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Published：2026-07-30 05:24:02 Source: doll cribs for 7 year olds under 25 dollars Author: Electronic Toys

THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH

And Other Stories Of The superhero figures smythsSupernatural

By

Mary Wilkins

Contents

The Wind in the Rose-bush
The Shadows on the Wall
Luella Miller
The Southwest Chamber
The Vacant Lot
The Lost Ghost

THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH

Ford Village has no railroad station, being on the other side of theriver from Porter's Falls, and accessible only by the ford which givesit its name, and a ferry line.

The ferry-boat was waiting when Rebecca Flint got off the train withher bag and lunch basket. When she and her small trunk were safelyembarked she sat stiff and straight and calm in the ferry-boat as itshot swiftly and smoothly across stream. There was a horse attached toa light country wagon on board, and he pawed the deck uneasily. Hisowner stood near, with a wary eye upon him, although he was chewing,with as dully reflective an expression as a cow. Beside Rebecca sat awoman of about her own age, who kept looking at her with furtivecuriosity; her husband, short and stout and saturnine, stood near her.Rebecca paid no attention to either of them. She was tall and spareand pale, the type of a spinster, yet with rudimentary lines andexpressions of matronhood. She all unconsciously held her shawl, rolledup in a canvas bag, on her left hip, as if it had been a child. Shewore a settled frown of dissent at life, but it was the frown of amother who regarded life as a froward child, rather than as anoverwhelming fate.

The other woman continued staring at her; she was mildly stupid, exceptfor an over-developed curiosity which made her at times sharp beyondbelief. Her eyes glittered, red spots came on her flaccid cheeks; shekept opening her mouth to speak, making little abortive motions.Finally she could endure it no longer; she nudged Rebecca boldly.

"A pleasant day," said she.

Rebecca looked at her and nodded coldly.

"Yes, very," she assented.

"Have you come far?"

"I have come from Michigan."

"Oh!" said the woman, with awe. "It's a long way," she remarkedpresently.

"Yes, it is," replied Rebecca, conclusively.

Still the other woman was not daunted; there was something which shedetermined to know, possibly roused thereto by a vague sense ofincongruity in the other's appearance. "It's a long ways to come andleave a family," she remarked with painful slyness.

"I ain't got any family to leave," returned Rebecca shortly.

"Then you ain't—"

"No, I ain't."

"Oh!" said the woman.

Rebecca looked straight ahead at the race of the river.

It was a long ferry. Finally Rebecca herself waxed unexpectedlyloquacious. She turned to the other woman and inquired if she knewJohn Dent's widow who lived in Ford Village. "Her husband died aboutthree years ago," said she, by way of detail.

The woman started violently. She turned pale, then she flushed; shecast a strange glance at her husband, who was regarding both women witha sort of stolid keenness.

"Yes, I guess I do," faltered the woman finally.

"Well, his first wife was my sister," said Rebecca with the air of oneimparting important intelligence.

"Was she?" responded the other woman feebly. She glanced at herhusband with an expression of doubt and terror, and he shook his headforbiddingly.

"I'm going to see her, and take my niece Agnes home with me," saidRebecca.

Then the woman gave such a violent start that she noticed it.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Nothin', I guess," replied the woman, with eyes on her husband, whowas slowly shaking his head, like a Chinese toy.

"Is my niece sick?" asked Rebecca with quick suspicion.

"No, she ain't sick," replied the woman with alacrity, then she caughther breath with a gasp.

"When did you see her?"

"Let me see; I ain't seen her for some little time," replied the woman.Then she caught her breath again.

"She ought to have grown up real pretty, if she takes after my sister.She was a real pretty woman," Rebecca said wistfully.

"Yes, I guess she did grow up pretty," replied the woman in a tremblingvoice.

"What kind of a woman is the second wife?"

The woman glanced at her husband's warning face. She continued to gazeat him while she replied in a choking voice to Rebecca:

"I—guess she's a nice woman," she replied. "I—don't know, I—guessso. I—don't see much of her."

"I felt kind of hurt that John married again so quick," said Rebecca;"but I suppose he wanted his house kept, and Agnes wanted care. Iwasn't so situated that I could take her when her mother died. I hadmy own mother to care for, and I was school-teaching. Now mother hasgone, and my uncle died six months ago and left me quite a littleproperty, and I've given up my school, and I've come for Agnes. Iguess she'll be glad to go with me, though I suppose her stepmother isa good woman, and has always done for her."

The man's warning shake at his wife was fairly portentous.

"I guess so," said she.

"John always wrote that she was a beautiful woman," said Rebecca.

Then the ferry-boat grated on the shore.

John Dent's widow had sent a horse and wagon to meet her sister-in-law.When the woman and her husband went down the road, on which Rebecca inthe wagon with her trunk soon passed them, she said reproachfully:

"Seems as if I'd ought to have told her, Thomas."

"Let her find it out herself," replied the man. "Don't you go toburnin' your fingers in other folks' puddin', Maria."

"Do you s'pose she'll see anything?" asked the woman with a spasmodicshudder and a terrified roll of her eyes.

"See!" returned her husband with stolid scorn. "Better be sure there'sanything to see."

"Oh, Thomas, they say—"

"Lord, ain't you found out that what they say is mostly lies?"

"But if it should be true, and she's a nervous woman, she might bescared enough to lose her wits," said his wife, staring uneasily afterRebecca's erect figure in the wagon disappearing over the crest of thehilly road.

"Wits that so easy upset ain't worth much," declared the man. "Youkeep out of it, Maria."

Rebecca in the meantime rode on in the wagon, beside a flaxen-headedboy, who looked, to her understanding, not very bright. She asked hima question, and he paid no attention. She repeated it, and heresponded with a bewildered and incoherent grunt. Then she let himalone, after making sure that he knew how to drive straight.

They had traveled about half a mile, passed the village square, andgone a short distance beyond, when the boy drew up with a sudden Whoa!before a very prosperous-looking house. It had been one of theaboriginal cottages of the vicinity, small and white, with a roofextending on one side over a piazza, and a tiny "L" jutting out in therear, on the right hand. Now the cottage was transformed by dormerwindows, a bay window on the piazzaless side, a carved railing down thefront steps, and a modern hard-wood door.

"Is this John Dent's house?" asked Rebecca.

The boy was as sparing of speech as a philosopher. His only responsewas in flinging the reins over the horse's back, stretching out onefoot to the shaft, and leaping out of the wagon, then going around tothe rear for the trunk. Rebecca got out and went toward the house.Its white paint had a new gloss; its blinds were an immaculate applegreen; the lawn was trimmed as smooth as velvet, and it was dotted withscrupulous groups of hydrangeas and cannas.

"I always understood that John Dent was well-to-do," Rebecca reflectedcomfortably. "I guess Agnes will have considerable. I've got enough,but it will come in handy for her schooling. She can have advantages."

The boy dragged the trunk up the fine gravel-walk, but before hereached the steps leading up to the piazza, for the house stood on aterrace, the front door opened and a fair, frizzled head of a verylarge and handsome woman appeared. She held up her black silk skirt,disclosing voluminous ruffles of starched embroidery, and waited forRebecca. She smiled placidly, her pink, double-chinned face widenedand dimpled, but her blue eyes were wary and calculating. She extendedher hand as Rebecca climbed the steps.

"This is Miss Flint, I suppose," said she.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Rebecca, noticing with bewilderment a curiousexpression compounded of fear and defiance on the other's face.

"Your letter only arrived this morning," said Mrs. Dent, in a steadyvoice. Her great face was a uniform pink, and her china-blue eyes wereat once aggressive and veiled with secrecy.

"Yes, I hardly thought you'd get my letter," replied Rebecca. "I feltas if I could not wait to hear from you before I came. I supposed youwould be so situated that you could have me a little while withoutputting you out too much, from what John used to write me about hiscircumstances, and when I had that money so unexpected I felt as if Imust come for Agnes. I suppose you will be willing to give her up.You know she's my own blood, and of course she's no relation to you,though you must have got attached to her. I know from her picture whata sweet girl she must be, and John always said she looked like her ownmother, and Grace was a beautiful woman, if she was my sister."

Rebecca stopped and stared at the other woman in amazement and alarm.The great handsome blonde creature stood speechless, livid, gasping,with her hand to her heart, her lips parted in a horrible caricature ofa smile.

"Are you sick!" cried Rebecca, drawing near. "Don't you want me to getyou some water!"

Then Mrs. Dent recovered herself with a great effort. "It is nothing,"she said. "I am subject to—spells. I am over it now. Won't you comein, Miss Flint?"

As she spoke, the beautiful deep-rose colour suffused her face, herblue eyes met her visitor's with the opaqueness of turquoise—with arevelation of blue, but a concealment of all behind.

Rebecca followed her hostess in, and the boy, who had waitedquiescently, climbed the steps with the trunk. But before they enteredthe door a strange thing happened. On the upper terrace close to thepiazza-post, grew a great rose-bush, and on it, late in the seasonthough it was, one small red, perfect rose.

Rebecca looked at it, and the other woman extended her hand with aquick gesture. "Don't you pick that rose!" she brusquely cried.

Rebecca drew herself up with stiff dignity.

"I ain't in the habit of picking other folks' roses without leave,"said she.

As Rebecca spoke she started violently, and lost sight of herresentment, for something singular happened. Suddenly the rose-bushwas agitated violently as if by a gust of wind, yet it was a remarkablystill day. Not a leaf of the hydrangea standing on the terrace closeto the rose trembled.

"What on earth—" began Rebecca, then she stopped with a gasp at thesight of the other woman's face. Although a face, it gave somehow theimpression of a desperately clutched hand of secrecy.

"Come in!" said she in a harsh voice, which seemed to come forth fromher chest with no intervention of the organs of speech. "Come into thehouse. I'm getting cold out here."

"What makes that rose-bush blow so when their isn't any wind?" askedRebecca, trembling with vague horror, yet resolute.

"I don't see as it is blowing," returned the woman calmly. And as shespoke, indeed, the bush was quiet.

"It was blowing," declared Rebecca.

"It isn't now," said Mrs. Dent. "I can't try to account for everythingthat blows out-of-doors. I have too much to do."

She spoke scornfully and confidently, with defiant, unflinching eyes,first on the bush, then on Rebecca, and led the way into the house.

"It looked queer," persisted Rebecca, but she followed, and also theboy with the trunk.

Rebecca entered an interior, prosperous, even elegant, according to hersimple ideas. There were Brussels carpets, lace curtains, and plenty ofbrilliant upholstery and polished wood.

"You're real nicely situated," remarked Rebecca, after she had become alittle accustomed to her new surroundings and the two women were seatedat the tea-table.

Mrs. Dent stared with a hard complacency from behind her silver-platedservice. "Yes, I be," said she.

"You got all the things new?" said Rebecca hesitatingly, with a jealousmemory of her dead sister's bridal furnishings.

"Yes," said Mrs. Dent; "I was never one to want dead folks' things, andI had money enough of my own, so I wasn't beholden to John. I had theold duds put up at auction. They didn't bring much."

"I suppose you saved some for Agnes. She'll want some of her poormother's things when she is grown up," said Rebecca with someindignation.

The defiant stare of Mrs. Dent's blue eyes waxed more intense. "There'sa few things up garret," said she.

"She'll be likely to value them," remarked Rebecca. As she spoke sheglanced at the window. "Isn't it most time for her to be coming home?"she asked.

"Most time," answered Mrs. Dent carelessly; "but when she gets over toAddie Slocum's she never knows when to come home."

"Is Addie Slocum her intimate friend?"

"Intimate as any."

"Maybe we can have her come out to see Agnes when she's living withme," said Rebecca wistfully. "I suppose she'll be likely to behomesick at first."

"Most likely," answered Mrs. Dent.

"Does she call you mother?" Rebecca asked.

"No, she calls me Aunt Emeline," replied the other woman shortly. "Whendid you say you were going home?"

"In about a week, I thought, if she can be ready to go so soon,"answered Rebecca with a surprised look.

She reflected that she would not remain a day longer than she couldhelp after such an inhospitable look and question.

"Oh, as far as that goes," said Mrs. Dent, "it wouldn't make anydifference about her being ready. You could go home whenever you feltthat you must, and she could come afterward."

"Alone?"

"Why not? She's a big girl now, and you don't have to change cars."

"My niece will go home when I do, and not travel alone; and if I can'twait here for her, in the house that used to be her mother's and mysister's home, I'll go and board somewhere," returned Rebecca withwarmth.

"Oh, you can stay here as long as you want to. You're welcome," saidMrs. Dent.

Then Rebecca started. "There she is!" she declared in a trembling,exultant voice. Nobody knew how she longed to see the girl.

"She isn't as late as I thought she'd be," said Mrs. Dent, and againthat curious, subtle change passed over her face, and again it settledinto that stony impassiveness.

Rebecca stared at the door, waiting for it to open. "Where is she?"she asked presently.

"I guess she's stopped to take off her hat in the entry," suggestedMrs. Dent.

Rebecca waited. "Why don't she come? It can't take her all this timeto take off her hat."

For answer Mrs. Dent rose with a stiff jerk and threw open the door.

"Agnes!" she called. "Agnes!" Then she turned and eyed Rebecca. "Sheain't there."

"I saw her pass the window," said Rebecca in bewilderment.

"You must have been mistaken."

"I know I did," persisted Rebecca.

"You couldn't have."

"I did. I saw first a shadow go over the ceiling, then I saw her inthe glass there"—she pointed to a mirror over the sideboardopposite—"and then the shadow passed the window."

"How did she look in the glass?"

"Little and light-haired, with the light hair kind of tossing over herforehead."

"You couldn't have seen her."

"Was that like Agnes?"

"Like enough; but of course you didn't see her. You've been thinkingso much about her that you thought you did."

"You thought YOU did."

"I thought I saw a shadow pass the window, but I must have beenmistaken. She didn't come in, or we would have seen her before now. Iknew it was too early for her to get home from Addie Slocum's, anyhow."

When Rebecca went to bed Agnes had not returned. Rebecca had resolvedthat she would not retire until the girl came, but she was very tired,and she reasoned with herself that she was foolish. Besides, Mrs. Dentsuggested that Agnes might go to the church social with Addie Slocum.When Rebecca suggested that she be sent for and told that her aunt hadcome, Mrs. Dent laughed meaningly.

"I guess you'll find out that a young girl ain't so ready to leave asociable, where there's boys, to see her aunt," said she.

"She's too young," said Rebecca incredulously and indignantly.

"She's sixteen," replied Mrs. Dent; "and she's always been great forthe boys."

"She's going to school four years after I get her before she thinks ofboys," declared Rebecca.

"We'll see," laughed the other woman.

After Rebecca went to bed, she lay awake a long time listening for thesound of girlish laughter and a boy's voice under her window; then shefell asleep.

The next morning she was down early. Mrs. Dent, who kept no servants,was busily preparing breakfast.

"Don't Agnes help you about breakfast?" asked Rebecca.

"No, I let her lay," replied Mrs. Dent shortly.

"What time did she get home last night?"

"She didn't get home."

"What?"

"She didn't get home. She stayed with Addie. She often does."

"Without sending you word?"

"Oh, she knew I wouldn't worry."

"When will she be home?"

"Oh, I guess she'll be along pretty soon."

Rebecca was uneasy, but she tried to conceal it, for she knew of nogood reason for uneasiness. What was there to occasion alarm in thefact of one young girl staying overnight with another? She could noteat much breakfast. Afterward she went out on the little piazza,although her hostess strove furtively to stop her.

"Why don't you go out back of the house? It's real pretty—a view overthe river," she said.

"I guess I'll go out here," replied Rebecca. She had a purpose: towatch for the absent girl.

Presently Rebecca came hustling into the house through thesitting-room, into the kitchen where Mrs. Dent was cooking.

"That rose-bush!" she gasped.

Mrs. Dent turned and faced her.

"What of it?"

"It's a-blowing."

"What of it?"

"There isn't a mite of wind this morning."

Mrs. Dent turned with an inimitable toss of her fair head. "If youthink I can spend my time puzzling over such nonsense as—" she began,but Rebecca interrupted her with a cry and a rush to the door.

"There she is now!" she cried. She flung the door wide open, andcuriously enough a breeze came in and her own gray hair tossed, and apaper blew off the table to the floor with a loud rustle, but there wasnobody in sight.

"There's nobody here," Rebecca said.

She looked blankly at the other woman, who brought her rolling-pin downon a slab of pie-crust with a thud.

"I didn't hear anybody," she said calmly.

"I SAW SOMEBODY PASS THAT WINDOW!"

"You were mistaken again."

"I KNOW I saw somebody."

"You couldn't have. Please shut that door."

Rebecca shut the door. She sat down beside the window and looked outon the autumnal yard, with its little curve of footpath to the kitchendoor.

"What smells so strong of roses in this room?" she said presently. Shesniffed hard.

"I don't smell anything but these nutmegs."

"It is not nutmeg."

"I don't smell anything else."

"Where do you suppose Agnes is?"

"Oh, perhaps she has gone over the ferry to Porter's Falls with Addie.She often does. Addie's got an aunt over there, and Addie's got acousin, a real pretty boy."

"You suppose she's gone over there?"

"Mebbe. I shouldn't wonder."

"When should she be home?"

"Oh, not before afternoon."

Rebecca waited with all the patience she could muster. She keptreassuring herself, telling herself that it was all natural, that theother woman could not help it, but she made up her mind that if Agnesdid not return that afternoon she should be sent for.

When it was four o'clock she started up with resolution. She had beenfurtively watching the onyx clock on the sitting-room mantel; she hadtimed herself. She had said that if Agnes was not home by that timeshe should demand that she be sent for. She rose and stood before Mrs.Dent, who looked up coolly from her embroidery.

"I've waited just as long as I'm going to," she said. "I've come 'wayfrom Michigan to see my own sister's daughter and take her home withme. I've been here ever since yesterday—twenty-four hours—and Ihaven't seen her. Now I'm going to. I want her sent for."

Mrs. Dent folded her embroidery and rose.

"Well, I don't blame you," she said. "It is high time she came home.I'll go right over and get her myself."

Rebecca heaved a sigh of relief. She hardly knew what she hadsuspected or feared, but she knew that her position had been one ofantagonism if not accusation, and she was sensible of relief.

"I wish you would," she said gratefully, and went back to her chair,while Mrs. Dent got her shawl and her little white head-tie. "Iwouldn't trouble you, but I do feel as if I couldn't wait any longer tosee her," she remarked apologetically.

"Oh, it ain't any trouble at all," said Mrs. Dent as she went out. "Idon't blame you; you have waited long enough."

Rebecca sat at the window watching breathlessly until Mrs. Dent camestepping through the yard alone. She ran to the door and saw, hardlynoticing it this time, that the rose-bush was again violently agitated,yet with no wind evident elsewhere.

"Where is she?" she cried.

Mrs. Dent laughed with stiff lips as she came up the steps over theterrace. "Girls will be girls," said she. "She's gone with Addie toLincoln. Addie's got an uncle who's conductor on the train, and livesthere, and he got 'em passes, and they're goin' to stay to Addie's AuntMargaret's a few days. Mrs. Slocum said Agnes didn't have time to comeover and ask me before the train went, but she took it on herself tosay it would be all right, and—"

"Why hadn't she been over to tell you?" Rebecca was angry, though notsuspicious. She even saw no reason for her anger.

"Oh, she was putting up grapes. She was coming over just as soon asshe got the black off her hands. She heard I had company, and herhands were a sight. She was holding them over sulphur matches."

