This desirable boon she would probably never have obtained, even as far as it is consistent with a pseudonym, if I had not chanced to dine with Dr.Ferrier while the adventure was only beginning.

As there seemed to be a chance of taking a ghost "on the half volley," I at once communicated the first part of the tale to the Psychical Society (using pseudonyms, as here, throughout), and two years later Mrs.Claughton consented to tell the Society as much as she thinks it fair to reveal.
This, it will be confessed, is a round-about way of obtaining fame, and an ordinary person in Mrs.Claughton's position would have gone to the Psychical Society at once, as Mark Twain meant to do when he saw the ghost which turned out to be a very ordinary person.
There I leave these ghosts, my mind being in a just balance of agnosticism.

If ghosts at all, they were ghosts with a purpose.

The species is now very rare.
The purpose of the ghost in the following instance was trivial, but was successfully accomplished.

In place of asking people to do what it wanted, the ghost did the thing itself.