From time to time in the public press references appear on the subject of this mysterious visitant, and as the matter seems to be one of general interest, and at the same time to have a slightly antiquarian flavour, the Editors have been at some pains to procure information at first hand on the subject.

We are indebted for the following facts to a lady who is widely known and respected in the northern mediety of the Hundred of Wirral, and whose name, were we to give it, would carry the greatest weight with all our readers. The story, which was told to this lady some years ago by the artist concerned, is given as briefly as possible, and our informant can only add that she is entirely convinced of the good faith of the narrator. The facts are as follows:

A well-known and successful portrait-painter was staying at Thurstaston Hall some years ago, during the execution of a commission on which he was engaged, viz., the painting of the portrait of a member of the family then renting the hall. He occupied the room which opens on to the stairs on the left hand side as one ascends the topmost flight, and which is said to be over what was once a refectory. The artist slept in this room for some time without being disturbed, until very early one morning he heard the door open, and on lifting his head to see the cause, espied an old woman wringing her hands in evident distress. She came forward and stood at the foot of his curtained four-post bed without speaking, and though he addressed a remark to her, saying something to the effect that she seemed to be in great trouble, and asking if he could do anything for her, she passed round to the other side of the room, pulled a bell-rope and vanished.

The artist several times afterwards had the same experience, and although he felt it to be supernatural, he became so used to it as to lose all sense of fear, and on one occasion made a rough sketch of the apparition, which he completed afterwards, a copy of which he gave to the lady from whom this information comes.

Some time after this a gentleman, acquainted with the details of this story, was staying with 'some people in another part of England, whose ancestors had once occupied Thurstaston Hall, and he recognised immediately that one of their family portraits was identical with the sketch of the apparition made by the artist. It then transpired that, according to a family tradition, the subject of the portrait was supposed to haunt Thurstaston Hall. When these facts were related to the artist, he solemnly declared that he had previously neither heard of the family, nor

of the legend connected with it, and had, of course, never seen the portrait in question.

III. THE MANOR.

Hugh surnamed Lupus, but called by the Welsh "the Fat," was created earl of Chester in 1070. He was a sovereign prince in the county, every one holding his land of him except the bishop. His father, Richard vicomte of Avranches, married a sister of William the Conqueror, so that Hugh was the king's nephew. Thurstaston, with many other manors in Wirral and elsewhere, he gave to his kinsman Robert son of Humphrey de Tilleul,1 who took his own surname from Rodelent or Rhuddlan, because he held half of that lordship with its wide dependencies in North Wales.2 The following table shows the kinship:

"Not the meanest " of Hugh's Barons3 was this Robert, whose lordship of Thurstaston is thus described in Domesday Book (I., f. 264d):

Isdem Robertus tenet TVRSTAN ETONE et Willelmus de eo. Leuenot tenuit. liber homo fuit. | Ibi. ii. hidæ geldabiles.

Terra..

est. iiii. carucis. In dominio. est una. et ii. bouarii. et iiii. | uillani et iiii. bordarii cum. i. caruca et dimidia.

Tempore Regis Eduardi ualebat. xxx. solidos et post. viii. solidos. Modo. xvi. solidos.

1 Orderic's Hist. Eccles. (Bohn's edition), ii, 443.

2 Ormerod (ed. Helsby), i, p. lii.

3 Leycester.