"You say she's going to stay a few days?" repeated Rebecca dazedly.

"Yes; till Thursday, Mrs. Slocum said."

"How far is Lincoln from here?"

"About fifty miles. It'll be a real treat to her. Mrs. Slocum'ssister is a real nice woman."

"It is goin' to make it pretty late about my goin' home."

"If you don't feel as if you could wait, I'll get her ready and sendher on just as soon as I can," Mrs. Dent said sweetly.

"I'm going to wait," said Rebecca grimly.

The two women sat down again, and Mrs. Dent took up her embroidery.

"Is there any sewing I can do for her?" Rebecca asked finally in adesperate way. "If I can get her sewing along some—"

Mrs. Dent arose with alacrity and fetched a mass of white from thecloset. "Here," she said, "if you want to sew the lace on thisnightgown. I was going to put her to it, but she'll be glad enough toget rid of it. She ought to have this and one more before she goes. Idon't like to send her away without some good underclothing."

Rebecca snatched at the little white garment and sewed feverishly.

That night she wakened from a deep sleep a little after midnight andlay a minute trying to collect her faculties and explain to herselfwhat she was listening to. At last she discovered that it was the thenpopular strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" floating up through the floorfrom the piano in the sitting-room below. She jumped up, threw a shawlover her nightgown, and hurried downstairs trembling. There was nobodyin the sitting-room; the piano was silent. She ran to Mrs. Dent'sbedroom and called hysterically:

"Emeline! Emeline!"

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Dent's voice from the bed. The voice wasstern, but had a note of consciousness in it.

"Who—who was that playing 'The Maiden's Prayer' in the sitting-room,on the piano?"

"I didn't hear anybody."

"There was some one."

"I didn't hear anything."

"I tell you there was some one. But—THERE AIN'T ANYBODY THERE."

"I didn't hear anything."

"I did—somebody playing 'The Maiden's Prayer' on the piano. Has Agnesgot home? I WANT TO KNOW."

"Of course Agnes hasn't got home," answered Mrs. Dent with risinginflection. "Be you gone crazy over that girl? The last boat fromPorter's Falls was in before we went to bed. Of course she ain't come."

"I heard—"

"You were dreaming."

"I wasn't; I was broad awake."

Rebecca went back to her chamber and kept her lamp burning all night.

The next morning her eyes upon Mrs. Dent were wary and blazing withsuppressed excitement. She kept opening her mouth as if to speak, thenfrowning, and setting her lips hard. After breakfast she wentupstairs, and came down presently with her coat and bonnet.

"Now, Emeline," she said, "I want to know where the Slocums live."

Mrs. Dent gave a strange, long, half-lidded glance at her. She wasfinishing her coffee.

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm going over there and find out if they have heard anything from herdaughter and Agnes since they went away. I don't like what I heardlast night."

"You must have been dreaming."

"It don't make any odds whether I was or not. Does she play 'TheMaiden's Prayer' on the piano? I want to know."

"What if she does? She plays it a little, I believe. I don't know.She don't half play it, anyhow; she ain't got an ear."

"That wasn't half played last night. I don't like such thingshappening. I ain't superstitious, but I don't like it. I'm going.Where do the Slocums live?"

"You go down the road over the bridge past the old grist mill, then youturn to the left; it's the only house for half a mile. You can't missit. It has a barn with a ship in full sail on the cupola."

"Well, I'm going. I don't feel easy."

About two hours later Rebecca returned. There were red spots on hercheeks. She looked wild. "I've been there," she said, "and thereisn't a soul at home. Something HAS happened."

"What has happened?"

"I don't know. Something. I had a warning last night. There wasn't asoul there. They've been sent for to Lincoln."

"Did you see anybody to ask?" asked Mrs. Dent with thinly concealedanxiety.

"I asked the woman that lives on the turn of the road. She's stonedeaf. I suppose you know. She listened while I screamed at her toknow where the Slocums were, and then she said, 'Mrs. Smith don't livehere.' I didn't see anybody on the road, and that's the only house.What do you suppose it means?"

"I don't suppose it means much of anything," replied Mrs. Dent coolly."Mr. Slocum is conductor on the railroad, and he'd be away anyway, andMrs. Slocum often goes early when he does, to spend the day with hersister in Porter's Falls. She'd be more likely to go away than Addie."

"And you don't think anything has happened?" Rebecca asked withdiminishing distrust before the reasonableness of it.

"Land, no!"

Rebecca went upstairs to lay aside her coat and bonnet. But she camehurrying back with them still on.

"Who's been in my room?" she gasped. Her face was pale as ashes.

Mrs. Dent also paled as she regarded her.

"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.

"I found when I went upstairs that—little nightgown of—Agnes'son—the bed, laid out. It was—LAID OUT. The sleeves were foldedacross the bosom, and there was that little red rose between them.Emeline, what is it? Emeline, what's the matter? Oh!"

Mrs. Dent was struggling for breath in great, choking gasps. She clungto the back of a chair. Rebecca, trembling herself so she couldscarcely keep on her feet, got her some water.

As soon as she recovered herself Mrs. Dent regarded her with eyes fullof the strangest mixture of fear and horror and hostility.

"What do you mean talking so?" she said in a hard voice.

"It IS THERE."

"Nonsense. You threw it down and it fell that way."

"It was folded in my bureau drawer."

"It couldn't have been."

"Who picked that red rose?"

"Look on the bush," Mrs. Dent replied shortly.

Rebecca looked at her; her mouth gaped. She hurried out of the room.When she came back her eyes seemed to protrude. (She had in themeantime hastened upstairs, and come down with tottering steps,clinging to the banisters.)

"Now I want to know what all this means?" she demanded.

"What what means?"

"The rose is on the bush, and it's gone from the bed in my room! Isthis house haunted, or what?"

"I don't know anything about a house being haunted. I don't believe insuch things. Be you crazy?" Mrs. Dent spoke with gathering force.The colour flashed back to her cheeks.

"No," said Rebecca shortly. "I ain't crazy yet, but I shall be if thiskeeps on much longer. I'm going to find out where that girl is beforenight."

Mrs. Dent eyed her.

"What be you going to do?"

"I'm going to Lincoln."

A faint triumphant smile overspread Mrs. Dent's large face.

"You can't," said she; "there ain't any train."

"No train?"

"No; there ain't any afternoon train from the Falls to Lincoln."

"Then I'm going over to the Slocums' again to-night."

However, Rebecca did not go; such a rain came up as deterred even herresolution, and she had only her best dresses with her. Then in theevening came the letter from the Michigan village which she had leftnearly a week ago. It was from her cousin, a single woman, who hadcome to keep her house while she was away. It was a pleasantunexciting letter enough, all the first of it, and related mostly howshe missed Rebecca; how she hoped she was having pleasant weather andkept her health; and how her friend, Mrs. Greenaway, had come to staywith her since she had felt lonesome the first night in the house; howshe hoped Rebecca would have no objections to this, although nothinghad been said about it, since she had not realized that she might benervous alone. The cousin was painfully conscientious, hence theletter. Rebecca smiled in spite of her disturbed mind as she read it,then her eye caught the postscript. That was in a different hand,purporting to be written by the friend, Mrs. Hannah Greenaway,informing her that the cousin had fallen down the cellar stairs andbroken her hip, and was in a dangerous condition, and begging Rebeccato return at once, as she herself was rheumatic and unable to nurse herproperly, and no one else could be obtained.

Rebecca looked at Mrs. Dent, who had come to her room with the letterquite late; it was half-past nine, and she had gone upstairs for thenight.

"Where did this come from?" she asked.

"Mr. Amblecrom brought it," she replied.

"Who's he?"

"The postmaster. He often brings the letters that come on the latemail. He knows I ain't anybody to send. He brought yours about yourcoming. He said he and his wife came over on the ferry-boat with you."

"I remember him," Rebecca replied shortly. "There's bad news in thisletter."

Mrs. Dent's face took on an expression of serious inquiry.

"Yes, my Cousin Harriet has fallen down the cellar stairs—they werealways dangerous—and she's broken her hip, and I've got to take thefirst train home to-morrow."

"You don't say so. I'm dreadfully sorry."

"No, you ain't sorry!" said Rebecca, with a look as if she leaped."You're glad. I don't know why, but you're glad. You've wanted to getrid of me for some reason ever since I came. I don't know why. You'rea strange woman. Now you've got your way, and I hope you're satisfied."

"How you talk."

Mrs. Dent spoke in a faintly injured voice, but there was a light inher eyes.

"I talk the way it is. Well, I'm going to-morrow morning, and I wantyou, just as soon as Agnes Dent comes home, to send her out to me.Don't you wait for anything. You pack what clothes she's got, anddon't wait even to mend them, and you buy her ticket. I'll leave themoney, and you send her along. She don't have to change cars. Youstart her off, when she gets home, on the next train!"

"Very well," replied the other woman. She had an expression of covertamusement.

"Mind you do it."

"Very well, Rebecca."

Rebecca started on her journey the next morning. When she arrived, twodays later, she found her cousin in perfect health. She found,moreover, that the friend had not written the postscript in thecousin's letter. Rebecca would have returned to Ford Village the nextmorning, but the fatigue and nervous strain had been too much for her.She was not able to move from her bed. She had a species of low feverinduced by anxiety and fatigue. But she could write, and she did, tothe Slocums, and she received no answer. She also wrote to Mrs. Dent;she even sent numerous telegrams, with no response. Finally she wroteto the postmaster, and an answer arrived by the first possible mail.The letter was short, curt, and to the purpose. Mr. Amblecrom, thepostmaster, was a man of few words, and especially wary as to hisexpressions in a letter.

"Dear madam," he wrote, "your favour rec'ed. No Slocums in Ford'sVillage. All dead. Addie ten years ago, her mother two years later,her father five. House vacant. Mrs. John Dent said to have neglectedstepdaughter. Girl was sick. Medicine not given. Talk of takingaction. Not enough evidence. House said to be haunted. Strange sightsand sounds. Your niece, Agnes Dent, died a year ago, about this time.

"Yours truly,

"THOMAS AMBLECROM."

THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL

"Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before Edwarddied," said Caroline Glynn.

She was elderly, tall, and harshly thin, with a hard colourlessness offace. She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. RebeccaAnn Glynn, younger, stouter and rosy of face between her crinklingpuffs of gray hair, gasped, by way of assent. She sat in a wideflounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrifiedeyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, whohad been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. She was beautifulstill, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty; she filled a greatrocking-chair with her superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gentlyback and forth, her black silks whispering and her black frillsfluttering. Even the shock of death (for her brother Edward lay deadin the house,) could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanour.She was grieved over the loss of her brother: he had been the youngest,and she had been fond of him, but never had Emma Brigham lost sight ofher own importance amidst the waters of tribulation. She was alwaysawake to the consciousness of her own stability in the midst ofvicissitudes and the splendour of her permanent bearing.

But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sisterCaroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror anddistress in response.

"I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor Edward wasso near his end," said she with an asperity which disturbed slightlythe roseate curves of her beautiful mouth.

"Of course he did not KNOW," murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tonestrangely out of keeping with her appearance.

One involuntarily looked again to be sure that such a feeble pipe camefrom that full-swelling chest.

"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She turned onher sister with a strange sharp look of suspicion. "How could he haveknown it?" said she. Then she shrank as if from the other's possibleanswer. "Of course you and I both know he could not," said sheconclusively, but her pale face was paler than it had been before.

Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was nowsitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and waseyeing them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likenessin her face. Given one common intensity of emotion and similar linesshowed forth, and the three sisters of one race were evident.

"What do you mean?" said she impartially to them both. Then she, too,seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed an evasivesort of laugh. "I guess you don't mean anything," said she, but herface wore still the expression of shrinking horror.

"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly. She rose and crossedthe room toward the door with grim decisiveness.

"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brigham.

"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at onceknew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform inthe chamber of death.

"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.

After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.

"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.

"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively, yet with ananswering gleam of ready response to the other's curiosity in the quicklift of her soft blue eyes.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She stillsat up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her fairforehead, between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.

"Did you—hear anything?" she asked in a low voice with a glance towardthe door.

"I was just across the hall in the south parlour, and that door wasopen and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.

"Then you must have—"

"I couldn't help it."

"Everything?"

"Most of it."

"What was it?"

"The old story."

"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was livingon here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him."

Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door.

When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I know how hefelt," said she. "He had always been so prudent himself, and workedhard at his profession, and there Edward had never done anything butspend, and it must have looked to him as if Edward was living at hisexpense, but he wasn't."

"No, he wasn't."

"It was the way father left the property—that all the children shouldhave a home here—and he left money enough to buy the food and all ifwe had all come home."

"Yes."

"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will,and Henry ought to have remembered it."

"Yes, he ought."

"Did he say hard things?"

"Pretty hard from what I heard."

"What?"

"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and hethought he had better go away."

"What did Edward say?"

"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if hewas a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then—"

"What?"

"Then he laughed."

"What did Henry say."

"I didn't hear him say anything, but—"

"But what?"

"I saw him when he came out of this room."

"He looked mad?"

"You've seen him when he looked so."

Emma nodded; the expression of horror on her face had deepened.

"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratchedhim?"

"Yes. Don't!"

Then Caroline reentered the room. She went up to the stove in which awood fire was burning—it was a cold, gloomy day of fall—and shewarmed her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door,which was still ajar, as it did not easily shut, being still swollenwith the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it togetherwith a sharp thud which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfullywith a half exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.

"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," said she.

"I can't help it," replied Rebecca with almost a wail. "I am nervous.There's enough to make me so, the Lord knows."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Caroline with her old air of sharpsuspicion, and something between challenge and dread of its being met.

Rebecca shrank.

"Nothing," said she.

"Then I wouldn't keep speaking in such a fashion."

Emma, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought tobe fixed, it shut so hard.

"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days," repliedCaroline. "If anything is done to it it will be too small; there willbe a crack at the sill."

"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did toEdward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.

"Hush!" said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.

"Nobody can hear with the door shut."

"He must have heard it shut, and—"

"Well, I can say what I want to before he comes down, and I am notafraid of him."

"I don't know who is afraid of him! What reason is there for anybodyto be afraid of Henry?" demanded Caroline.

Mrs. Brigham trembled before her sister's look. Rebecca gasped again."There isn't any reason, of course. Why should there be?"

"I wouldn't speak so, then. Somebody might overhear you and think itwas queer. Miranda Joy is in the south parlour sewing, you know."

"I thought she went upstairs to stitch on the machine."

"She did, but she has come down again."

"Well, she can't hear."

"I say again I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I shouldn'tthink he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the verynight before he died. Edward was enough sight better disposition thanHenry, with all his faults. I always thought a great deal of poorEdward, myself."

Mrs. Brigham passed a large fluff of handkerchief across her eyes;Rebecca sobbed outright.

"Rebecca," said Caroline admonishingly, keeping her mouth stiff andswallowing determinately.

"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henrythat last night. I don't know, but he did from what Rebeccaoverheard," said Emma.

"Not so much cross as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating,"sniffled Rebecca.

"He never raised his voice," said Caroline; "but he had his way."

"He had a right to in this case."

"Yes, he did."

"He had as much of a right here as Henry," sobbed Rebecca, "and nowhe's gone, and he will never be in this home that poor father left himand the rest of us again."

"What do you really think ailed Edward?" asked Emma in hardly more thana whisper. She did not look at her sister.

Caroline sat down in a nearby armchair, and clutched the armsconvulsively until her thin knuckles whitened.

"I told you," said she.

Rebecca held her handkerchief over her mouth, and looked at them aboveit with terrified, streaming eyes.

"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and hadspasms, but what do you think made him have them?"

"Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always haddyspepsia."

Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "Was there any talk ofan—examination?" said she.

Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.

"No," said she in a terrible voice. "No."

The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground ofterrified understanding though their eyes. The old-fashioned latch ofthe door was heard to rattle, and a push from without made the doorshake ineffectually. "It's Henry," Rebecca sighed rather thanwhispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself after a noiseless rush acrossthe floor into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying back and forthwith her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at last yieldedand Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp, comprehensiveglance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm; at Rebecca quietlyhuddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face andonly one small reddened ear as attentive as a dog's uncovered andrevealing her alertness for his presence; at Caroline sitting with astrained composure in her armchair by the stove. She met his eyesquite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear, and defiance of the fearand of him.

Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had thesame hard delicacy of form and feature, both were tall and almostemaciated, both had a sparse growth of gray blond hair far back fromhigh intellectual foreheads, both had an almost noble aquilinity offeature. They confronted each other with the pitiless immovability oftwo statues in whose marble lineaments emotions were fixed for alleternity.

Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He lookedsuddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness andirresolution appeared in his face. He flung himself into a chair witha gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his generalappearance. He leaned his head back, flung one leg over the other, andlooked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham.

"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.

She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. Shewas susceptible to praise.

"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will NEVERgrow older," said Caroline in a hard voice.

Henry looked at her, still smiling. "Of course, we none of us forgetthat," said he, in a deep, gentle voice, "but we have to speak to theliving, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and theliving are as dear as the dead."

"Not to me," said Caroline.

She rose, and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also roseand hurried after her, sobbing loudly.

Henry looked slowly after them.

"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he. Mrs. Brigham rocked. Aconfidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her. Out ofthat confidence she spoke quite easily and naturally.

"His death was very sudden," said she.

Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving.

"Yes," said he; "it was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours."

"What did you call it?"

"Gastric."

"You did not think of an examination?"

"There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of hisdeath."

Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her verysoul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice.She rose, tottering on weak knees.

"Where are you going?" asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice.

Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she hadto do, some black for the funeral, and was out of the room. She went upto the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She wentclose to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at eachother.

"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!" said Caroline finally in anawful whisper.

"I won't," replied Emma.

That afternoon the three sisters were in the study, the large frontroom on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlour, whenthe dusk deepened.

Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material. She sat close to thewest window for the waning light. At last she laid her work on her lap.

"It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have alight," said she.

Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca,in her usual place on the sofa.

"Rebecca, you had better get a lamp," she said.

Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her agitation.

"It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet," she said in apiteous, pleading voice like a child's.

"Yes, we do," returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily. "We must have alight. I must finish this to-night or I can't go to the funeral, and Ican't see to sew another stitch."

"Caroline can see to write letters, and she is farther from the windowthan you are," said Rebecca.

"Are you trying to save kerosene or are you lazy, Rebecca Glynn?" criedMrs. Brigham. "I can go and get the light myself, but I have this workall in my lap."

Caroline's pen stopped scratching.

"Rebecca, we must have the light," said she.

"Had we better have it in here?" asked Rebecca weakly.

"Of course! Why not?" cried Caroline sternly.

"I am sure I don't want to take my sewing into the other room, when itis all cleaned up for to-morrow," said Mrs. Brigham.

"Why, I never heard such a to-do about lighting a lamp."

Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp—alarge one with a white porcelain shade. She set it on a table, anold-fashioned card-table which was placed against the opposite wallfrom the window. That wall was clear of bookcases and books, whichwere only on three sides of the room. That opposite wall was taken upwith three doors, the one small space being occupied by the table.Above the table on the old-fashioned paper, of a white satin gloss,traversed by an indeterminate green scroll, hung quite high a smallgilt and black-framed ivory miniature taken in her girlhood of themother of the family. When the lamp was set on the table beneath it,the tiny pretty face painted on the ivory seemed to gleam out with alook of intelligence.

