“When?  We are all attention, Mr. Henniker.”

“Angela and I were sitting in the drawing-room under the bed-chamber I have described, when a loud cry startled us, ‘Mother, mother, mother!’

“The little boys were in bed in the dressing-room.  Angela dropped her tea-cup and dashed out of the room, forgetting that there was no light in the rooms above us.

“I caught up a candle and followed her quickly.  We found the children sobbing wildly.  Jack’s arms were almost strangling his mother, while he cried in great excitement, ’Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet!  The old woman in the black bonnet!  Oh—­oh—­oh!’

“I thought a little fatherly correction would be beneficial, but Angela would not suffer me to interfere.  She tried to soothe the little beggars, and in a few minutes they were coherent enough in their story.  A frightful old woman, wearing a black bonnet, had been in the room.  She came close to them and bent over their cribs, with her dreadful face near to theirs.

“‘How did you see her?’ we asked.  ’There was no candle here.”

“She had light about her, they said; at any rate, they saw her quite well.  An exhaustive search was made.  No trace of a human being was to be found.  I refrained from speaking to the other children, who slept in an upper story, though I softly entered their rooms and examined presses and wardrobes, and peeped behind dark corners, laughing in my sleeve all the while.  Of course we both believed that Hal had been frightened by a dream, and that his little brother had roared from sympathy.  ’Don’t breathe a word of this to the servants,’ whispered Mrs. Henniker.  ’I’m not such a fool, my dear,’ I replied.  ’But pray search the lower regions, and see if Jane and Nancy have any visitor in the kitchen,’ she continued.  ‘She came through your door, mother, from the sitting-room,’ sobbed Hal, with eyes starting out of his head.

“‘Who, love?’ asked his mother.

“‘The old woman in the black bonnet.  Oh, don’t go away, mother.’

“So Angela had to spend the remainder of the evening between the children’s cribs.

“‘What can we do to-morrow evening?’ asked she.  ’I have it!  Lucy shall be put to bed beside Jack.’  Lucy was our youngest, aged two.

“All went well next night.  There was no alarm to summon us from our papers and novels, and we went to bed at eleven, Angela remarking that the three cherubs were sleeping beautifully, and that it had been a good move to let Lucy bear the other two company.  I was roused out of sound sleep by wild shrieks from the three children.