“How can you ask such a question? No, no, Alphonso! I have too much reason to lament superstition’s influence to be its victim myself. However I must not avow my incredulity to the Baroness: she entertains not a doubt of the truth of this history. As to dame Cunegonda, my governess, she protests that fifteen years ago she saw the spectre with her own eyes. She related to me one evening how she and several other domestics had been terrified while at supper by the appearance of the Bleeding Nun, as the ghost is called in the castle: ’Tis from her account that I drew this sketch, and you may be certain that Cunegonda was not omitted. There she is! I shall never forget what a passion she was in, and how ugly she looked while she scolded me for having made her picture so like herself!”

Here she pointed to a burlesque figure of an old woman in an attitude of terror.