“I knew Pinkerton would do it,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, as he looked round at his admiring family; but no sooner had he said these words than a terrible flash of lightning lit up the sombre room, a fearful peal of thunder made them all start to their feet, and Mrs. Umney fainted.

“What a monstrous climate!” said the American Minister, calmly, as he lit a long cheroot.  “I guess the old country is so overpopulated that they have not enough decent weather for everybody.  I have always been of opinion that emigration is the only thing for England.”

“My dear Hiram,” cried Mrs. Otis, “what can we do with a woman who faints?”

“Charge it to her like breakages,” answered the Minister; “she won’t faint after that;” and in a few moments Mrs. Umney certainly came to.  There was no doubt, however, that she was extremely upset, and she sternly warned Mr. Otis to beware of some trouble coming to the house.

“I have seen things with my own eyes, sir,” she said, “that would make any Christian’s hair stand on end, and many and many a night I have not closed my eyes in sleep for the awful things that are done here.”  Mr. Otis, however, and his wife warmly assured the honest soul that they were not afraid of ghosts, and, after invoking the blessings of Providence on her new master and mistress, and making arrangements for an increase of salary, the old housekeeper tottered off to her own room.

II

The storm raged fiercely all that night, but nothing of particular note occurred.  The next morning, however, when they came down to breakfast, they found the terrible stain of blood once again on the floor.  “I don’t think it can be the fault of the Paragon Detergent,” said Washington, “for I have tried it with everything.  It must be the ghost.”  He accordingly rubbed out the stain a second time, but the second morning it appeared again.  The third morning also it was there, though the library had been locked up at night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key carried up-stairs.  The whole family were now quite interested; Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a long letter to Messrs. Myers and Podmore on the subject of the Permanence of Sanguineous Stains when connected with Crime.  That night all doubts about the objective existence of phantasmata were removed for ever.

The day had been warm and sunny; and, in the cool of the evening, the whole family went out to drive.  They did not return home till nine o’clock, when they had a light supper.  The conversation in no way turned upon ghosts, so there were not even those primary conditions of receptive expectations which so often precede the presentation of psychical phenomena.  The subjects discussed, as I have since learned from Mr. Otis, were merely such as form the