"Miss Grant, have you a story to submit to us for the forthcoming annual?"
Miss Grant had made a hit the year before by her story of "The Ghostly Postman," who knocked in the ordinary way, and sent summons of death by the letter box.
An audible shiver ran through the audience as she now unrolled her MS., and in a deep voice read the title—"The Midnight Yell."
The story told of a beautiful country house, on a moor, in which there was a haunted chamber. Whoever entered that room at night never came out alive. At midnight a yell would ring through the mansion—unearthly, blood curdling. When the chamber was broken into the guest was always found dead, with arms outstretched and eyes starting out of their sockets. Who uttered that midnight yell?—was it the living or the dead? The visitor or the ghost? None could tell. Some said it was an old hag who haunted the chamber, some said it was a beautiful white lady; but it was generally reported to be a murdered queen.
A sigh greeted this story.
"Accepted," said Ursula, in a business-like tone.
"Will it be illustrated?" inquired the authoress anxiously.
"Yes; probably with a spectral donkey braying," said Ursula.
"Oh, no, I cannot allow that!" said the authoress.