enter the room again.  He forced open the door and succeeded in dragging the woman back into the room, only to find she had gone mad.

“Again the house was shut up, and again it was let, this time to a lady, on a five-years’ lease.  However, after a few months’ residence, she locked it up, and went away.  On her friends asking her why she did so, she replied that she would rather pay the whole five years’ rent than live in it herself, or allow anyone else to do so, but would give no other reason.