"What have you put that lamp over there for?" asked Mrs. Brigham, withmore of impatience than her voice usually revealed. "Why didn't youset it in the hall and have done with it. Neither Caroline nor I cansee if it is on that table."

"I thought perhaps you would move," replied Rebecca hoarsely.

"If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has her paperall spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table inthe middle of the room, then we can both see?"

Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appealthat was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.

"Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?" askedCaroline, almost fiercely. "Why do you act so, Rebecca?"

"I should think you WOULD ask her that," said Mrs. Brigham. "Shedoesn't act like herself at all."

Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the roomwithout another word. Then she turned her back upon it quickly andseated herself on the sofa, and placed a hand over her eyes as if toshade them, and remained so.

"Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why you didn'twant the lamp?" asked Mrs. Brigham kindly.

"I always like to sit in the dark," replied Rebecca chokingly. Then shesnatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep.Caroline continued to write, Mrs. Brigham to sew.

Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall. Theglance became a steady stare. She looked intently, her work suspendedin her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches,then she looked again, and again turned to her task. At last she laidher work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wallaround the room, taking note of the various objects; she looked at thewall long and intently. Then she turned to her sisters.

"What IS that?" said she.

"What?" asked Caroline harshly; her pen scratched loudly across thepaper.

Rebecca gave one of her convulsive gasps.

"That strange shadow on the wall," replied Mrs. Brigham.

Rebecca sat with her face hidden: Caroline dipped her pen in theinkstand.

"Why don't you turn around and look?" asked Mrs. Brigham in a wonderingand somewhat aggrieved way.

"I am in a hurry to finish this letter, if Mrs. Wilson Ebbit is goingto get word in time to come to the funeral," replied Caroline shortly.

Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and she beganwalking around the room, moving various articles of furniture, with hereyes on the shadow.

Then suddenly she shrieked out:

"Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look, look!Rebecca, look! WHAT IS IT?"

All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her handsome facewas livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow.

"Look!" said she, pointing her finger at it. "Look! What is it?"

Then Rebecca burst out in a wild wail after a shuddering glance at thewall:

"Oh, Caroline, there it is again! There it is again!"

"Caroline Glynn, you look!" said Mrs. Brigham. "Look! What is thatdreadful shadow?"

Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.

"How should I know?" she said.

"It has been there every night since he died," cried Rebecca.

"Every night?"

"Yes. He died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights,"said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding herself calm with avise of concentrated will.

"It—it looks like—like—" stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intensehorror.

"I know what it looks like well enough," said Caroline. "I've got eyesin my head."

"It looks like Edward," burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear."Only—"

"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tonematched her sister's, "only— Oh, it is awful! What is it, Caroline?"

"I ask you again, how should I know?" replied Caroline. "I see itthere like you. How should I know any more than you?"

"It MUST be something in the room," said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildlyaround.

"We moved everything in the room the first night it came," saidRebecca; "it is not anything in the room."

Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. "Of course it issomething in the room," said she. "How you act! What do you mean bytalking so? Of course it is something in the room."

"Of course, it is," agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Carolinesuspiciously. "Of course it must be. It is only a coincidence. Itjust happens so. Perhaps it is that fold of the window curtain thatmakes it. It must be something in the room."

"It is not anything in the room," repeated Rebecca with obstinatehorror.

The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak,then his eyes followed the direction of the others'. He stood stockstill staring at the shadow on the wall. It was life size andstretched across the white parallelogram of a door, half across thewall space on which the picture hung.

"What is that?" he demanded in a strange voice.

"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said faintly.

"It is not due to anything in the room," said Rebecca again with theshrill insistency of terror.

"How you act, Rebecca Glynn," said Caroline.

Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamutof emotions—horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly hebegan hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved thefurniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon theshadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.

"It must be something in the room!" he declared in a voice which seemedto snap like a lash.

His face changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evidentuntil one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close toher sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brighamclutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his way.For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. Hemoved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did notaffect the shadow, he flung it to the floor, the sisters watching.

Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed and began straightening thefurniture which he had flung down.

"What an absurdity," he said easily. "Such a to-do about a shadow."

"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she triedto make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.

"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was so fond of," saidCaroline.

Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouthwas set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show ofanxiety.

"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly. He laughed again, lookingat his sisters. "Did I scare you?" he said. "I should think you mightbe used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to thebottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look—queer, like—and Ithought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like towithout any delay."

"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked Caroline dryly, with aslight glance at the wall.

Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.

"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he laughedagain. "A man is a fool to try to account for shadows."

Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kepthis back to the wall, as did, indeed, the others.

Mrs. Brigham pressed close to Caroline as she crossed the hall. "Helooked like a demon!" she breathed in her ear.

Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought upthe rear; she could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.

"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered toCaroline after supper.

"Very well, we will sit in the south room," replied Caroline. "I thinkwe will sit in the south parlour," she said aloud; "it isn't as damp asthe study, and I have a cold."

So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read thenewspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nineo'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The threesisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustlingskirts compactly around her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.

"What are you going to do?" inquired Rebecca agitatedly.

"I am going to see what he is about," replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously.

She pointed as she spoke to the study door across the hall; it wasajar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it hadsomehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still ajarand a streak of light showed from top to bottom. The hall lamp was notlit.

"You had better stay where you are," said Caroline with guardedsharpness.

"I am going to see," repeated Mrs. Brigham firmly.

Then she folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swellingcurves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slowtoddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye atthe crack.

In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilatedeyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at thecrack in the study door, saw was this:

Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadowmust be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, wasmaking systematic passes and thrusts all over and through theintervening space with an old sword which had belonged to his father.Not an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the spaceinto mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort ofcold fury and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, theshadow remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself coldwith horror.

Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as ifto strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs.Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room doorbehind her before she related what she had seen.

"He looked like a demon!" she said again. "Have you got any of thatold wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand muchmore."

Indeed, she looked overcome. Her handsome placid face was worn andstrained and pale.

"Yes, there's plenty," said Caroline; "you can have some when you go tobed."

"I think we had all better take some," said Mrs. Brigham. "Oh, my God,Caroline, what—"

"Don't ask and don't speak," said Caroline.

"No, I am not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham; "but—"

Rebecca moaned aloud.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Caroline harshly.

"Poor Edward," returned Rebecca.

"That is all you have to groan for," said Caroline. "There is nothingelse."

"I am going to bed," said Mrs. Brigham. "I sha'n't be able to be atthe funeral if I don't."

Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlour wasdeserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the lightbefore he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he cameinto the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He setit on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His facewas terrible, his fair complexion showed livid; his blue eyes seemeddark blanks of awful reflections.

Then he took the lamp up and returned to the library. He set the lampon the centre table, and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again hestudied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with noneof his former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returnedto the south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned tothe study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang outupon the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brighamand the other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.

The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the southroom. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study untilHenry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for thenight. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful lifebefore the light.

The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to goto the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise.He very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglectedon account of Edward's death. He was a physician.

"How can you leave your patients now?" asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly.

"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied Henry easily."I have had a telegram from Doctor Mitford."

"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.

"I have business," replied Henry.

Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighbouringcity and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.

After he had gone Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that after all Henryhad not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and shethought it very strange.

"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a shudder.

"What do you mean?" inquired Caroline sharply.

"Nothing," replied Rebecca.

Nobody entered the library that day, nor the next, nor the next. Thethird day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive and the lasttrain from the city had come.

"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea of adoctor leaving his patients for three days anyhow, at such a time asthis, and I know he has some very sick ones; he said so. And the ideaof a consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and NOWhe has not come. I don't understand it, for my part."

"I don't either," said Rebecca.

They were all in the south parlour. There was no light in the studyopposite, and the door was ajar.

Presently Mrs. Brigham rose—she could not have told why; somethingseemed to impel her, some will outside her own. She went out of theroom, again wrapping her rustling skirts around that she might passnoiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.

"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking voice.

Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took a lamp (there weretwo in the room) and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but shestood trembling, not venturing to follow.

The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on the southdoor on the other side of the house from the study. Rebecca, afterhesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door; sheremembered that the servant was out.

Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lampon the table. They looked at the wall. "Oh, my God," gasped Mrs.Brigham, "there are—there are TWO—shadows." The sisters stoodclutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall. ThenRebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand. "Here is—atelegram," she gasped. "Henry is—dead."

LUELLA MILLER

Close to the village street stood the one-story house in which LuellaMiller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt. She had beendead for years, yet there were those in the village who, in spite ofthe clearer light which comes on a vantage-point from a long-pastdanger, half believed in the tale which they had heard from theirchildhood. In their hearts, although they scarcely would have ownedit, was a survival of the wild horror and frenzied fear of theirancestors who had dwelt in the same age with Luella Miller. Youngpeople even would stare with a shudder at the old house as they passed,and children never played around it as was their wont around anuntenanted building. Not a window in the old Miller house was broken:the panes reflected the morning sunlight in patches of emerald andblue, and the latch of the sagging front door was never lifted,although no bolt secured it. Since Luella Miller had been carried outof it, the house had had no tenant except one friendless old soul whohad no choice between that and the far-off shelter of the open sky.This old woman, who had survived her kindred and friends, lived in thehouse one week, then one morning no smoke came out of the chimney, anda body of neighbours, a score strong, entered and found her dead in herbed. There were dark whispers as to the cause of her death, and therewere those who testified to an expression of fear so exalted that itshowed forth the state of the departing soul upon the dead face. Theold woman had been hale and hearty when she entered the house, and inseven days she was dead; it seemed that she had fallen a victim to someuncanny power. The minister talked in the pulpit with covert severityagainst the sin of superstition; still the belief prevailed. Not asoul in the village but would have chosen the almshouse rather thanthat dwelling. No vagrant, if he heard the tale, would seek shelterbeneath that old roof, unhallowed by nearly half a century ofsuperstitious fear.

There was only one person in the village who had actually known LuellaMiller. That person was a woman well over eighty, but a marvel ofvitality and unextinct youth. Straight as an arrow, with the spring ofone recently let loose from the bow of life, she moved about thestreets, and she always went to church, rain or shine. She had nevermarried, and had lived alone for years in a house across the road fromLuella Miller's.

This woman had none of the garrulousness of age, but never in all herlife had she ever held her tongue for any will save her own, and shenever spared the truth when she essayed to present it. She it was whobore testimony to the life, evil, though possibly wittingly ordesignedly so, of Luella Miller, and to her personal appearance. Whenthis old woman spoke—and she had the gift of description, although herthoughts were clothed in the rude vernacular of her native village—onecould seem to see Luella Miller as she had really looked. According tothis woman, Lydia Anderson by name, Luella Miller had been a beauty ofa type rather unusual in New England. She had been a slight, pliantsort of creature, as ready with a strong yielding to fate and asunbreakable as a willow. She had glimmering lengths of straight, fairhair, which she wore softly looped round a long, lovely face. She hadblue eyes full of soft pleading, little slender, clinging hands, and awonderful grace of motion and attitude.

"Luella Miller used to sit in a way nobody else could if they sat upand studied a week of Sundays," said Lydia Anderson, "and it was asight to see her walk. If one of them willows over there on the edgeof the brook could start up and get its roots free of the ground, andmove off, it would go just the way Luella Miller used to. She had agreen shot silk she used to wear, too, and a hat with green ribbonstreamers, and a lace veil blowing across her face and out sideways,and a green ribbon flyin' from her waist. That was what she came outbride in when she married Erastus Miller. Her name before she wasmarried was Hill. There was always a sight of "l's" in her name,married or single. Erastus Miller was good lookin', too, betterlookin' than Luella. Sometimes I used to think that Luella wa'n't sohandsome after all. Erastus just about worshiped her. I used to knowhim pretty well. He lived next door to me, and we went to schooltogether. Folks used to say he was waitin' on me, but he wa'n't. Inever thought he was except once or twice when he said things that somegirls might have suspected meant somethin'. That was before Luellacame here to teach the district school. It was funny how she came toget it, for folks said she hadn't any education, and that one of thebig girls, Lottie Henderson, used to do all the teachin' for her, whileshe sat back and did embroidery work on a cambric pocket-handkerchief.Lottie Henderson was a real smart girl, a splendid scholar, and shejust set her eyes by Luella, as all the girls did. Lottie would havemade a real smart woman, but she died when Luella had been here about ayear—just faded away and died: nobody knew what ailed her. Shedragged herself to that schoolhouse and helped Luella teach till thevery last minute. The committee all knew how Luella didn't do much ofthe work herself, but they winked at it. It wa'n't long after Lottiedied that Erastus married her. I always thought he hurried it upbecause she wa'n't fit to teach. One of the big boys used to help herafter Lottie died, but he hadn't much government, and the school didn'tdo very well, and Luella might have had to give it up, for thecommittee couldn't have shut their eyes to things much longer. The boythat helped her was a real honest, innocent sort of fellow, and he wasa good scholar, too. Folks said he overstudied, and that was thereason he was took crazy the year after Luella married, but I don'tknow. And I don't know what made Erastus Miller go into consumption ofthe blood the year after he was married: consumption wa'n't in hisfamily. He just grew weaker and weaker, and went almost bent doublewhen he tried to wait on Luella, and he spoke feeble, like an old man.He worked terrible hard till the last trying to save up a little toleave Luella. I've seen him out in the worst storms on a wood-sled—heused to cut and sell wood—and he was hunched up on top lookin' moredead than alive. Once I couldn't stand it: I went over and helped himpitch some wood on the cart—I was always strong in my arms. Iwouldn't stop for all he told me to, and I guess he was glad enough forthe help. That was only a week before he died. He fell on the kitchenfloor while he was gettin' breakfast. He always got the breakfast andlet Luella lay abed. He did all the sweepin' and the washin' and theironin' and most of the cookin'. He couldn't bear to have Luella lifther finger, and she let him do for her. She lived like a queen for allthe work she did. She didn't even do her sewin'. She said it made hershoulder ache to sew, and poor Erastus's sister Lily used to do all hersewin'. She wa'n't able to, either; she was never strong in her back,but she did it beautifully. She had to, to suit Luella, she was sodreadful particular. I never saw anythin' like the fagottin' andhemstitchin' that Lily Miller did for Luella. She made all Luella'sweddin' outfit, and that green silk dress, after Maria Babbit cut it.Maria she cut it for nothin', and she did a lot more cuttin' andfittin' for nothin' for Luella, too. Lily Miller went to live withLuella after Erastus died. She gave up her home, though she was realattached to it and wa'n't a mite afraid to stay alone. She rented itand she went to live with Luella right away after the funeral."

Then this old woman, Lydia Anderson, who remembered Luella Miller,would go on to relate the story of Lily Miller. It seemed that on theremoval of Lily Miller to the house of her dead brother, to live withhis widow, the village people first began to talk. This Lily Millerhad been hardly past her first youth, and a most robust and bloomingwoman, rosy-cheeked, with curls of strong, black hair overshadowinground, candid temples and bright dark eyes. It was not six monthsafter she had taken up her residence with her sister-in-law that herrosy colour faded and her pretty curves became wan hollows. Whiteshadows began to show in the black rings of her hair, and the lightdied out of her eyes, her features sharpened, and there were patheticlines at her mouth, which yet wore always an expression of uttersweetness and even happiness. She was devoted to her sister; there wasno doubt that she loved her with her whole heart, and was perfectlycontent in her service. It was her sole anxiety lest she should die andleave her alone.

"The way Lily Miller used to talk about Luella was enough to make youmad and enough to make you cry," said Lydia Anderson. "I've been inthere sometimes toward the last when she was too feeble to cook andcarried her some blanc-mange or custard—somethin' I thought she mightrelish, and she'd thank me, and when I asked her how she was, say shefelt better than she did yesterday, and asked me if I didn't think shelooked better, dreadful pitiful, and say poor Luella had an awful timetakin' care of her and doin' the work—she wa'n't strong enough to doanythin'—when all the time Luella wa'n't liftin' her finger and poorLily didn't get any care except what the neighbours gave her, andLuella eat up everythin' that was carried in for Lily. I had it realstraight that she did. Luella used to just sit and cry and do nothin'.She did act real fond of Lily, and she pined away considerable, too.There was those that thought she'd go into a decline herself. Butafter Lily died, her Aunt Abby Mixter came, and then Luella picked upand grew as fat and rosy as ever. But poor Aunt Abby begun to droopjust the way Lily had, and I guess somebody wrote to her marrieddaughter, Mrs. Sam Abbot, who lived in Barre, for she wrote her motherthat she must leave right away and come and make her a visit, but AuntAbby wouldn't go. I can see her now. She was a real good-lookin'woman, tall and large, with a big, square face and a high forehead thatlooked of itself kind of benevolent and good. She just tended out onLuella as if she had been a baby, and when her married daughter sentfor her she wouldn't stir one inch. She'd always thought a lot of herdaughter, too, but she said Luella needed her and her married daughterdidn't. Her daughter kept writin' and writin', but it didn't do anygood. Finally she came, and when she saw how bad her mother looked,she broke down and cried and all but went on her knees to have her comeaway. She spoke her mind out to Luella, too. She told her that she'dkilled her husband and everybody that had anythin' to do with her, andshe'd thank her to leave her mother alone. Luella went into hysterics,and Aunt Abby was so frightened that she called me after her daughterwent. Mrs. Sam Abbot she went away fairly cryin' out loud in thebuggy, the neighbours heard her, and well she might, for she never sawher mother again alive. I went in that night when Aunt Abby called forme, standin' in the door with her little green-checked shawl over herhead. I can see her now. 'Do come over here, Miss Anderson,' she sungout, kind of gasping for breath. I didn't stop for anythin'. I putover as fast as I could, and when I got there, there was Luellalaughin' and cryin' all together, and Aunt Abby trying to hush her, andall the time she herself was white as a sheet and shakin' so she couldhardly stand. 'For the land sakes, Mrs. Mixter,' says I, 'you lookworse than she does. You ain't fit to be up out of your bed.'

"'Oh, there ain't anythin' the matter with me,' says she. Then shewent on talkin' to Luella. 'There, there, don't, don't, poor littlelamb,' says she. 'Aunt Abby is here. She ain't goin' away and leaveyou. Don't, poor little lamb.'

"'Do leave her with me, Mrs. Mixter, and you get back to bed,' says I,for Aunt Abby had been layin' down considerable lately, though somehowshe contrived to do the work.

"'I'm well enough,' says she. 'Don't you think she had better have thedoctor, Miss Anderson?'

"'The doctor,' says I, 'I think YOU had better have the doctor. Ithink you need him much worse than some folks I could mention.' And Ilooked right straight at Luella Miller laughin' and cryin' and goin' onas if she was the centre of all creation. All the time she was actin'so—seemed as if she was too sick to sense anythin'—she was keepin' asharp lookout as to how we took it out of the corner of one eye. I seeher. You could never cheat me about Luella Miller. Finally I got realmad and I run home and I got a bottle of valerian I had, and I pouredsome boilin' hot water on a handful of catnip, and I mixed up thatcatnip tea with most half a wineglass of valerian, and I went with itover to Luella's. I marched right up to Luella, a-holdin' out of thatcup, all smokin'. 'Now,' says I, 'Luella Miller, 'YOU SWALLER THIS!'

"'What is—what is it, oh, what is it?' she sort of screeches out. Thenshe goes off a-laughin' enough to kill.

"'Poor lamb, poor little lamb,' says Aunt Abby, standin' over her, allkind of tottery, and tryin' to bathe her head with camphor.

