This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
170
NIGHTMARE ABBEY.

CHAP. XII.

It was the custom of the Honorable Mr. Listless, on adjourning from the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout, attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and informed his master that he had just ascertained that the Abbey was haunted. Mrs. Hilary's gentlewoman, for whom Fatout had lately conceived a tendresse, had been, as she expressed it, "fritted out of her seventeen senses" the preceding night, as she was retiring to her bed-chamber, by a ghastly figure, which she had met stalking along