“As you know, these figures do not appear before 6.30 at earliest, therefore there is little light upon their surface.  Like other phantasms seen at dark, they show ‘by their own light,’ i.e. they appear to be outlined by a thread of light.  It is therefore only when the face appears in profile that one can describe the features, and this is somewhat prevented by the nun’s veil.  ‘Ishbel’ appears to me to be slight, and of fair height.  I am unable, of course, to see the colour of her hair, but I should describe her as dark.  There is an intensity in her gaze which is rare in light-coloured eyes.  The face, as I see it, is in mental pain, so that it is perhaps hardly fair to say that it seems lacking in that repose and gentleness that one looks for in the religious life.  Her dress presents no peculiarities.  The habit is black, with the usual white about the face, and I have thought that when walking she showed a lighter under-dress.  She speaks upon rather a high note, with a quality of youth in her voice.  Her weeping seemed to me passionate and unrestrained.”

The appearance of a nun was entirely unexpected, as the name “Ishbel” had been associated rather with the portrait of the beautiful woman in an eighteenth-century dress in the library, and it was she whom the witnesses, had they expected anything at all, would have expected to see.  Miss Freer, moreover, the first witness, had regarded the statements of “Ouija” with her habitual scepticism as to induced phenomena, more particularly those of automatic writing, in which, as in dreams, it is almost always difficult to disentangle the operations of the normal from those of the subconscious personality.

If the name “Ishbel” were really intended to apply to the nun, it becomes a very curious question who is the person meant.  A Robert S——­ of B——­ married, as has been already mentioned, Isabella H——­, who died in 1784, but we know of no reason for supposing that she ever became a nun.

The portrait may possibly have represented her, but it shows a much older woman than the phantom so often seen; on the other hand, the dates are not inconsistent, and a considerable distance of time is suggested by certain phrases which occurred in the automatic writing.

The person to whom the mind more naturally reverts is Miss Isabella S——­, the sister, and apparently the favourite sister, of Major S——.  As already mentioned, she professed as a nun under the name of Frances Helen in 1850, and died in 1880, aged sixty-six.  She did not, therefore, enter her convent till the age of thirty-five, an age much greater than that shown by the phantom.

It is, moreover, interesting to note that this lady’s name was Isabella Margaret, so that both names, as given automatically, may have really referred to her.  In the seventh edition of “Burke’s Landed Gentry,” 1886, there appears for the first time this entry—­

“IV.  Isabella Margaret, a nun, regular Canoness of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, d. 23 Feb. 1880.”