"'YOU SWALLER THIS RIGHT DOWN,' says I. And I didn't waste anyceremony. I just took hold of Luella Miller's chin and I tipped herhead back, and I caught her mouth open with laughin', and I clappedthat cup to her lips, and I fairly hollered at her: 'Swaller, swaller,swaller!' and she gulped it right down. She had to, and I guess it didher good. Anyhow, she stopped cryin' and laughin' and let me put herto bed, and she went to sleep like a baby inside of half an hour. Thatwas more than poor Aunt Abby did. She lay awake all that night and Istayed with her, though she tried not to have me; said she wa'n't sickenough for watchers. But I stayed, and I made some good cornmeal grueland I fed her a teaspoon every little while all night long. It seemedto me as if she was jest dyin' from bein' all wore out. In the mornin'as soon as it was light I run over to the Bisbees and sent JohnnyBisbee for the doctor. I told him to tell the doctor to hurry, and hecome pretty quick. Poor Aunt Abby didn't seem to know much of anythin'when he got there. You couldn't hardly tell she breathed, she was soused up. When the doctor had gone, Luella came into the room lookin'like a baby in her ruffled nightgown. I can see her now. Her eyeswere as blue and her face all pink and white like a blossom, and shelooked at Aunt Abby in the bed sort of innocent and surprised. 'Why,'says she, 'Aunt Abby ain't got up yet?'

"'No, she ain't,' says I, pretty short.

"'I thought I didn't smell the coffee,' says Luella.

"'Coffee,' says I. 'I guess if you have coffee this mornin' you'llmake it yourself.'

"'I never made the coffee in all my life,' says she, dreadfulastonished. 'Erastus always made the coffee as long as he lived, andthen Lily she made it, and then Aunt Abby made it. I don't believe ICAN make the coffee, Miss Anderson.'

"'You can make it or go without, jest as you please,' says I.

"'Ain't Aunt Abby goin' to get up?' says she.

"'I guess she won't get up,' says I, 'sick as she is.' I was gettin'madder and madder. There was somethin' about that littlepink-and-white thing standin' there and talkin' about coffee, when shehad killed so many better folks than she was, and had jest killedanother, that made me feel 'most as if I wished somebody would up andkill her before she had a chance to do any more harm.

"'Is Aunt Abby sick?' says Luella, as if she was sort of aggrieved andinjured.

"'Yes,' says I, 'she's sick, and she's goin' to die, and then you'll beleft alone, and you'll have to do for yourself and wait on yourself, ordo without things.' I don't know but I was sort of hard, but it wasthe truth, and if I was any harder than Luella Miller had been I'llgive up. I ain't never been sorry that I said it. Well, Luella, sheup and had hysterics again at that, and I jest let her have 'em. All Idid was to bundle her into the room on the other side of the entrywhere Aunt Abby couldn't hear her, if she wa'n't past it—I don't knowbut she was—and set her down hard in a chair and told her not to comeback into the other room, and she minded. She had her hysterics inthere till she got tired. When she found out that nobody was comin' tocoddle her and do for her she stopped. At least I suppose she did. Ihad all I could do with poor Aunt Abby tryin' to keep the breath oflife in her. The doctor had told me that she was dreadful low, andgive me some very strong medicine to give to her in drops real often,and told me real particular about the nourishment. Well, I did as hetold me real faithful till she wa'n't able to swaller any longer. ThenI had her daughter sent for. I had begun to realize that she wouldn'tlast any time at all. I hadn't realized it before, though I spoke toLuella the way I did. The doctor he came, and Mrs. Sam Abbot, but whenshe got there it was too late; her mother was dead. Aunt Abby'sdaughter just give one look at her mother layin' there, then she turnedsort of sharp and sudden and looked at me.

"'Where is she?' says she, and I knew she meant Luella.

"'She's out in the kitchen,' says I. 'She's too nervous to see folksdie. She's afraid it will make her sick.'

"The Doctor he speaks up then. He was a young man. Old Doctor Parkhad died the year before, and this was a young fellow just out ofcollege. 'Mrs. Miller is not strong,' says he, kind of severe, 'andshe is quite right in not agitating herself.'

"'You are another, young man; she's got her pretty claw on you,' thinksI, but I didn't say anythin' to him. I just said over to Mrs. SamAbbot that Luella was in the kitchen, and Mrs. Sam Abbot she went outthere, and I went, too, and I never heard anythin' like the way shetalked to Luella Miller. I felt pretty hard to Luella myself, but thiswas more than I ever would have dared to say. Luella she was tooscared to go into hysterics. She jest flopped. She seemed to jestshrink away to nothin' in that kitchen chair, with Mrs. Sam Abbotstandin' over her and talkin' and tellin' her the truth. I guess thetruth was most too much for her and no mistake, because Luellapresently actually did faint away, and there wa'n't any sham about it,the way I always suspected there was about them hysterics. She fainteddead away and we had to lay her flat on the floor, and the Doctor hecame runnin' out and he said somethin' about a weak heart dreadfulfierce to Mrs. Sam Abbot, but she wa'n't a mite scared. She faced himjest as white as even Luella was layin' there lookin' like death andthe Doctor feelin' of her pulse.

"'Weak heart,' says she, 'weak heart; weak fiddlesticks! There ain'tnothin' weak about that woman. She's got strength enough to hang ontoother folks till she kills 'em. Weak? It was my poor mother that wasweak: this woman killed her as sure as if she had taken a knife to her.'

"But the Doctor he didn't pay much attention. He was bendin' overLuella layin' there with her yellow hair all streamin' and her prettypink-and-white face all pale, and her blue eyes like stars gone out,and he was holdin' onto her hand and smoothin' her forehead, andtellin' me to get the brandy in Aunt Abby's room, and I was sure as Iwanted to be that Luella had got somebody else to hang onto, now AuntAbby was gone, and I thought of poor Erastus Miller, and I sort ofpitied the poor young Doctor, led away by a pretty face, and I made upmy mind I'd see what I could do.

"I waited till Aunt Abby had been dead and buried about a month, andthe Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady and folks were beginnin' totalk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had been called out oftown and wouldn't be round, I went over to Luella's. I found her alldressed up in a blue muslin with white polka dots on it, and her haircurled jest as pretty, and there wa'n't a young girl in the place couldcompare with her. There was somethin' about Luella Miller seemed todraw the heart right out of you, but she didn't draw it out of ME. Shewas settin' rocking in the chair by her sittin'-room window, and MariaBrown had gone home. Maria Brown had been in to help her, or rather todo the work, for Luella wa'n't helped when she didn't do anythin'.Maria Brown was real capable and she didn't have any ties; she wa'n'tmarried, and lived alone, so she'd offered. I couldn't see why sheshould do the work any more than Luella; she wa'n't any too strong; butshe seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so, too, soshe went over and did all the work—washed, and ironed, and baked,while Luella sat and rocked. Maria didn't live long afterward. Shebegan to fade away just the same fashion the others had. Well, she waswarned, but she acted real mad when folks said anythin': said Luellawas a poor, abused woman, too delicate to help herself, and they'dought to be ashamed, and if she died helpin' them that couldn't helpthemselves she would—and she did.

"'I s'pose Maria has gone home,' says I to Luella, when I had gone inand sat down opposite her.

"'Yes, Maria went half an hour ago, after she had got supper and washedthe dishes,' says Luella, in her pretty way.

"'I suppose she has got a lot of work to do in her own house to-night,'says I, kind of bitter, but that was all thrown away on Luella Miller.It seemed to her right that other folks that wa'n't any better ablethan she was herself should wait on her, and she couldn't get itthrough her head that anybody should think it WA'N'T right.

"'Yes,' says Luella, real sweet and pretty, 'yes, she said she had todo her washin' to-night. She has let it go for a fortnight along ofcomin' over here.'

"'Why don't she stay home and do her washin' instead of comin' overhere and doin' YOUR work, when you are just as well able, and enoughsight more so, than she is to do it?' says I.

"Then Luella she looked at me like a baby who has a rattle shook at it.She sort of laughed as innocent as you please. 'Oh, I can't do thework myself, Miss Anderson,' says she. 'I never did. Maria HAS to doit.'

"Then I spoke out: 'Has to do it I' says I. 'Has to do it!' She don'thave to do it, either. Maria Brown has her own home and enough to liveon. She ain't beholden to you to come over here and slave for you andkill herself.'

"Luella she jest set and stared at me for all the world like adoll-baby that was so abused that it was comin' to life.

"'Yes,' says I, 'she's killin' herself. She's goin' to die just theway Erastus did, and Lily, and your Aunt Abby. You're killin' her jestas you did them. I don't know what there is about you, but you seem tobring a curse,' says I. 'You kill everybody that is fool enough tocare anythin' about you and do for you.'

"She stared at me and she was pretty pale.

"'And Maria ain't the only one you're goin' to kill,' says I. 'You'regoin' to kill Doctor Malcom before you're done with him.'

"Then a red colour came flamin' all over her face. 'I ain't goin' tokill him, either,' says she, and she begun to cry.

"'Yes, you BE!' says I. Then I spoke as I had never spoke before. Yousee, I felt it on account of Erastus. I told her that she hadn't anybusiness to think of another man after she'd been married to one thathad died for her: that she was a dreadful woman; and she was, that'strue enough, but sometimes I have wondered lately if she knew it—ifshe wa'n't like a baby with scissors in its hand cuttin' everybodywithout knowin' what it was doin'.

"Luella she kept gettin' paler and paler, and she never took her eyesoff my face. There was somethin' awful about the way she looked at meand never spoke one word. After awhile I quit talkin' and I went home.I watched that night, but her lamp went out before nine o'clock, andwhen Doctor Malcom came drivin' past and sort of slowed up he see therewa'n't any light and he drove along. I saw her sort of shy out ofmeetin' the next Sunday, too, so he shouldn't go home with her, and Ibegun to think mebbe she did have some conscience after all. It wasonly a week after that that Maria Brown died—sort of sudden at thelast, though everybody had seen it was comin'. Well, then there was agood deal of feelin' and pretty dark whispers. Folks said the days ofwitchcraft had come again, and they were pretty shy of Luella. Sheacted sort of offish to the Doctor and he didn't go there, and therewa'n't anybody to do anythin' for her. I don't know how she DID getalong. I wouldn't go in there and offer to help her—not because I wasafraid of dyin' like the rest, but I thought she was just as well ableto do her own work as I was to do it for her, and I thought it wasabout time that she did it and stopped killin' other folks. But itwa'n't very long before folks began to say that Luella herself wasgoin' into a decline jest the way her husband, and Lily, and Aunt Abbyand the others had, and I saw myself that she looked pretty bad. Iused to see her goin' past from the store with a bundle as if she couldhardly crawl, but I remembered how Erastus used to wait and 'tend whenhe couldn't hardly put one foot before the other, and I didn't go outto help her.

"But at last one afternoon I saw the Doctor come drivin' up like madwith his medicine chest, and Mrs. Babbit came in after supper and saidthat Luella was real sick.

"'I'd offer to go in and nurse her,' says she, 'but I've got mychildren to consider, and mebbe it ain't true what they say, but it'squeer how many folks that have done for her have died.'

"I didn't say anythin', but I considered how she had been Erastus'swife and how he had set his eyes by her, and I made up my mind to go inthe next mornin', unless she was better, and see what I could do; butthe next mornin' I see her at the window, and pretty soon she camesteppin' out as spry as you please, and a little while afterward Mrs.Babbit came in and told me that the Doctor had got a girl from out oftown, a Sarah Jones, to come there, and she said she was pretty surethat the Doctor was goin' to marry Luella.

"I saw him kiss her in the door that night myself, and I knew it wastrue. The woman came that afternoon, and the way she flew around was acaution. I don't believe Luella had swept since Maria died. She sweptand dusted, and washed and ironed; wet clothes and dusters and carpetswere flyin' over there all day, and every time Luella set her foot outwhen the Doctor wa'n't there there was that Sarah Jones helpin' of herup and down the steps, as if she hadn't learned to walk.

"Well, everybody knew that Luella and the Doctor were goin' to bemarried, but it wa'n't long before they began to talk about his lookin'so poorly, jest as they had about the others; and they talked aboutSarah Jones, too.

"Well, the Doctor did die, and he wanted to be married first, so as toleave what little he had to Luella, but he died before the ministercould get there, and Sarah Jones died a week afterward.

"Well, that wound up everything for Luella Miller. Not another soul inthe whole town would lift a finger for her. There got to be a sort ofpanic. Then she began to droop in good earnest. She used to have togo to the store herself, for Mrs. Babbit was afraid to let Tommy go forher, and I've seen her goin' past and stoppin' every two or three stepsto rest. Well, I stood it as long as I could, but one day I see hercomin' with her arms full and stoppin' to lean against the Babbitfence, and I run out and took her bundles and carried them to herhouse. Then I went home and never spoke one word to her though shecalled after me dreadful kind of pitiful. Well, that night I was takensick with a chill, and I was sick as I wanted to be for two weeks.Mrs. Babbit had seen me run out to help Luella and she came in and toldme I was goin' to die on account of it. I didn't know whether I was ornot, but I considered I had done right by Erastus's wife.

"That last two weeks Luella she had a dreadful hard time, I guess. Shewas pretty sick, and as near as I could make out nobody dared go nearher. I don't know as she was really needin' anythin' very much, forthere was enough to eat in her house and it was warm weather, and shemade out to cook a little flour gruel every day, I know, but I guessshe had a hard time, she that had been so petted and done for all herlife.

"When I got so I could go out, I went over there one morning. Mrs.Babbit had just come in to say she hadn't seen any smoke and she didn'tknow but it was somebody's duty to go in, but she couldn't helpthinkin' of her children, and I got right up, though I hadn't been outof the house for two weeks, and I went in there, and Luella she waslayin' on the bed, and she was dyin'.

"She lasted all that day and into the night. But I sat there after thenew doctor had gone away. Nobody else dared to go there. It was aboutmidnight that I left her for a minute to run home and get some medicineI had been takin', for I begun to feel rather bad.

"It was a full moon that night, and just as I started out of my door tocross the street back to Luella's, I stopped short, for I sawsomething."

Lydia Anderson at this juncture always said with a certain defiancethat she did not expect to be believed, and then proceeded in a hushedvoice:

"I saw what I saw, and I know I saw it, and I will swear on my deathbed that I saw it. I saw Luella Miller and Erastus Miller, and Lily,and Aunt Abby, and Maria, and the Doctor, and Sarah, all goin' out ofher door, and all but Luella shone white in the moonlight, and theywere all helpin' her along till she seemed to fairly fly in the midstof them. Then it all disappeared. I stood a minute with my heartpoundin', then I went over there. I thought of goin' for Mrs. Babbit,but I thought she'd be afraid. So I went alone, though I knew what hadhappened. Luella was layin' real peaceful, dead on her bed."

This was the story that the old woman, Lydia Anderson, told, but thesequel was told by the people who survived her, and this is the talewhich has become folklore in the village.

Lydia Anderson died when she was eighty-seven. She had continuedwonderfully hale and hearty for one of her years until about two weeksbefore her death.

One bright moonlight evening she was sitting beside a window in herparlour when she made a sudden exclamation, and was out of the houseand across the street before the neighbour who was taking care of hercould stop her. She followed as fast as possible and found LydiaAnderson stretched on the ground before the door of Luella Miller'sdeserted house, and she was quite dead.

The next night there was a red gleam of fire athwart the moonlight andthe old house of Luella Miller was burned to the ground. Nothing is nowleft of it except a few old cellar stones and a lilac bush, and insummer a helpless trail of morning glories among the weeds, which mightbe considered emblematic of Luella herself.

THE SOUTHWEST CHAMBER

"That school-teacher from Acton is coming to-day," said the elder MissGill, Sophia.

"So she is," assented the younger Miss Gill, Amanda.

"I have decided to put her in the southwest chamber," said Sophia.

Amanda looked at her sister with an expression of mingled doubt andterror. "You don't suppose she would—" she began hesitatingly.

"Would what?" demanded Sophia, sharply. She was more incisive than hersister. Both were below the medium height, and stout, but Sophia wasfirm where Amanda was flabby. Amanda wore a baggy old muslin (it was ahot day), and Sophia was uncompromisingly hooked up in a starched andboned cambric over her high shelving figure.

"I didn't know but she would object to sleeping in that room, as longas Aunt Harriet died there such a little time ago," faltered Amanda.

"Well!" said Sophia, "of all the silly notions! If you are going topick out rooms in this house where nobody has died, for the boarders,you'll have your hands full. Grandfather Ackley had seven children;four of them died here to my certain knowledge, besides grandfather andgrandmother. I think Great-grandmother Ackley, grandfather's mother,died here, too; she must have; and Great-grandfather Ackley, andgrandfather's unmarried sister, Great-aunt Fanny Ackley. I don'tbelieve there's a room nor a bed in this house that somebody hasn'tpassed away in."

"Well, I suppose I am silly to think of it, and she had better go inthere," said Amanda.

"I know she had. The northeast room is small and hot, and she's stoutand likely to feel the heat, and she's saved money and is able to boardout summers, and maybe she'll come here another year if she's wellaccommodated," said Sophia. "Now I guess you'd better go in there andsee if any dust has settled on anything since it was cleaned, and openthe west windows and let the sun in, while I see to that cake."

Amanda went to her task in the southwest chamber while her sisterstepped heavily down the back stairs on her way to the kitchen.

"It seems to me you had better open the bed while you air and dust,then make it up again," she called back.

"Yes, sister," Amanda answered, shudderingly.

Nobody knew how this elderly woman with the untrammeled imagination ofa child dreaded to enter the southwest chamber, and yet she could nothave told why she had the dread. She had entered and occupied roomswhich had been once tenanted by persons now dead. The room which hadbeen hers in the little house in which she and her sister had livedbefore coming here had been her dead mother's. She had never reflectedupon the fact with anything but loving awe and reverence. There hadnever been any fear. But this was different. She entered and herheart beat thickly in her ears. Her hands were cold. The room was avery large one. The four windows, two facing south, two west, wereclosed, the blinds also. The room was in a film of green gloom. Thefurniture loomed out vaguely. The gilt frame of a blurred oldengraving on the wall caught a little light. The white counterpane onthe bed showed like a blank page.

Amanda crossed the room, opened with a straining motion of her thinback and shoulders one of the west windows, and threw back the blind.Then the room revealed itself an apartment full of an aged and worn butno less valid state. Pieces of old mahogany swelled forth; apeacock-patterned chintz draped the bedstead. This chintz also covereda great easy chair which had been the favourite seat of the formeroccupant of the room. The closet door stood ajar. Amanda noticed thatwith wonder. There was a glimpse of purple drapery floating from a peginside the closet. Amanda went across and took down the garmenthanging there. She wondered how her sister had happened to leave itwhen she cleaned the room. It was an old loose gown which had belongedto her aunt. She took it down, shuddering, and closed the closet doorafter a fearful glance into its dark depths. It was a long closet witha strong odour of lovage. The Aunt Harriet had had a habit of eatinglovage and had carried it constantly in her pocket. There was verylikely some of the pleasant root in the pocket of the musty purple gownwhich Amanda threw over the easy chair.

