A lady very well known to myself, and in literary society, lived as agirl with an antiquarian father in an old house dear to an antiquary.It was haunted, among other things, by footsteps. The old oakstaircase had two creaking steps, numbers seventeen and eighteen fromthe top. The girl would sit on the stair, stretching out her arms,and count the steps as they passed her, one, two, three, and so on toseventeen and eighteen, _which always creaked_. {190} In this caserats and similar causes were excluded, though we may allow for"expectant attention". But this does not generally work. When peoplesit up on purpose to look out for the ghost, he rarely comes; in thecase of the "Lady in Black," which we give later, when purposelywaited for, she was never seen at all.Discounting imposture, which is sometimes found, and sometimes merelyfabled (as in the Tedworth story), there remains one curiouscircumstance. Specially ghostly noises are attributed to the livingbut absent.
