SOURCE: "The Haunted House of Paddington"(BentJey's Miscellany,  November 1841)  by Charles Ollier

DESCRIPTION: "...he saw, in the walk leading from the outer gate, a matron of lofty bearing, in widow's weeds, whose skin, as the rays of the torch fell on it, looked white as a monumental effigy, and made a ghastly contrast with her black robe. Her face was like that of the grisly phantom, Death-in-Life; it was rigid and sunken; but her eyes glanced about from their hollow sockets with a restless motion, and her brow was knit as if in anger. A corpse-like infant was in her arms; and she paced with proud and stately tread towards the spot where the master of the house was sitting..." ("The Haunted House of Paddington" by Charles Ollier)

NOTES: When a rich, generous man gives a riotous party, in which he even threatens to invite the devil himself, a ghostly woman appears holding a dead baby. The servant of the master tries to stop her but her cold fingers numb him to the spot. She delivers a whispered message to the master which ends his life of frivolity. He confesses he got his wealth by evil means and has been trying to buy his way back into heaven. Later a ghostly and invisible visitor comes with loud stomping. Only the dying man can see whatever this terror is and dies before his friends can comfort him.

HISTORY: Ollier was important as a publisher of Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Keats and Charles lamb. His own ghostly writing has become somewhat forgotten. His style is gothic rather than modern. This story refers to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Death-in-Life.