Amanda perceived the odour with a start as if before an actualpresence. Odour seems in a sense a vital part of a personality. It cansurvive the flesh to which it has clung like a persistent shadow,seeming to have in itself something of the substance of that to whichit pertained. Amanda was always conscious of this fragrance of lovageas she tidied the room. She dusted the heavy mahogany piecespunctiliously after she had opened the bed as her sister had directed.She spread fresh towels over the wash-stand and the bureau; she madethe bed. Then she thought to take the purple gown from the easy chairand carry it to the garret and put it in the trunk with the otherarticles of the dead woman's wardrobe which had been packed away there;BUT THE PURPLE GOWN WAS NOT ON THE CHAIR!

Amanda Gill was not a woman of strong convictions even as to her ownactions. She directly thought that possibly she had been mistaken andhad not removed it from the closet. She glanced at the closet door andsaw with surprise that it was open, and she had thought she had closedit, but she instantly was not sure of that. So she entered the closetand looked for the purple gown. IT WAS NOT THERE!

Amanda Gill went feebly out of the closet and looked at the easy chairagain. The purple gown was not there! She looked wildly around theroom. She went down on her trembling knees and peered under the bed,she opened the bureau drawers, she looked again in the closet. Thenshe stood in the middle of the floor and fairly wrung her hands.

"What does it mean?" she said in a shocked whisper.

She had certainly seen that loose purple gown of her dead AuntHarriet's.

There is a limit at which self-refutation must stop in any sane person.Amanda Gill had reached it. She knew that she had seen that purplegown in that closet; she knew that she had removed it and put it on theeasy chair. She also knew that she had not taken it out of the room.She felt a curious sense of being inverted mentally. It was as if allher traditions and laws of life were on their heads. Never in hersimple record had any garment not remained where she had placed itunless removed by some palpable human agency.

Then the thought occurred to her that possibly her sister Sophia mighthave entered the room unobserved while her back was turned and removedthe dress. A sensation of relief came over her. Her blood seemed toflow back into its usual channels; the tension of her nerves relaxed.

"How silly I am," she said aloud.

She hurried out and downstairs into the kitchen where Sophia was makingcake, stirring with splendid circular sweeps of a wooden spoon a creamyyellow mass. She looked up as her sister entered.

"Have you got it done?" said she.

"Yes," replied Amanda. Then she hesitated. A sudden terror overcameher. It did not seem as if it were at all probable that Sophia hadleft that foamy cake mixture a second to go to Aunt Harriet's chamberand remove that purple gown.

"Well," said Sophia, "if you have got that done I wish you would takehold and string those beans. The first thing we know there won't betime to boil them for dinner."

Amanda moved toward the pan of beans on the table, then she looked ather sister.

"Did you come up in Aunt Harriet's room while I was there?" she askedweakly.

She knew while she asked what the answer would be.

"Up in Aunt Harriet's room? Of course I didn't. I couldn't leave thiscake without having it fall. You know that well enough. Why?"

"Nothing," replied Amanda.

Suddenly she realized that she could not tell her sister what hadhappened, for before the utter absurdity of the whole thing her beliefin her own reason quailed. She knew what Sophia would say if she toldher. She could hear her.

"Amanda Gill, have you gone stark staring mad?"

She resolved that she would never tell Sophia. She dropped into achair and begun shelling the beans with nerveless fingers. Sophialooked at her curiously.

"Amanda Gill, what on earth ails you?" she asked.

"Nothing," replied Amanda. She bent her head very low over the greenpods.

"Yes, there is, too! You are as white as a sheet, and your hands areshaking so you can hardly string those beans. I did think you had moresense, Amanda Gill."

"I don't know what you mean, Sophia."

"Yes, you do know what I mean, too; you needn't pretend you don't. Whydid you ask me if I had been in that room, and why do you act so queer?"

Amanda hesitated. She had been trained to truth. Then she lied.

"I wondered if you'd noticed how it had leaked in on the paper over bythe bureau, that last rain," said she.

"What makes you look so pale then?"

"I don't know. I guess the heat sort of overcame me."

"I shouldn't think it could have been very hot in that room when it hadbeen shut up so long," said Sophia.

She was evidently not satisfied, but then the grocer came to the doorand the matter dropped.

For the next hour the two women were very busy. They kept no servant.When they had come into possession of this fine old place by the deathof their aunt it had seemed a doubtful blessing. There was not a centwith which to pay for repairs and taxes and insurance, except thetwelve hundred dollars which they had obtained from the sale of thelittle house in which they had been born and lived all their lives.There had been a division in the old Ackley family years before. Oneof the daughters had married against her mother's wish and had beendisinherited. She had married a poor man by the name of Gill, andshared his humble lot in sight of her former home and her sister andmother living in prosperity, until she had borne three daughters; thenshe died, worn out with overwork and worry.

The mother and the elder sister had been pitiless to the last. Neitherhad ever spoken to her since she left her home the night of hermarriage. They were hard women.

The three daughters of the disinherited sister had lived quiet andpoor, but not actually needy lives. Jane, the middle daughter, hadmarried, and died in less than a year. Amanda and Sophia had taken thegirl baby she left when the father married again. Sophia had taught aprimary school for many years; she had saved enough to buy the littlehouse in which they lived. Amanda had crocheted lace, and embroideredflannel, and made tidies and pincushions, and had earned enough for herclothes and the child's, little Flora Scott.

Their father, William Gill, had died before they were thirty, and nowin their late middle life had come the death of the aunt to whom theyhad never spoken, although they had often seen her, who had lived insolitary state in the old Ackley mansion until she was more thaneighty. There had been no will, and they were the only heirs with theexception of young Flora Scott, the daughter of the dead sister.

Sophia and Amanda thought directly of Flora when they knew of theinheritance.

"It will be a splendid thing for her; she will have enough to live onwhen we are gone," Sophia said.

She had promptly decided what was to be done. The small house was tobe sold, and they were to move into the old Ackley house and takeboarders to pay for its keeping. She scouted the idea of selling it.She had an enormous family pride. She had always held her head highwhen she had walked past that fine old mansion, the cradle of her race,which she was forbidden to enter. She was unmoved when the lawyer whowas advising her disclosed to her the fact that Harriet Ackley had usedevery cent of the Ackley money.

"I realize that we have to work," said she, "but my sister and I havedetermined to keep the place."

That was the end of the discussion. Sophia and Amanda Gill had beenliving in the old Ackley house a fortnight, and they had threeboarders: an elderly widow with a comfortable income, a youngcongregationalist clergyman, and the middle-aged single woman who hadcharge of the village library. Now the school-teacher from Acton, MissLouisa Stark, was expected for the summer, and would make four.

Sophia considered that they were comfortably provided for. Her wantsand her sister's were very few, and even the niece, although a younggirl, had small expenses, since her wardrobe was supplied for years tocome from that of the deceased aunt. There were stored away in thegarret of the Ackley house enough voluminous black silks and satins andbombazines to keep her clad in somber richness for years to come.

Flora was a very gentle girl, with large, serious blue eyes, aseldom-smiling, pretty mouth, and smooth flaxen hair. She was delicateand very young—sixteen on her next birthday.

She came home soon now with her parcels of sugar and tea from thegrocer's. She entered the kitchen gravely and deposited them on thetable by which her Aunt Amanda was seated stringing beans. Flora worean obsolete turban-shaped hat of black straw which had belonged to thedead aunt; it set high like a crown, revealing her forehead. Her dresswas an ancient purple-and-white print, too long and too large exceptover the chest, where it held her like a straight waistcoat.

"You had better take off your hat, Flora," said Sophia. She turnedsuddenly to Amanda. "Did you fill the water-pitcher in that chamberfor the schoolteacher?" she asked severely. She was quite sure thatAmanda had not filled the water-pitcher.

Amanda blushed and started guiltily. "I declare, I don't believe Idid," said she.

"I didn't think you had," said her sister with sarcastic emphasis.

"Flora, you go up to the room that was your Great-aunt Harriet's, andtake the water-pitcher off the wash-stand and fill it with water. Bereal careful, and don't break the pitcher, and don't spill the water."

"In THAT chamber?" asked Flora. She spoke very quietly, but her facechanged a little.

"Yes, in that chamber," returned her Aunt Sophia sharply. "Go rightalong."

Flora went, and her light footstep was heard on the stairs. Very soonshe returned with the blue-and-white water-pitcher and filled itcarefully at the kitchen sink.

"Now be careful and not spill it," said Sophia as she went out of theroom carrying it gingerly.

Amanda gave a timidly curious glance at her; she wondered if she hadseen the purple gown.

Then she started, for the village stagecoach was seen driving around tothe front of the house. The house stood on a corner.

"Here, Amanda, you look better than I do; you go and meet her," saidSophia. "I'll just put the cake in the pan and get it in the oven andI'll come. Show her right up to her room."

Amanda removed her apron hastily and obeyed. Sophia hurried with hercake, pouring it into the baking-tins. She had just put it in theoven, when the door opened and Flora entered carrying the bluewater-pitcher.

"What are you bringing down that pitcher again for?" asked Sophia.

"She wants some water, and Aunt Amanda sent me," replied Flora.

Her pretty pale face had a bewildered expression.

"For the land sake, she hasn't used all that great pitcherful of waterso quick?"

"There wasn't any water in it," replied Flora.

Her high, childish forehead was contracted slightly with a puzzledfrown as she looked at her aunt.

"Wasn't any water in it?"

"No, ma'am."

"Didn't I see you filling the pitcher with water not ten minutes ago, Iwant to know?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did you do with that water?"

"Nothing."

"Did you carry that pitcherful of water up to that room and set it onthe washstand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Didn't you spill it?"

"No, ma'am."

"Now, Flora Scott, I want the truth! Did you fill that pitcher withwater and carry it up there, and wasn't there any there when she cameto use it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Let me see that pitcher." Sophia examined the pitcher. It was notonly perfectly dry from top to bottom, but even a little dusty. Sheturned severely on the young girl. "That shows," said she, "you didnot fill the pitcher at all. You let the water run at the side becauseyou didn't want to carry it upstairs. I am ashamed of you. It's badenough to be so lazy, but when it comes to not telling the truth—"

The young girl's face broke up suddenly into piteous confusion, and herblue eyes became filmy with tears.

"I did fill the pitcher, honest," she faltered, "I did, Aunt Sophia.You ask Aunt Amanda."

"I'll ask nobody. This pitcher is proof enough. Water don't go offand leave the pitcher dusty on the inside if it was put in ten minutesago. Now you fill that pitcher full quick, and you carry it upstairs,and if you spill a drop there'll be something besides talk."

Flora filled the pitcher, with the tears falling over her cheeks. Shesniveled softly as she went out, balancing it carefully against herslender hip. Sophia followed her.

"Stop crying," said she sharply; "you ought to be ashamed of yourself.What do you suppose Miss Louisa Stark will think. No water in herpitcher in the first place, and then you come back crying as if youdidn't want to get it."

In spite of herself, Sophia's voice was soothing. She was very fond ofthe girl. She followed her up the stairs to the chamber where MissLouisa Stark was waiting for the water to remove the soil of travel.She had removed her bonnet, and its tuft of red geraniums lightened theobscurity of the mahogany dresser. She had placed her little beadedcape carefully on the bed. She was replying to a tremulous remark ofAmanda's, who was nearly fainting from the new mystery of thewater-pitcher, that it was warm and she suffered a good deal in warmweather.

Louisa Stark was stout and solidly built. She was much larger thaneither of the Gill sisters. She was a masterly woman inured to commandfrom years of school-teaching. She carried her swelling bulk withmajesty; even her face, moist and red with the heat, lost nothing ofits dignity of expression.

She was standing in the middle of the floor with an air which gave theeffect of her standing upon an elevation. She turned when Sophia andFlora, carrying the water-pitcher, entered.

"This is my sister Sophia," said Amanda tremulously.

Sophia advanced, shook hands with Miss Louisa Stark and bade herwelcome and hoped she would like her room. Then she moved toward thecloset. "There is a nice large closet in this room—the best closet inthe house. You might have your trunk—" she said, then she stoppedshort.

The closet door was ajar, and a purple garment seemed suddenly to swinginto view as if impelled by some wind.

"Why, here is something left in this closet," Sophia said in amortified tone. "I thought all those things had been taken away."

She pulled down the garment with a jerk, and as she did so Amandapassed her in a weak rush for the door.

"I am afraid your sister is not well," said the school-teacher fromActon. "She looked very pale when you took that dress down. I noticedit at once. Hadn't you better go and see what the matter is? She maybe going to faint."

"She is not subject to fainting spells," replied Sophia, but shefollowed Amanda.

She found her in the room which they occupied together, lying on thebed, very pale and gasping. She leaned over her.

"Amanda, what is the matter; don't you feel well?" she asked.

"I feel a little faint."

Sophia got a camphor bottle and began rubbing her sister's forehead.

"Do you feel better?" she said.

Amanda nodded.

"I guess it was that green apple pie you ate this noon," said Sophia."I declare, what did I do with that dress of Aunt Harriet's? I guessif you feel better I'll just run and get it and take it up garret.I'll stop in here again when I come down. You'd better lay still.Flora can bring you up a cup of tea. I wouldn't try to eat any supper."

Sophia's tone as she left the room was full of loving concern.Presently she returned; she looked disturbed, but angrily so. There wasnot the slightest hint of any fear in her expression.

"I want to know," said she, looking sharply and quickly around, "if Ibrought that purple dress in here, after all?"

"I didn't see you," replied Amanda.

"I must have. It isn't in that chamber, nor the closet. You aren'tlying on it, are you?"

"I lay down before you came in," replied Amanda.

"So you did. Well, I'll go and look again."

Presently Amanda heard her sister's heavy step on the garret stairs.Then she returned with a queer defiant expression on her face.

"I carried it up garret, after all, and put it in the trunk," said,she. "I declare, I forgot it. I suppose your being faint sort of putit out of my head. There it was, folded up just as nice, right where Iput it."

Sophia's mouth was set; her eyes upon her sister's scared, agitatedface were full of hard challenge.

"Yes," murmured Amanda.

"I must go right down and see to that cake," said Sophia, going out ofthe room. "If you don't feel well, you pound on the floor with theumbrella."

Amanda looked after her. She knew that Sophia had not put that purpledress of her dead Aunt Harriet in the trunk in the garret.

Meantime Miss Louisa Stark was settling herself in the southwestchamber. She unpacked her trunk and hung her dresses carefully in thecloset. She filled the bureau drawers with nicely folded linen andsmall articles of dress. She was a very punctilious woman. She put ona black India silk dress with purple flowers. She combed hergrayish-blond hair in smooth ridges back from her broad forehead. Shepinned her lace at her throat with a brooch, very handsome, althoughsomewhat obsolete—a bunch of pearl grapes on black onyx, set in goldfilagree. She had purchased it several years ago with a considerableportion of the stipend from her spring term of school-teaching.

As she surveyed herself in the little swing mirror surmounting theold-fashioned mahogany bureau she suddenly bent forward and lookedclosely at the brooch. It seemed to her that something was wrong withit. As she looked she became sure. Instead of the familiar bunch ofpearl grapes on the black onyx, she saw a knot of blonde and black hairunder glass surrounded by a border of twisted gold. She felt a thrillof horror, though she could not tell why. She unpinned the brooch, andit was her own familiar one, the pearl grapes and the onyx. "How veryfoolish I am," she thought. She thrust the pin in the laces at herthroat and again looked at herself in the glass, and there it wasagain—the knot of blond and black hair and the twisted gold.

Louisa Stark looked at her own large, firm face above the brooch and itwas full of terror and dismay which were new to it. She straightwaybegan to wonder if there could be anything wrong with her mind. Sheremembered that an aunt of her mother's had been insane. A sort offury with herself possessed her. She stared at the brooch in the glasswith eyes at once angry and terrified. Then she removed it again andthere was her own old brooch. Finally she thrust the gold pin throughthe lace again, fastened it and turning a defiant back on the glass,went down to supper.

At the supper table she met the other boarders—the elderly widow, theyoung clergyman and the middle-aged librarian. She viewed the elderlywidow with reserve, the clergyman with respect, the middle-agedlibrarian with suspicion. The latter wore a very youthful shirt-waist,and her hair in a girlish fashion which the school-teacher, who twistedhers severely from the straining roots at the nape of her neck to thesmall, smooth coil at the top, condemned as straining after effects nolonger hers by right.

The librarian, who had a quick acridness of manner, addressed her,asking what room she had, and asked the second time in spite of theschool-teacher's evident reluctance to hear her. She even, since shesat next to her, nudged her familiarly in her rigid black silk side.

"What room are you in, Miss Stark?" said she.

"I am at a loss how to designate the room," replied Miss Stark stiffly.

"Is it the big southwest room?"

"It evidently faces in that direction," said Miss Stark.

The librarian, whose name was Eliza Lippincott, turned abruptly to MissAmanda Gill, over whose delicate face a curious colour compounded offlush and pallour was stealing.

"What room did your aunt die in, Miss Amanda?" asked she abruptly.

Amanda cast a terrified glance at her sister, who was serving a secondplate of pudding for the minister.

"That room," she replied feebly.

"That's what I thought," said the librarian with a certain triumph. "Icalculated that must be the room she died in, for it's the best room inthe house, and you haven't put anybody in it before. Somehow the roomthat anybody has died in lately is generally the last room that anybodyis put in. I suppose YOU are so strong-minded you don't object tosleeping in a room where anybody died a few weeks ago?" she inquired ofLouisa Stark with sharp eyes on her face.

"No, I do not," replied Miss stark with emphasis.

"Nor in the same bed?" persisted Eliza Lippincott with a kittenishreflection.

The young minister looked up from his pudding. He was very spiritual,but he had had poor pickings in his previous boarding place, and hecould not help a certain abstract enjoyment over Miss Gill's cooking.

"You would certainly not be afraid, Miss Lippincott?" he remarked, withhis gentle, almost caressing inflection of tone. "You do not for aminute believe that a higher power would allow any manifestation on thepart of a disembodied spirit—who we trust is in her heavenly home—toharm one of His servants?"

"Oh, Mr. Dunn, of course not," replied Eliza Lippincott with a blush."Of course not. I never meant to imply—"

"I could not believe you did," said the minister gently. He was veryyoung, but he already had a wrinkle of permanent anxiety between hiseyes and a smile of permanent ingratiation on his lips. The lines ofthe smile were as deeply marked as the wrinkle.

"Of course dear Miss Harriet Gill was a professing Christian," remarkedthe widow, "and I don't suppose a professing Christian would come backand scare folks if she could. I wouldn't be a mite afraid to sleep inthat room; I'd rather have it than the one I've got. If I was afraidto sleep in a room where a good woman died, I wouldn't tell of it. IfI saw things or heard things I'd think the fault must be with my ownguilty conscience." Then she turned to Miss Stark. "Any time you feeltimid in that room I'm ready and willing to change with you," said she.

"Thank you; I have no desire to change. I am perfectly satisfied withmy room," replied Miss Stark with freezing dignity, which was thrownaway upon the widow.

"Well," said she, "any time, if you should feel timid, you know what todo. I've got a real nice room; it faces east and gets the morning sun,but it isn't so nice as yours, according to my way of thinking. I'drather take my chances any day in a room anybody had died in than inone that was hot in summer. I'm more afraid of a sunstroke than ofspooks, for my part."

Miss Sophia Gill, who had not spoken one word, but whose mouth hadbecome more and more rigidly compressed, suddenly rose from the table,forcing the minister to leave a little pudding, at which he glancedregretfully.

