The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 146: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~~ What Shall She Do? 139 I opened the door, the room was empty; yet even to my unimaginative mind came a dim feeling of awe, as if I were suddenly stepping back into the past. The thought of ghosts did not enter my head, yet I felt as if the room was not empty. It looked as if there was something in it. This was the room the lady in white visited. So, at least, said the farmer. I chose it for my bedroom. For the better preservation of peace in the house we had agreed to say nothing to the servants about its ghosts. But before night we had got into a perfectly supernatural groove, in which we seemed very likely to run the rest of our sojourn. I had an idea that I kept all outsiders away, but catch- ing a glimpse of my Romish neighbor’s wife slipping out of the shed and cautiously winding her way around the hill, I understood that all my precautions had been in vain. ‘The cook and the waiter knew it! The house was haunted! By an hour after dark the latter had seen eyes gleaming at her out of the misty corner of the great hall, and she began developing strange physical faculties I had never dreamed one small woman could possess. Be- fore supper was served the traces of a white robe flutter- ing from my bedroom window had been seen by the cook, though what possessed her to go out on the hill and gaze up over the kitchen roof at my window, I never could fathom. And our meal, which I always want to eat in peace, was twice broken in upon by the strange actions of the waiter, who suddenly became afflicted with a dis- agreeable habit of stiffening from her toes upward at COMIC OOOKS.E€©