SOURCE: "Uncle Cornelius", His Story"by George MacDonald (St. Paul’s Magazine, January 1869) .

DESCRIPTION: "At that bureau the figure of a woman was now seated in the posture of one writing. A strange dim light was around her, but whence it proceeded I never thought of inquiring. As if I, too, had stepped over the bourne, and was a ghost myself, all fear was now gone. I got out of bed, and softly crossed the room to where she was seated. 'If she should be beautiful!' I thought -- for I had often dreamed of a beautiful ghost that made love to me. The figure did not move. She was looking at a faded brown paper. 'Some old love-letter,' I thought, and stepped nearer. So cool was I now, that I actually peeped over her shoulder. With mingled surprise and dismay I found that the dim page over which she bent was that of an old account-book. Ancient household records, in rusty ink, held up to the glimpses of the waning moon, which shone through the parting in the curtains, their entries of shillings and pence!" ("Uncle Cornelius, His Story" by George MacDonald)

NOTES: The ghost of Hetheridge House is not a malicious monster but merely a woman who has remained on Earth because she worries about her household accounts. Her spirit may remain in the bureau desk she kept her papers in, and this spirit may have influenced the woman who now uses it, Letitia Hetheridge, making her equally single-minded.

HISTORY: George MacDonald's tale isn't meant to frighten so much as instruct. He even warns at the beginning that Uncle Cornelius always tacks a "moral" on the end of his stories. MacDonald could understand a spirit who remains for the following cliches: "...no treasured hoard left behind, no floor stained with the blood of the murdered child, no wickedly hidden parchment of landed rights!" His horror comes from the sheer dullness of this creature, and the one the narrator almost marries! The opening of the story is interesting because I think it may have inspired C. S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch & The Wardrobe. Peter and Susan speak to Professor Kirke about Lucy. Kirke's way of talking to them is very much like Uncle Cornelius'.

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