Miss Louisa Stark did not sit down in the parlour with the otherboarders. She went straight to her room. She felt tired after herjourney, and meditated a loose wrapper and writing a few lettersquietly before she went to bed. Then, too, she was conscious of afeeling that if she delayed, the going there at all might assume moreterrifying proportions. She was full of defiance against herself andher own lurking weakness.

So she went resolutely and entered the southwest chamber. There wasthrough the room a soft twilight. She could dimly discern everything,the white satin scroll-work on the wall paper and the white counterpaneon the bed being most evident. Consequently both arrested herattention first. She saw against the wall-paper directly facing thedoor the waist of her best black satin dress hung over a picture.

"That is very strange," she said to herself, and again a thrill ofvague horror came over her.

She knew, or thought she knew, that she had put that black satin dresswaist away nicely folded between towels in her trunk. She was verychoice of her black satin dress.

She took down the black waist and laid it on the bed preparatory tofolding it, but when she attempted to do so she discovered that the twosleeves were firmly sewed together. Louisa Stark stared at the sewedsleeves. "What does this mean?" she asked herself. She examined thesewing carefully; the stitches were small, and even, and firm, of blacksilk.

She looked around the room. On the stand beside the bed was somethingwhich she had not noticed before: a little old-fashioned work-box witha picture of a little boy in a pinafore on the top. Beside thiswork-box lay, as if just laid down by the user, a spool of black silk,a pair of scissors, and a large steel thimble with a hole in the top,after an old style. Louisa stared at these, then at the sleeves of herdress. She moved toward the door. For a moment she thought that thiswas something legitimate about which she might demand information; thenshe became doubtful. Suppose that work-box had been there all thetime; suppose she had forgotten; suppose she herself had done thisabsurd thing, or suppose that she had not, what was to hinder theothers from thinking so; what was to hinder a doubt being cast upon herown memory and reasoning powers?

Louisa Stark had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown in spite ofher iron constitution and her great will power. No woman can teachschool for forty years with absolute impunity. She was more credulousas to her own possible failings than she had ever been in her wholelife. She was cold with horror and terror, and yet not so much horrorand terror of the supernatural as of her own self. The weakness ofbelief in the supernatural was nearly impossible for this strongnature. She could more easily believe in her own failing powers.

"I don't know but I'm going to be like Aunt Marcia," she said toherself, and her fat face took on a long rigidity of fear.

She started toward the mirror to unfasten her dress, then sheremembered the strange circumstance of the brooch and stopped short.Then she straightened herself defiantly and marched up to the bureauand looked in the glass. She saw reflected therein, fastening the laceat her throat, the old-fashioned thing of a large oval, a knot of fairand black hair under glass, set in a rim of twisted gold. Sheunfastened it with trembling fingers and looked at it. It was her ownbrooch, the cluster of pearl grapes on black onyx. Louisa Stark placedthe trinket in its little box on the nest of pink cotton and put itaway in the bureau drawer. Only death could disturb her habit of order.

Her fingers were so cold they felt fairly numb as she unfastened herdress; she staggered when she slipped it over her head. She went tothe closet to hang it up and recoiled. A strong smell of lovage camein her nostrils; a purple gown near the door swung softly against herface as if impelled by some wind from within. All the pegs were filledwith garments not her own, mostly of somber black, but there were somestrange-patterned silk things and satins.

Suddenly Louisa Stark recovered her nerve. This, she told herself, wassomething distinctly tangible. Somebody had been taking liberties withher wardrobe. Somebody had been hanging some one else's clothes in hercloset. She hastily slipped on her dress again and marched straightdown to the parlour. The people were seated there; the widow and theminister were playing backgammon. The librarian was watching them.Miss Amanda Gill was mending beside the large lamp on the centre table.They all looked up with amazement as Louisa Stark entered. There wassomething strange in her expression. She noticed none of them exceptAmanda.

"Where is your sister?" she asked peremptorily of her.

"She's in the kitchen mixing up bread," Amanda quavered; "is thereanything—" But the school-teacher was gone.

She found Sophia Gill standing by the kitchen table kneading dough withdignity. The young girl Flora was bringing some flour from the pantry.She stopped and stared at Miss Stark, and her pretty, delicate youngface took on an expression of alarm.

Miss Stark opened at once upon the subject in her mind.

"Miss Gill," said she, with her utmost school-teacher manner, "I wishto inquire why you have had my own clothes removed from the closet inmy room and others substituted?"

Sophia Gill stood with her hands fast in the dough, regarding her. Herown face paled slowly and reluctantly, her mouth stiffened.

"What? I don't quite understand what you mean, Miss Stark," said she.

"My clothes are not in the closet in my room and it is full of thingswhich do not belong to me," said Louisa Stark.

"Bring me that flour," said Sophia sharply to the young girl, whoobeyed, casting timid, startled glances at Miss Stark as she passedher. Sophia Gill began rubbing her hands clear of the dough. "I amsure I know nothing about it," she said with a certain temperedasperity. "Do you know anything about it, Flora?"

"Oh, no, I don't know anything about it, Aunt Sophia," answered theyoung girl, fluttering.

Then Sophia turned to Miss Stark. "I'll go upstairs with you, MissStark," said she, "and see what the trouble is. There must be somemistake." She spoke stiffly with constrained civility.

"Very well," said Miss Stark with dignity. Then she and Miss Sophiawent upstairs. Flora stood staring after them.

Sophia and Louisa Stark went up to the southwest chamber. The closetdoor was shut. Sophia threw it open, then she looked at Miss Stark.On the pegs hung the schoolteacher's own garments in ordinary array.

"I can't see that there is anything wrong," remarked Sophia grimly.

Miss Stark strove to speak but she could not. She sank down on thenearest chair. She did not even attempt to defend herself. She sawher own clothes in the closet. She knew there had been no time for anyhuman being to remove those which she thought she had seen and put hersin their places. She knew it was impossible. Again the awful horrorof herself overwhelmed her.

"You must have been mistaken," she heard Sophia say.

She muttered something, she scarcely knew what. Sophia then went outof the room. Presently she undressed and went to bed. In the morningshe did not go down to breakfast, and when Sophia came to inquire,requested that the stage be ordered for the noon train. She said thatshe was sorry, but was ill, and feared lest she might be worse, and shefelt that she must return home at once. She looked ill, and could nottake even the toast and tea which Sophia had prepared for her. Sophiafelt a certain pity for her, but it was largely mixed with indignation.She felt that she knew the true reason for the school-teacher's illnessand sudden departure, and it incensed her.

"If folks are going to act like fools we shall never be able to keepthis house," she said to Amanda after Miss Stark had gone; and Amandaknew what she meant.

Directly the widow, Mrs. Elvira Simmons, knew that the school-teacherhad gone and the southwest room was vacant, she begged to have it inexchange for her own. Sophia hesitated a moment; she eyed the widowsharply. There was something about the large, roseate face worn infirm lines of humour and decision which reassured her.

"I have no objection, Mrs. Simmons," said she, "if—"

"If what?" asked the widow.

"If you have common sense enough not to keep fussing because the roomhappens to be the one my aunt died in," said Sophia bluntly.

"Fiddlesticks!" said the widow, Mrs. Elvira Simmons.

That very afternoon she moved into the southwest chamber. The younggirl Flora assisted her, though much against her will.

"Now I want you to carry Mrs. Simmons' dresses into the closet in thatroom and hang them up nicely, and see that she has everything shewants," said Sophia Gill. "And you can change the bed and put on freshsheets. What are you looking at me that way for?"

"Oh, Aunt Sophia, can't I do something else?"

"What do you want to do something else for?"

"I am afraid."

"Afraid of what? I should think you'd hang your head. No; you goright in there and do what I tell you."

Pretty soon Flora came running into the sitting-room where Sophia was,as pale as death, and in her hand she held a queer, old-fashionedfrilled nightcap.

"What's that?" demanded Sophia.

"I found it under the pillow."

"What pillow?"

"In the southwest room."

Sophia took it and looked at it sternly.

"It's Great-aunt Harriet's," said Flora faintly.

"You run down street and do that errand at the grocer's for me and I'llsee that room," said Sophia with dignity. She carried the nightcapaway and put it in the trunk in the garret where she had supposed itstored with the rest of the dead woman's belongings. Then she went intothe southwest chamber and made the bed and assisted Mrs. Simmons tomove, and there was no further incident.

The widow was openly triumphant over her new room. She talked a dealabout it at the dinner-table.

"It is the best room in the house, and I expect you all to be enviousof me," said she.

"And you are sure you don't feel afraid of ghosts?" said the librarian.

"Ghosts!" repeated the widow with scorn. "If a ghost comes I'll sendher over to you. You are just across the hall from the southwest room."

"You needn't," returned Eliza Lippincott with a shudder. "I wouldn'tsleep in that room, after—" she checked herself with an eye on theminister.

"After what?" asked the widow.

"Nothing," replied Eliza Lippincott in an embarrassed fashion.

"I trust Miss Lippincott has too good sense and too great faith tobelieve in anything of that sort," said the minister.

"I trust so, too," replied Eliza hurriedly.

"You did see or hear something—now what was it, I want to know?" saidthe widow that evening when they were alone in the parlour. Theminister had gone to make a call.

Eliza hesitated.

"What was it?" insisted the widow.

"Well," said Eliza hesitatingly, "if you'll promise not to tell."

"Yes, I promise; what was it?"

"Well, one day last week, just before the school-teacher came, I wentin that room to see if there were any clouds. I wanted to wear my graydress, and I was afraid it was going to rain, so I wanted to look atthe sky at all points, so I went in there, and—"

"And what?"

"Well, you know that chintz over the bed, and the valance, and the easychair; what pattern should you say it was?"

"Why, peacocks on a blue ground. Good land, I shouldn't think any onewho had ever seen that would forget it."

"Peacocks on a blue ground, you are sure?"

"Of course I am. Why?"

"Only when I went in there that afternoon it was not peacocks on a blueground; it was great red roses on a yellow ground."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"What I say."

"Did Miss Sophia have it changed?"

"No. I went in there again an hour later and the peacocks were there."

"You didn't see straight the first time."

"I expected you would say that."

"The peacocks are there now; I saw them just now."

"Yes, I suppose so; I suppose they flew back."

"But they couldn't."

"Looks as if they did."

"Why, how could such a thing be? It couldn't be."

"Well, all I know is those peacocks were gone for an hour thatafternoon and the red roses on the yellow ground were there instead."

The widow stared at her a moment, then she began to laugh ratherhysterically.

"Well," said she, "I guess I sha'n't give up my nice room for any suchtomfoolery as that. I guess I would just as soon have red roses on ayellow ground as peacocks on a blue; but there's no use talking, youcouldn't have seen straight. How could such a thing have happened?"

"I don't know," said Eliza Lippincott; "but I know I wouldn't sleep inthat room if you'd give me a thousand dollars."

"Well, I would," said the widow, "and I'm going to."

When Mrs. Simmons went to the southwest chamber that night she cast aglance at the bed-hanging and the easy chair. There were the peacockson the blue ground. She gave a contemptuous thought to ElizaLippincott.

"I don't believe but she's getting nervous," she thought. "I wonder ifany of her family have been out at all."

But just before Mrs. Simmons was ready to get into bed she looked againat the hangings and the easy chair, and there were the red roses on theyellow ground instead of the peacocks on the blue. She looked long andsharply. Then she shut her eyes, and then opened them and looked. Shestill saw the red roses. Then she crossed the room, turned her back tothe bed, and looked out at the night from the south window. It wasclear and the full moon was shining. She watched it a moment sailingover the dark blue in its nimbus of gold. Then she looked around atthe bed hangings. She still saw the red roses on the yellow ground.

Mrs. Simmons was struck in her most vulnerable point. This apparentcontradiction of the reasonable as manifested in such a commonplacething as chintz of a bed-hanging affected this ordinarily unimaginativewoman as no ghostly appearance could have done. Those red roses on theyellow ground were to her much more ghostly than any strange figureclad in the white robes of the grave entering the room.

She took a step toward the door, then she turned with a resolute air."As for going downstairs and owning up I'm scared and having thatLippincott girl crowing over me, I won't for any red roses instead ofpeacocks. I guess they can't hurt me, and as long as we've both of usseen 'em I guess we can't both be getting loony," she said.

Mrs. Elvira Simmons blew out her light and got into bed and lay staringout between the chintz hangings at the moonlit room. She said herprayers in bed always as being more comfortable, and presumably just asacceptable in the case of a faithful servant with a stout habit ofbody. Then after a little she fell asleep; she was of too practical anature to be kept long awake by anything which had no power of actualbodily effect upon her. No stress of the spirit had ever disturbed herslumbers. So she slumbered between the red roses, or the peacocks, shedid not know which.

But she was awakened about midnight by a strange sensation in herthroat. She had dreamed that some one with long white fingers wasstrangling her, and she saw bending over her the face of an old womanin a white cap. When she waked there was no old woman, the room wasalmost as light as day in the full moonlight, and looked very peaceful;but the strangling sensation at her throat continued, and besides that,her face and ears felt muffled. She put up her hand and felt that herhead was covered with a ruffled nightcap tied under her chin so tightlythat it was exceedingly uncomfortable. A great qualm of horror shotover her. She tore the thing off frantically and flung it from herwith a convulsive effort as if it had been a spider. She gave, as shedid so, a quick, short scream of terror. She sprang out of bed and wasgoing toward the door, when she stopped.

It had suddenly occurred to her that Eliza Lippincott might haveentered the room and tied on the cap while she was asleep. She had notlocked her door. She looked in the closet, under the bed; there was noone there. Then she tried to open the door, but to her astonishmentfound that it was locked—bolted on the inside. "I must have locked it,after all," she reflected with wonder, for she never locked her door.Then she could scarcely conceal from herself that there was somethingout of the usual about it all. Certainly no one could have entered theroom and departed locking the door on the inside. She could notcontrol the long shiver of horror that crept over her, but she wasstill resolute. She resolved that she would throw the cap out of thewindow. "I'll see if I have tricks like that played on me, I don'tcare who does it," said she quite aloud. She was still unable tobelieve wholly in the supernatural. The idea of some human agency wasstill in her mind, filling her with anger.

She went toward the spot where she had thrown the cap—she had steppedover it on her way to the door—but it was not there. She searched thewhole room, lighting her lamp, but she could not find the cap. Finallyshe gave it up. She extinguished her lamp and went back to bed. Shefell asleep again, to be again awakened in the same fashion. That timeshe tore off the cap as before, but she did not fling it on the flooras before. Instead she held to it with a fierce grip. Her blood wasup.

Holding fast to the white flimsy thing, she sprang out of bed, ran tothe window which was open, slipped the screen, and flung it out; but asudden gust of wind, though the night was calm, arose and it floatedback in her face. She brushed it aside like a cobweb and she clutchedat it. She was actually furious. It eluded her clutching fingers.Then she did not see it at all. She examined the floor, she lightedher lamp again and searched, but there was no sign of it.

Mrs. Simmons was then in such a rage that all terror had disappearedfor the time. She did not know with what she was angry, but she had asense of some mocking presence which was silently proving too strongagainst her weakness, and she was aroused to the utmost power ofresistance. To be baffled like this and resisted by something whichwas as nothing to her straining senses filled her with intensestresentment.

Finally she got back into bed again; she did not go to sleep. She feltstrangely drowsy, but she fought against it. She was wide awake,staring at the moonlight, when she suddenly felt the soft white stringsof the thing tighten around her throat and realized that her enemy wasagain upon her. She seized the strings, untied them, twitched off thecap, ran with it to the table where her scissors lay and furiously cutit into small bits. She cut and tore, feeling an insane fury ofgratification.

"There!" said she quite aloud. "I guess I sha'n't have any moretrouble with this old cap."

She tossed the bits of muslin into a basket and went back to bed.Almost immediately she felt the soft strings tighten around her throat.Then at last she yielded, vanquished. This new refutal of all laws ofreason by which she had learned, as it were, to spell her theory oflife, was too much for her equilibrium. She pulled off the clingingstrings feebly, drew the thing from her head, slid weakly out of bed,caught up her wrapper and hastened out of the room. She wentnoiselessly along the hall to her own old room: she entered, got intoher familiar bed, and lay there the rest of the night shuddering andlistening, and if she dozed, waking with a start at the feeling of thepressure upon her throat to find that it was not there, yet still to beunable to shake off entirely the horror.

When daylight came she crept back to the southwest chamber andhurriedly got some clothes in which to dress herself. It took all herresolution to enter the room, but nothing unusual happened while shewas there. She hastened back to her old chamber, dressed herself andwent down to breakfast with an imperturbable face. Her colour had notfaded. When asked by Eliza Lippincott how she had slept, she repliedwith an appearance of calmness which was bewildering that she had notslept very well. She never did sleep very well in a new bed, and shethought she would go back to her old room.

Eliza Lippincott was not deceived, however, neither were the Gillsisters, nor the young girl, Flora. Eliza Lippincott spoke out bluntly.

"You needn't talk to me about sleeping well," said she. "I knowsomething queer happened in that room last night by the way you act."

They all looked at Mrs. Simmons, inquiringly—the librarian withmalicious curiosity and triumph, the minister with sad incredulity,Sophia Gill with fear and indignation, Amanda and the young girl withunmixed terror. The widow bore herself with dignity.

"I saw nothing nor heard nothing which I trust could not have beenaccounted for in some rational manner," said she.

"What was it?" persisted Eliza Lippincott.

"I do not wish to discuss the matter any further," replied Mrs. Simmonsshortly. Then she passed her plate for more creamed potato. She feltthat she would die before she confessed to the ghastly absurdity ofthat nightcap, or to having been disturbed by the flight of peacocksoff a blue field of chintz after she had scoffed at the possibility ofsuch a thing. She left the whole matter so vague that in a fashion shecame off the mistress of the situation. She at all events impressedeverybody by her coolness in the face of no one knew what nightlyterror.

After breakfast, with the assistance of Amanda and Flora, she movedback into her old room. Scarcely a word was spoken during the processof moving, but they all worked with trembling haste and looked guiltywhen they met one another's eyes, as if conscious of betraying a commonfear.

That afternoon the young minister, John Dunn, went to Sophia Gill andrequested permission to occupy the southwest chamber that night.

"I don't ask to have my effects moved there," said he, "for I couldscarcely afford a room so much superior to the one I now occupy, but Iwould like, if you please, to sleep there to-night for the purpose ofrefuting in my own person any unfortunate superstition which may haveobtained root here."

Sophia Gill thanked the minister gratefully and eagerly accepted hisoffer.

"How anybody with common sense can believe for a minute in any suchnonsense passes my comprehension," said she.

"It certainly passes mine how anybody with Christian faith can believein ghosts," said the minister gently, and Sophia Gill felt a certainfeminine contentment in hearing him. The minister was a child to her;she regarded him with no tincture of sentiment, and yet she loved tohear two other women covertly condemned by him and she herself therebyexalted.

That night about twelve o'clock the Reverend John Dunn essayed to go tohis nightly slumber in the southwest chamber. He had been sitting upuntil that hour preparing his sermon.

He traversed the hall with a little night-lamp in his hand, opened thedoor of the southwest chamber, and essayed to enter. He might as wellhave essayed to enter the solid side of a house. He could not believehis senses. The door was certainly open; he could look into the roomfull of soft lights and shadows under the moonlight which streamed intothe windows. He could see the bed in which he had expected to pass thenight, but he could not enter. Whenever he strove to do so he had acurious sensation as if he were trying to press against an invisibleperson who met him with a force of opposition impossible to overcome.The minister was not an athletic man, yet he had considerable strength.He squared his elbows, set his mouth hard, and strove to push his waythrough into the room. The opposition which he met was as sternly andmutely terrible as the rocky fastness of a mountain in his way.

