An interesting incident from May Crommelin's past may have contributed to a scene in her book "Luck of a Lowland Laddie" that appears on pages 294-295. The incident was mentioned in another publication called "Phantasms of the Living Vol. 2" that May wrote about in 1883 and is reprinted here...

Phantasms of the Living, Vol. 2

From Miss Crommelin, 1, Edinbugh Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W.
April, 1883
My brother, when at school, having gone to bed one summer's night in a dormitory with several other boys, heard young C____, who slept next to him, call out, 'Crommelin! Look. There is my sister standing at the foot of my bed---see!' My brother saw nothing, though he sat up. It was after nine but still light, if I remember rightly. Young C____ still persisted he had seen her, in white. Next day came a telegram: the child in question had died of heart disease whilst saying her prayers at that very hour - she had presumeably also been wearing her white night-gown. As my brother is now dead, and as we have no knowledge of the schoolfellow in question, this cannot be more fully authenticated. - May Crommelin

In conversation, Mr. Podmore learnt that the boy's name was Close, but Miss Crommelin does not know to what family of Closes he belonged. The incident took place in 1858, or about that date, when her brother was 12 years old, and she a little younger. She heard of it from her brother soon after the event.