A few years ago there was a lady living in Ireland - a Mrs. Butler - clever, handsome, popular, prosperous, and perfectly happy. One morning she said to her husband, and to anyone who was staying there, "Last night I had the most wonderful night. I seemed to be spending hours in the most delightful place, in the most enchanting house I ever saw -not large, you know, but just the sort of house one might live in oneself, and oh! so perfectly, so deliciously comfortable. Then there was the loveliest conservatory, and the garden was so enchanting! I wonder if anything half so perfect can really exist."
And the next morning she said, "Well, I have been to my house again. I must have been there for hours. I sat in the library; I walked on the terrace; I examined all the bedrooms; and it is simply the most perfect house in the world."
So it grew to be quite a joke in the family. People would ask Mrs. Butler in the beginning if she had been to here house in the night, and often she had, and always with more intense enjoyment. She would say, "I count the hours till bedtime, that I may get back to my house!" Then gradually the current of outside life flowed in, and gave a turn to their thoughts; the house ceased to be talked about.
Two years ago the Butlers grew weary of their life in Ireland. The district was wild and disturbed. The people were insolent and ungrateful. At last they said, "We are well off. We have no children. There's no reason why we should put up with this, and we'll go and live altogether in England."
So they came to London, and sent for all the house agents' lists of places within forty miles of London, and many were the places they went to see. At last they heard of a house in Hampshire. They went to it by rail, and drove from the station. As they came to the lodge, Mrs. Butler said, "Do you know, this is the lodge of my house." They drove down an avenue - "But this is my house!" she said.
When the housekeeper came, she said, "You will think it very odd, but do you mind my showing you the house? That passage leads to the library, and through that there is a conservatory, and then through a window you enter the drawing-room," etc., and it was as so. At last, in an upstairs passage, they came up on a baize door. Mrs. Butler, for the first time, looked puzzled. "But that door is not in my house," she said. "I don't understand about your house, ma'am," said the housekeeper, "but that door has only been there six weeks."
Well, the house was for sale, and the price asked was very small, and they decided at once to buy it. But when it was bought and paid for, the price had been so extraordinarily small, that they could not help a misgiving that there must be something wrong with the place. So they went to the agent of the people who had sold it, and said, "Well, now the purchase is made, and the deeds are signed, will you mind telling us why the price asked was so small?"
The agent had started violently when they came in, but recovered himself. Then he said to Mrs. Butler, "Yes; it is quite true, the matter is quite settled, so there can be no harm in telling you now. The fact is that the house has had a great reputation for being haunted, but you, madam, need be under no apprehensions, for
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