For a half hour John Dunn, doubting, raging, overwhelmed with spiritualagony as to the state of his own soul rather than fear, strove to enterthat southwest chamber. He was simply powerless against this uncannyobstacle. Finally a great horror as of evil itself came over him. Hewas a nervous man and very young. He fairly fled to his own chamberand locked himself in like a terror-stricken girl.

The next morning he went to Miss Gill and told her frankly what hadhappened, and begged her to say nothing about it lest he should haveinjured the cause by the betrayal of such weakness, for he actually hadcome to believe that there was something wrong with the room.

"What it is I know not, Miss Sophia," said he, "but I firmly believe,against my will, that there is in that room some accursed evil power atwork, of which modern faith and modern science know nothing."

Miss Sophia Gill listened with grimly lowering face. She had an inbornrespect for the clergy, but she was bound to hold that southwestchamber in the dearly beloved old house of her fathers free of blame.

"I think I will sleep in that room myself to-night," she said, when theminister had finished.

He looked at her in doubt and dismay.

"I have great admiration for your faith and courage, Miss Sophia," hesaid, "but are you wise?"

"I am fully resolved to sleep in that room to-night," said sheconclusively. There were occasions when Miss Sophia Gill could put ona manner of majesty, and she did now.

It was ten o'clock that night when Sophia Gill entered the southwestchamber. She had told her sister what she intended doing and had beenproof against her tearful entreaties. Amanda was charged not to tellthe young girl, Flora.

"There is no use in frightening that child over nothing," said Sophia.

Sophia, when she entered the southwest chamber, set the lamp which shecarried on the bureau, and began moving about the rooms pulling downthe curtains, taking off the nice white counterpane of the bed, andpreparing generally for the night.

As she did so, moving with great coolness and deliberation, she becameconscious that she was thinking some thoughts that were foreign to her.She began remembering what she could not have remembered, since she wasnot then born: the trouble over her mother's marriage, the bitteropposition, the shutting the door upon her, the ostracizing her fromheart and home. She became aware of a most singular sensation as ofbitter resentment herself, and not against the mother and sister whohad so treated her own mother, but against her own mother, and then shebecame aware of a like bitterness extended to her own self. She feltmalignant toward her mother as a young girl whom she remembered, thoughshe could not have remembered, and she felt malignant toward her ownself, and her sister Amanda, and Flora. Evil suggestions surged in herbrain—suggestions which turned her heart to stone and which stillfascinated her. And all the time by a sort of double consciousness sheknew that what she thought was strange and not due to her own volition.She knew that she was thinking the thoughts of some other person, andshe knew who. She felt herself possessed.

But there was tremendous strength in the woman's nature. She hadinherited strength for good and righteous self-assertion, from the evilstrength of her ancestors. They had turned their own weapons againstthemselves. She made an effort which seemed almost mortal, but wasconscious that the hideous thing was gone from her. She thought herown thoughts. Then she scouted to herself the idea of anythingsupernatural about the terrific experience. "I am imaginingeverything," she told herself. She went on with her preparations; shewent to the bureau to take down her hair. She looked in the glass andsaw, instead of her softly parted waves of hair, harsh lines ofiron-gray under the black borders of an old-fashioned head-dress. Shesaw instead of her smooth, broad forehead, a high one wrinkled with theintensest concentration of selfish reflections of a long life; she sawinstead of her steady blue eyes, black ones with depths of malignantreserve, behind a broad meaning of ill will; she saw instead of herfirm, benevolent mouth one with a hard, thin line, a network ofmelancholic wrinkles. She saw instead of her own face, middle-aged andgood to see, the expression of a life of honesty and good will toothers and patience under trials, the face of a very old woman scowlingforever with unceasing hatred and misery at herself and all others, atlife, and death, at that which had been and that which was to come.She saw instead of her own face in the glass, the face of her dead AuntHarriet, topping her own shoulders in her own well-known dress!

Sophia Gill left the room. She went into the one which she shared withher sister Amanda. Amanda looked up and saw her standing there. Shehad set the lamp on a table, and she stood holding a handkerchief overher face. Amanda looked at her with terror.

"What is it? What is it, Sophia?" she gasped.

Sophia still stood with the handkerchief pressed to her face.

"Oh, Sophia, let me call somebody. Is your face hurt? Sophia, what isthe matter with your face?" fairly shrieked Amanda.

Suddenly Sophia took the handkerchief from her face.

"Look at me, Amanda Gill," she said in an awful voice.

Amanda looked, shrinking.

"What is it? Oh, what is it? You don't look hurt. What is it,Sophia?"

"What do you see?"

"Why, I see you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. What did you think I would see?"

Sophia Gill looked at her sister. "Never as long as I live will I tellyou what I thought you would see, and you must never ask me," said she.

"Well, I never will, Sophia," replied Amanda, half weeping with terror.

"You won't try to sleep in that room again, Sophia?"

"No," said Sophia; "and I am going to sell this house."

THE VACANT LOT

When it became generally known in Townsend Centre that the Townsendswere going to move to the city, there was great excitement and dismay.For the Townsends to move was about equivalent to the town's moving.The Townsend ancestors had founded the village a hundred years ago.The first Townsend had kept a wayside hostelry for man and beast, knownas the "Sign of the Leopard." The sign-board, on which the leopard waspainted a bright blue, was still extant, and prominently so, beingnailed over the present Townsend's front door. This Townsend, by nameDavid, kept the village store. There had been no tavern since therailroad was built through Townsend Centre in his father's day.Therefore the family, being ousted by the march of progress from theirchosen employment, took up with a general country store as being thenext thing to a country tavern, the principal difference consisting inthe fact that all the guests were transients, never requiringbedchambers, securing their rest on the tops of sugar and flour barrelsand codfish boxes, and their refreshment from stray nibblings at thestock in trade, to the profitless deplenishment of raisins and loafsugar and crackers and cheese.

The flitting of the Townsends from the home of their ancestors was dueto a sudden access of wealth from the death of a relative and thedesire of Mrs. Townsend to secure better advantages for her son George,sixteen years old, in the way of education, and for her daughterAdrianna, ten years older, better matrimonial opportunities. However,this last inducement for leaving Townsend Centre was not openly stated,only ingeniously surmised by the neighbours.

"Sarah Townsend don't think there's anybody in Townsend Centre fit forher Adrianna to marry, and so she's goin' to take her to Boston to seeif she can't pick up somebody there," they said. Then they wonderedwhat Abel Lyons would do. He had been a humble suitor for Adrianna foryears, but her mother had not approved, and Adrianna, who was dutiful,had repulsed him delicately and rather sadly. He was the only loverwhom she had ever had, and she felt sorry and grateful; she was aplain, awkward girl, and had a patient recognition of the fact.

But her mother was ambitious, more so than her father, who was ratherpugnaciously satisfied with what he had, and not easily disposed tochange. However, he yielded to his wife and consented to sell out hisbusiness and purchase a house in Boston and move there.

David Townsend was curiously unlike the line of ancestors from whom hehad come. He had either retrograded or advanced, as one might look atit. His moral character was certainly better, but he had not the fieryspirit and eager grasp at advantage which had distinguished them.Indeed, the old Townsends, though prominent and respected as men ofproperty and influence, had reputations not above suspicions. Therewas more than one dark whisper regarding them handed down from motherto son in the village, and especially was this true of the firstTownsend, he who built the tavern bearing the Sign of the Blue Leopard.His portrait, a hideous effort of contemporary art, hung in the garretof David Townsend's home. There was many a tale of wild roistering, ifno worse, in that old roadhouse, and high stakes, and quarreling incups, and blows, and money gotten in evil fashion, and the matterhushed up with a high hand for inquirers by the imperious Townsends whoterrorized everybody. David Townsend terrorized nobody. He had gottenhis little competence from his store by honest methods—the exchangingof sterling goods and true weights for country produce and countryshillings. He was sober and reliable, with intense self-respect and adecided talent for the management of money. It was principally forthis reason that he took great delight in his sudden wealth by legacy.He had thereby greater opportunities for the exercise of his nativeshrewdness in a bargain. This he evinced in his purchase of a house inBoston.

One day in spring the old Townsend house was shut up, the Blue Leopardwas taken carefully down from his lair over the front door, the familychattels were loaded on the train, and the Townsends departed. It wasa sad and eventful day for Townsend Centre. A man from Barre hadrented the store—David had decided at the last not to sell—and theold familiars congregated in melancholy fashion and talked over thesituation. An enormous pride over their departed townsman becameevident. They paraded him, flaunting him like a banner in the eyes ofthe new man. "David is awful smart," they said; "there won't nobodyget the better of him in the city if he has lived in Townsend Centreall his life. He's got his eyes open. Know what he paid for his housein Boston? Well, sir, that house cost twenty-five thousand dollars, andDavid he bought it for five. Yes, sir, he did."

"Must have been some out about it," remarked the new man, scowling overhis counter. He was beginning to feel his disparaging situation.

"Not an out, sir. David he made sure on't. Catch him gettin' bit.Everythin' was in apple-pie order, hot an' cold water and all, and inone of the best locations of the city—real high-up street. David hesaid the rent in that street was never under a thousand. Yes, sir,David he got a bargain—five thousand dollars for atwenty-five-thousand-dollar house."

"Some out about it!" growled the new man over the counter.

However, as his fellow townsmen and allies stated, there seemed to beno doubt about the desirableness of the city house which David Townsendhad purchased and the fact that he had secured it for an absurdly lowprice. The whole family were at first suspicious. It was ascertainedthat the house had cost a round sum only a few years ago; it was inperfect repair; nothing whatever was amiss with plumbing, furnace,anything. There was not even a soap factory within smelling distance,as Mrs. Townsend had vaguely surmised. She was sure that she had heardof houses being undesirable for such reasons, but there was no soapfactory. They all sniffed and peeked; when the first rainfall camethey looked at the ceiling, confidently expecting to see dark spotswhere the leaks had commenced, but there were none. They were forcedto confess that their suspicions were allayed, that the house wasperfect, even overshadowed with the mystery of a lower price than itwas worth. That, however, was an additional perfection in the opinionof the Townsends, who had their share of New England thrift. They hadlived just one month in their new house, and were happy, although attimes somewhat lonely from missing the society of Townsend Centre, whenthe trouble began. The Townsends, although they lived in a fine housein a genteel, almost fashionable, part of the city, were true to theirantecedents and kept, as they had been accustomed, only one maid. Shewas the daughter of a farmer on the outskirts of their native village,was middle-aged, and had lived with them for the last ten years. Onepleasant Monday morning she rose early and did the family washingbefore breakfast, which had been prepared by Mrs. Townsend andAdrianna, as was their habit on washing-days. The family were seatedat the breakfast table in their basement dining-room, and this maid,whose name was Cordelia, was hanging out the clothes in the vacant lot.This vacant lot seemed a valuable one, being on a corner. It wasrather singular that it had not been built upon. The Townsends hadwondered at it and agreed that they would have preferred their ownhouse to be there. They had, however, utilized it as far as possiblewith their innocent, rural disregard of property rights in unoccupiedland.

"We might just as well hang out our washing in that vacant lot," Mrs.Townsend had told Cordelia the first Monday of their stay in the house."Our little yard ain't half big enough for all our clothes, and it issunnier there, too."

So Cordelia had hung out the wash there for four Mondays, and this wasthe fifth. The breakfast was about half finished—they had reached thebuckwheat cakes—when this maid came rushing into the dining-room andstood regarding them, speechless, with a countenance indicative of theutmost horror. She was deadly pale. Her hands, sodden with soapsuds,hung twitching at her sides in the folds of her calico gown; her veryhair, which was light and sparse, seemed to bristle with fear. All theTownsends turned and looked at her. David and George rose with ahalf-defined idea of burglars.

"Cordelia Battles, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Townsend. Adriannagasped for breath and turned as white as the maid. "What is thematter?" repeated Mrs. Townsend, but the maid was unable to speak.Mrs. Townsend, who could be peremptory, sprang up, ran to thefrightened woman and shook her violently. "Cordelia Battles, youspeak," said she, "and not stand there staring that way, as if you werestruck dumb! What is the matter with you?"

Then Cordelia spoke in a fainting voice.

"There's—somebody else—hanging out clothes—in the vacant lot," shegasped, and clutched at a chair for support.

"Who?" cried Mrs. Townsend, rousing to indignation, for already she hadassumed a proprietorship in the vacant lot. "Is it the folks in thenext house? I'd like to know what right they have! We are next tothat vacant lot."

"I—dunno—who it is," gasped Cordelia. "Why, we've seen that girlnext door go to mass every morning," said Mrs. Townsend. "She's got afiery red head. Seems as if you might know her by this time, Cordelia."

"It ain't that girl," gasped Cordelia. Then she added in ahorror-stricken voice, "I couldn't see who 'twas."

They all stared.

"Why couldn't you see?" demanded her mistress. "Are you struck blind?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then why couldn't you see?"

"All I could see was—" Cordelia hesitated, with an expression of theutmost horror.

"Go on," said Mrs. Townsend, impatiently.

"All I could see was the shadow of somebody, very slim, hanging out theclothes, and—"

"What?"

"I could see the shadows of the things flappin' on their line."

"You couldn't see the clothes?"

"Only the shadow on the ground."

"What kind of clothes were they?"

"Queer," replied Cordelia, with a shudder.

"If I didn't know you so well, I should think you had been drinking,"said Mrs. Townsend. "Now, Cordelia Battles, I'm going out in thatvacant lot and see myself what you're talking about."

"I can't go," gasped the woman.

With that Mrs. Townsend and all the others, except Adrianna, whoremained to tremble with the maid, sallied forth into the vacant lot.They had to go out the area gate into the street to reach it. It wasnothing unusual in the way of vacant lots. One large poplar tree, therelic of the old forest which had once flourished there, twinkled inone corner; for the rest, it was overgrown with coarse weeds and a fewdusty flowers. The Townsends stood just inside the rude board fencewhich divided the lot from the street and stared with wonder andhorror, for Cordelia had told the truth. They all saw what she haddescribed—the shadow of an exceedingly slim woman moving along theground with up-stretched arms, the shadows of strange, nondescriptgarments flapping from a shadowy line, but when they looked up for thesubstance of the shadows nothing was to be seen except the clear, blueOctober air.

"My goodness!" gasped Mrs. Townsend. Her face assumed a strangegathering of wrath in the midst of her terror. Suddenly she made adetermined move forward, although her husband strove to hold her back.

"You let me be," said she. She moved forward. Then she recoiled andgave a loud shriek. "The wet sheet flapped in my face," she cried."Take me away, take me away!" Then she fainted. Between them they gother back to the house. "It was awful," she moaned when she came toherself, with the family all around her where she lay on thedining-room floor. "Oh, David, what do you suppose it is?"

"Nothing at all," replied David Townsend stoutly. He was remarkablefor courage and staunch belief in actualities. He was now denying tohimself that he had seen anything unusual.

"Oh, there was," moaned his wife.

"I saw something," said George, in a sullen, boyish bass.

The maid sobbed convulsively and so did Adrianna for sympathy.

"We won't talk any about it," said David. "Here, Jane, you drink thishot tea—it will do you good; and Cordelia, you hang out the clothes inour own yard. George, you go and put up the line for her."

"The line is out there," said George, with a jerk of his shoulder.

"Are you afraid?"

"No, I ain't," replied the boy resentfully, and went out with a paleface.

After that Cordelia hung the Townsend wash in the yard of their ownhouse, standing always with her back to the vacant lot. As for DavidTownsend, he spent a good deal of his time in the lot watching theshadows, but he came to no explanation, although he strove to satisfyhimself with many.

"I guess the shadows come from the smoke from our chimneys, or else thepoplar tree," he said.

"Why do the shadows come on Monday mornings, and no other?" demandedhis wife.

David was silent.

Very soon new mysteries arose. One day Cordelia rang the dinner-bellat their usual dinner hour, the same as in Townsend Centre, high noon,and the family assembled. With amazement Adrianna looked at the disheson the table.

"Why, that's queer!" she said.

"What's queer?" asked her mother.

Cordelia stopped short as she was about setting a tumbler of waterbeside a plate, and the water slopped over.

"Why," said Adrianna, her face paling, "I—thought there was boileddinner. I—smelt cabbage cooking."

"I knew there would something else come up," gasped Cordelia, leaninghard on the back of Adrianna's chair.

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Townsend sharply, but her own face beganto assume the shocked pallour which it was so easy nowadays for alltheir faces to assume at the merest suggestion of anything out of thecommon.

"I smelt cabbage cooking all the morning up in my room," Adrianna saidfaintly, "and here's codfish and potatoes for dinner."

The Townsends all looked at one another. David rose with anexclamation and rushed out of the room. The others waited tremblingly.When he came back his face was lowering.

"What did you—" Mrs. Townsend asked hesitatingly.

"There's some smell of cabbage out there," he admitted reluctantly.Then he looked at her with a challenge. "It comes from the nexthouse," he said. "Blows over our house."

"Our house is higher."

"I don't care; you can never account for such things."

"Cordelia," said Mrs. Townsend, "you go over to the next house and youask if they've got cabbage for dinner."

Cordelia switched out of the room, her mouth set hard. She came backpromptly.

"Says they never have cabbage," she announced with gloomy triumph and aconclusive glance at Mr. Townsend. "Their girl was real sassy."

"Oh, father, let's move away; let's sell the house," cried Adrianna ina panic-stricken tone.

"If you think I'm going to sell a house that I got as cheap as this onebecause we smell cabbage in a vacant lot, you're mistaken," repliedDavid firmly.

"It isn't the cabbage alone," said Mrs. Townsend.

"And a few shadows," added David. "I am tired of such nonsense. Ithought you had more sense, Jane."

"One of the boys at school asked me if we lived in the house next tothe vacant lot on Wells Street and whistled when I said 'Yes,'"remarked George.

"Let him whistle," said Mr. Townsend.

After a few hours the family, stimulated by Mr. Townsend's calm, commonsense, agreed that it was exceedingly foolish to be disturbed by amysterious odour of cabbage. They even laughed at themselves.

"I suppose we have got so nervous over those shadows hanging outclothes that we notice every little thing," conceded Mrs. Townsend.

"You will find out some day that that is no more to be regarded thanthe cabbage," said her husband.

"You can't account for that wet sheet hitting my face," said Mrs.Townsend, doubtfully.

"You imagined it."

"I FELT it."

That afternoon things went on as usual in the household until nearlyfour o'clock. Adrianna went downtown to do some shopping. Mrs.Townsend sat sewing beside the bay window in her room, which was afront one in the third story. George had not got home. Mr. Townsendwas writing a letter in the library. Cordelia was busy in thebasement; the twilight, which was coming earlier and earlier everynight, was beginning to gather, when suddenly there was a loud crashwhich shook the house from its foundations. Even the dishes on thesideboard rattled, and the glasses rang like bells. The pictures on thewalls of Mrs. Townsend's room swung out from the walls. But that wasnot all: every looking-glass in the house cracked simultaneously—asnearly as they could judge—from top to bottom, then shivered intofragments over the floors. Mrs. Townsend was too frightened to scream.She sat huddled in her chair, gasping for breath, her eyes, rollingfrom side to side in incredulous terror, turned toward the street. Shesaw a great black group of people crossing it just in front of thevacant lot. There was something inexpressibly strange and gloomy aboutthis moving group; there was an effect of sweeping, wavings andfoldings of sable draperies and gleams of deadly white faces; then theypassed. She twisted her head to see, and they disappeared in thevacant lot. Mr. Townsend came hurrying into the room; he was pale, andlooked at once angry and alarmed.

