"How do you know that if you never saw one?" laughed Harry.
"Well, my dear!" exclaimed Cicely, "if you'd a been down with me in the scullery one night last week—I couldn't sleep, and I went down for to get a bit of victuals, and washed my hands in the scullery—I say, if you'd a-heard the din they made over my head, you might have thought somewhat."
"Who made it, Cicely?"
"Them!" said Cicely, in a mysterious whisper. "Nay, I never saw none, but my grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, she did."
"Ah! she is a good way off us," said Harry, satirically. "But you know, this house is rather too new for ghosts. A fine old castle, now, with all manner of winding stairs and secret passages—that would be the place to see a ghost."
"Eh! my dear, don't you give me the horrors!" cried Cicely. "Why, I could never sleep in my bed if I lived in a place where them secret places and such was—no, never lie quiet, I couldn't! Nay, Master Harry, nobody never seed no ghosteses in this house. I've lived here eight-and-twenty year come Martlemas, and I ought to know."
"And pray, Cicely, who was your great-grandmother's first cousin's niece, or whatever she were? and what did she see?"
"My grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, Master," corrected Cicely. "She see a little child in a white coat."
"How very extraordinary!" commented Harry gravely.
"Master Harry, I'm certain sure you don't believe a word of it, for all you look so grave," said old Cicely, shaking her head sorrowfully.