"Did you fall?" he asked inconsequently, as if his wife, who was small,could have produced such a manifestation by a fall.

"Oh, David, what is it?" whispered Mrs. Townsend.

"Darned if I know!" said David.

"Don't swear. It's too awful. Oh, see the looking-glass, David!"

"I see it. The one over the library mantel is broken, too."

"Oh, it is a sign of death!"

Cordelia's feet were heard as she staggered on the stairs. She almostfell into the room. She reeled over to Mr. Townsend and clutched hisarm. He cast a sidewise glance, half furious, half commiserating ather.

"Well, what is it all about?" he asked.

"I don't know. What is it? Oh, what is it? The looking-glass in thekitchen is broken. All over the floor. Oh, oh! What is it?"

"I don't know any more than you do. I didn't do it."

"Lookin'-glasses broken is a sign of death in the house," saidCordelia. "If it's me, I hope I'm ready; but I'd rather die than be soscared as I've been lately."

Mr. Townsend shook himself loose and eyed the two trembling women withgathering resolution.

"Now, look here, both of you," he said. "This is nonsense. You'll diesure enough of fright if you keep on this way. I was a fool myself tobe startled. Everything it is is an earthquake."

"Oh, David!" gasped his wife, not much reassured.

"It is nothing but an earthquake," persisted Mr. Townsend. "It actedjust like that. Things always are broken on the walls, and the middleof the room isn't affected. I've read about it."

Suddenly Mrs. Townsend gave a loud shriek and pointed.

"How do you account for that," she cried, "if it's an earthquake? Oh,oh, oh!"

She was on the verge of hysterics. Her husband held her firmly by thearm as his eyes followed the direction of her rigid pointing finger.Cordelia looked also, her eyes seeming converged to a bright point offear. On the floor in front of the broken looking-glass lay a mass ofblack stuff in a grewsome long ridge.

"It's something you dropped there," almost shouted Mr. Townsend.

"It ain't. Oh!"

Mr. Townsend dropped his wife's arm and took one stride toward theobject. It was a very long crape veil. He lifted it, and it floatedout from his arm as if imbued with electricity.

"It's yours," he said to his wife.

"Oh, David, I never had one. You know, oh, you knowI—shouldn't—unless you died. How came it there?"

"I'm darned if I know," said David, regarding it. He was deadly pale,but still resentful rather than afraid.

"Don't hold it; don't!"

"I'd like to know what in thunder all this means?" said David. He gavethe thing an angry toss and it fell on the floor in exactly the samelong heap as before.

Cordelia began to weep with racking sobs. Mrs. Townsend reached outand caught her husband's hand, clutching it hard with ice-cold fingers.

"What's got into this house, anyhow?" he growled.

"You'll have to sell it. Oh, David, we can't live here."

"As for my selling a house I paid only five thousand for when it'sworth twenty-five, for any such nonsense as this, I won't!"

David gave one stride toward the black veil, but it rose from the floorand moved away before him across the room at exactly the same height asif suspended from a woman's head. He pursued it, clutching vainly, allaround the room, then he swung himself on his heel with an exclamationand the thing fell to the floor again in the long heap. Then wereheard hurrying feet on the stairs and Adrianna burst into the room.She ran straight to her father and clutched his arm; she tried tospeak, but she chattered unintelligibly; her face was blue. Her fathershook her violently.

"Adrianna, do have more sense!" he cried.

"Oh, David, how can you talk so?" sobbed her mother.

"I can't help it. I'm mad!" said he with emphasis. "What has got intothis house and you all, anyhow?"

"What is it, Adrianna, poor child," asked her mother. "Only look whathas happened here."

"It's an earthquake," said her father staunchly; "nothing to be afraidof."

"How do you account for THAT?" said Mrs. Townsend in an awful voice,pointing to the veil.

Adrianna did not look—she was too engrossed with her own terrors. Shebegan to speak in a breathless voice.

"I—was—coming—by the vacant lot," she panted, "and—I—I—had my newhat in a paper bag and—a parcel of blue ribbon, and—I saw a crowd, anawful—oh! a whole crowd of people with white faces, as if—they weredressed all in black."

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know. Oh!" Adrianna sank gasping feebly into a chair.

"Get her some water, David," sobbed her mother.

David rushed with an impatient exclamation out of the room and returnedwith a glass of water which he held to his daughter's lips.

"Here, drink this!" he said roughly.

"Oh, David, how can you speak so?" sobbed his wife.

"I can't help it. I'm mad clean through," said David.

Then there was a hard bound upstairs, and George entered. He was verywhite, but he grinned at them with an appearance of unconcern.

"Hullo!" he said in a shaking voice, which he tried to control. "Whaton earth's to pay in that vacant lot now?"

"Well, what is it?" demanded his father.

"Oh, nothing, only—well, there are lights over it exactly as if therewas a house there, just about where the windows would be. It looked asif you could walk right in, but when you look close there are those olddried-up weeds rattling away on the ground the same as ever. I lookedat it and couldn't believe my eyes. A woman saw it, too. She camealong just as I did. She gave one look, then she screeched and ran. Iwaited for some one else, but nobody came."

Mr. Townsend rushed out of the room.

"I daresay it'll be gone when he gets there," began George, then hestared round the room. "What's to pay here?" he cried.

"Oh, George, the whole house shook all at once, and all thelooking-glasses broke," wailed his mother, and Adrianna and Cordeliajoined.

George whistled with pale lips. Then Mr. Townsend entered.

"Well," asked George, "see anything?"

"I don't want to talk," said his father. "I've stood just aboutenough."

"We've got to sell out and go back to Townsend Centre," cried his wifein a wild voice. "Oh, David, say you'll go back."

"I won't go back for any such nonsense as this, and sell a twenty-fivethousand dollar house for five thousand," said he firmly.

But that very night his resolution was shaken. The whole familywatched together in the dining-room. They were all afraid to go tobed—that is, all except possibly Mr. Townsend. Mrs. Townsend declaredfirmly that she for one would leave that awful house and go back toTownsend Centre whether he came or not, unless they all stayed togetherand watched, and Mr. Townsend yielded. They chose the dining-room forthe reason that it was nearer the street should they wish to make theiregress hurriedly, and they took up their station around thedining-table on which Cordelia had placed a luncheon.

"It looks exactly as if we were watching with a corpse," she said in ahorror-stricken whisper.

"Hold your tongue if you can't talk sense," said Mr. Townsend.

The dining-room was very large, finished in oak, with a dark blue paperabove the wainscotting. The old sign of the tavern, the Blue Leopard,hung over the mantel-shelf. Mr. Townsend had insisted on hanging itthere. He had a curious pride in it. The family sat together untilafter midnight and nothing unusual happened. Mrs. Townsend began tonod; Mr. Townsend read the paper ostentatiously. Adrianna and Cordeliastared with roving eyes about the room, then at each other as ifcomparing notes on terror. George had a book which he studiedfurtively. All at once Adrianna gave a startled exclamation andCordelia echoed her. George whistled faintly. Mrs. Townsend awoke witha start and Mr. Townsend's paper rattled to the floor.

"Look!" gasped Adrianna.

The sign of the Blue Leopard over the shelf glowed as if a lantern hungover it. The radiance was thrown from above. It grew brighter andbrighter as they watched. The Blue Leopard seemed to crouch and springwith life. Then the door into the front hall opened—the outer door,which had been carefully locked. It squeaked and they all recognizedit. They sat staring. Mr. Townsend was as transfixed as the rest.They heard the outer door shut, then the door into the room swung openand slowly that awful black group of people which they had seen in theafternoon entered. The Townsends with one accord rose and huddledtogether in a far corner; they all held to each other and stared. Thepeople, their faces gleaming with a whiteness of death, their blackrobes waving and folding, crossed the room. They were a trifle abovemortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them. Theyreached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black-drapedlong arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker.Then the whole company passed out of sight, as if through the wall, andthe room was as before. Mrs. Townsend was shaking in a nervous chill,Adrianna was almost fainting, Cordelia was in hysterics. DavidTownsend stood glaring in a curious way at the sign of the BlueLeopard. George stared at him with a look of horror. There wassomething in his father's face which made him forget everything else.At last he touched his arm timidly.

"Father," he whispered.

David turned and regarded him with a look of rage and fury, then hisface cleared; he passed his hand over his forehead.

"Good Lord! What DID come to me?" he muttered.

"You looked like that awful picture of old Tom Townsend in the garretin Townsend Centre, father," whimpered the boy, shuddering.

"Should think I might look like 'most any old cuss after such darnedwork as this," growled David, but his face was white. "Go and pour outsome hot tea for your mother," he ordered the boy sharply. He himselfshook Cordelia violently. "Stop such actions!" he shouted in her ears,and shook her again. "Ain't you a church member?" he demanded; "whatbe you afraid of? You ain't done nothin' wrong, have ye?"

Then Cordelia quoted Scripture in a burst of sobs and laughter.

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceiveme," she cried out. "If I ain't done wrong, mebbe them that's comebefore me did, and when the Evil One and the Powers of Darkness isabroad I'm liable, I'm liable!" Then she laughed loud and long andshrill.

"If you don't hush up," said David, but still with that white terrorand horror on his own face, "I'll bundle you out in that vacant lotwhether or no. I mean it."

Then Cordelia was quiet, after one wild roll of her eyes at him. Thecolour was returning to Adrianna's cheeks; her mother was drinking hottea in spasmodic gulps.

"It's after midnight," she gasped, "and I don't believe they'll comeagain to-night. Do you, David?"

"No, I don't," said David conclusively.

"Oh, David, we mustn't stay another night in this awful house."

"We won't. To-morrow we'll pack off bag and baggage to TownsendCentre, if it takes all the fire department to move us," said David.

Adrianna smiled in the midst of her terror. She thought of Abel Lyons.

The next day Mr. Townsend went to the real estate agent who had soldhim the house.

"It's no use," he said, "I can't stand it. Sell the house for what youcan get. I'll give it away rather than keep it."

Then he added a few strong words as to his opinion of parties who soldhim such an establishment. But the agent pleaded innocent for the mostpart.

"I'll own I suspected something wrong when the owner, who pledged me tosecrecy as to his name, told me to sell that place for what I couldget, and did not limit me. I had never heard anything, but I began tosuspect something was wrong. Then I made a few inquiries and found outthat there was a rumour in the neighbourhood that there was somethingout of the usual about that vacant lot. I had wondered myself why itwasn't built upon. There was a story about it's being undertaken once,and the contract made, and the contractor dying; then another man tookit and one of the workmen was killed on his way to dig the cellar, andthe others struck. I didn't pay much attention to it. I neverbelieved much in that sort of thing anyhow, and then, too, I couldn'tfind out that there had ever been anything wrong about the houseitself, except as the people who had lived there were said to have seenand heard queer things in the vacant lot, so I thought you might beable to get along, especially as you didn't look like a man who wastimid, and the house was such a bargain as I never handled before. Butthis you tell me is beyond belief."

"Do you know the names of the people who formerly owned the vacantlot?" asked Mr. Townsend.

"I don't know for certain," replied the agent, "for the original ownersflourished long before your or my day, but I do know that the lot goesby the name of the old Gaston lot. What's the matter? Are you ill?"

"No; it is nothing," replied Mr. Townsend. "Get what you can for thehouse; perhaps another family might not be as troubled as we have been."

"I hope you are not going to leave the city?" said the agent, urbanely.

"I am going back to Townsend Centre as fast as steam can carry me afterwe get packed up and out of that cursed house," replied Mr. DavidTownsend.

He did not tell the agent nor any of his family what had caused him tostart when told the name of the former owners of the lot. Heremembered all at once the story of a ghastly murder which had takenplace in the Blue Leopard. The victim's name was Gaston and themurderer had never been discovered.

THE LOST GHOST

Mrs. John Emerson, sitting with her needlework beside the window,looked out and saw Mrs. Rhoda Meserve coming down the street, and knewat once by the trend of her steps and the cant of her head that shemeditated turning in at her gate. She also knew by a certain somethingabout her general carriage—a thrusting forward of the neck, a bustlinghitch of the shoulders—that she had important news. Rhoda Meservealways had the news as soon as the news was in being, and generallyMrs. John Emerson was the first to whom she imparted it. The two womenhad been friends ever since Mrs. Meserve had married Simon Meserve andcome to the village to live.

Mrs. Meserve was a pretty woman, moving with graceful flirts ofruffling skirts; her clear-cut, nervous face, as delicately tinted as ashell, looked brightly from the plumy brim of a black hat at Mrs.Emerson in the window. Mrs. Emerson was glad to see her coming. Shereturned the greeting with enthusiasm, then rose hurriedly, ran intothe cold parlour and brought out one of the best rocking-chairs. Shewas just in time, after drawing it up beside the opposite window, togreet her friend at the door.

"Good-afternoon," said she. "I declare, I'm real glad to see you. I'vebeen alone all day. John went to the city this morning. I thought ofcoming over to your house this afternoon, but I couldn't bring mysewing very well. I am putting the ruffles on my new black dressskirt."

"Well, I didn't have a thing on hand except my crochet work," respondedMrs. Meserve, "and I thought I'd just run over a few minutes."

"I'm real glad you did," repeated Mrs. Emerson. "Take your thingsright off. Here, I'll put them on my bed in the bedroom. Take therocking-chair."

Mrs. Meserve settled herself in the parlour rocking-chair, while Mrs.Emerson carried her shawl and hat into the little adjoining bedroom.When she returned Mrs. Meserve was rocking peacefully and was alreadyat work hooking blue wool in and out.

"That's real pretty," said Mrs. Emerson.

"Yes, I think it's pretty," replied Mrs. Meserve.

"I suppose it's for the church fair?"

"Yes. I don't suppose it'll bring enough to pay for the worsted, letalone the work, but I suppose I've got to make something."

"How much did that one you made for the fair last year bring?"

"Twenty-five cents."

"It's wicked, ain't it?"

"I rather guess it is. It takes me a week every minute I can get tomake one. I wish those that bought such things for twenty-five centshad to make them. Guess they'd sing another song. Well, I suppose Ioughtn't to complain as long as it is for the Lord, but sometimes itdoes seem as if the Lord didn't get much out of it."

"Well, it's pretty work," said Mrs. Emerson, sitting down at theopposite window and taking up her dress skirt.

"Yes, it is real pretty work. I just LOVE to crochet."

The two women rocked and sewed and crocheted in silence for two orthree minutes. They were both waiting. Mrs. Meserve waited for theother's curiosity to develop in order that her news might have, as itwere, a befitting stage entrance. Mrs. Emerson waited for the news.Finally she could wait no longer.

"Well, what's the news?" said she.

"Well, I don't know as there's anything very particular," hedged theother woman, prolonging the situation.

"Yes, there is; you can't cheat me," replied Mrs. Emerson.

"Now, how do you know?"

"By the way you look."

Mrs. Meserve laughed consciously and rather vainly.

"Well, Simon says my face is so expressive I can't hide anything morethan five minutes no matter how hard I try," said she. "Well, there issome news. Simon came home with it this noon. He heard it in SouthDayton. He had some business over there this morning. The old Sargentplace is let."

Mrs. Emerson dropped her sewing and stared.

"You don't say so!"

"Yes, it is."

"Who to?"

"Why, some folks from Boston that moved to South Dayton last year. Theyhaven't been satisfied with the house they had there—it wasn't largeenough. The man has got considerable property and can afford to livepretty well. He's got a wife and his unmarried sister in the family.The sister's got money, too. He does business in Boston and it's justas easy to get to Boston from here as from South Dayton, and so they'recoming here. You know the old Sargent house is a splendid place."

"Yes, it's the handsomest house in town, but—"

"Oh, Simon said they told him about that and he just laughed. Said hewasn't afraid and neither was his wife and sister. Said he'd riskghosts rather than little tucked-up sleeping-rooms without any sun,like they've had in the Dayton house. Said he'd rather risk SEEINGghosts, than risk being ghosts themselves. Simon said they said he wasa great hand to joke."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Emerson, "it is a beautiful house, and maybethere isn't anything in those stories. It never seemed to me they camevery straight anyway. I never took much stock in them. All I thoughtwas—if his wife was nervous."

"Nothing in creation would hire me to go into a house that I'd everheard a word against of that kind," declared Mrs. Meserve withemphasis. "I wouldn't go into that house if they would give me therent. I've seen enough of haunted houses to last me as long as I live."

Mrs. Emerson's face acquired the expression of a hunting hound.

"Have you?" she asked in an intense whisper.

"Yes, I have. I don't want any more of it."

"Before you came here?"

"Yes; before I was married—when I was quite a girl."

Mrs. Meserve had not married young. Mrs. Emerson had mentalcalculations when she heard that.

"Did you really live in a house that was—" she whispered fearfully.

Mrs. Meserve nodded solemnly.

"Did you really ever—see—anything—"

Mrs. Meserve nodded.

"You didn't see anything that did you any harm?"

"No, I didn't see anything that did me harm looking at it in one way,but it don't do anybody in this world any good to see things thathaven't any business to be seen in it. You never get over it."

There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Emerson's features seemed tosharpen.

"Well, of course I don't want to urge you," said she, "if you don'tfeel like talking about it; but maybe it might do you good to tell itout, if it's on your mind, worrying you."

"I try to put it out of my mind," said Mrs. Meserve.

"Well, it's just as you feel."

"I never told anybody but Simon," said Mrs. Meserve. "I never felt asif it was wise perhaps. I didn't know what folks might think. So manydon't believe in anything they can't understand, that they might thinkmy mind wasn't right. Simon advised me not to talk about it. He saidhe didn't believe it was anything supernatural, but he had to own upthat he couldn't give any explanation for it to save his life. He hadto own up that he didn't believe anybody could. Then he said hewouldn't talk about it. He said lots of folks would sooner tell folksmy head wasn't right than to own up they couldn't see through it."

"I'm sure I wouldn't say so," returned Mrs. Emerson reproachfully. "Youknow better than that, I hope."

"Yes, I do," replied Mrs. Meserve. "I know you wouldn't say so."

"And I wouldn't tell it to a soul if you didn't want me to."

"Well, I'd rather you wouldn't."

"I won't speak of it even to Mr. Emerson."

"I'd rather you wouldn't even to him."

"I won't."

Mrs. Emerson took up her dress skirt again; Mrs. Meserve hooked upanother loop of blue wool. Then she begun:

"Of course," said she, "I ain't going to say positively that I believeor disbelieve in ghosts, but all I tell you is what I saw. I can'texplain it. I don't pretend I can, for I can't. If you can, well andgood; I shall be glad, for it will stop tormenting me as it has doneand always will otherwise. There hasn't been a day nor a night sinceit happened that I haven't thought of it, and always I have felt theshivers go down my back when I did."

"That's an awful feeling," Mrs. Emerson said.

"Ain't it? Well, it happened before I was married, when I was a girland lived in East Wilmington. It was the first year I lived there.You know my family all died five years before that. I told you."

Mrs. Emerson nodded.

"Well, I went there to teach school, and I went to board with a Mrs.Amelia Dennison and her sister, Mrs. Bird. Abby, her name was—AbbyBird. She was a widow; she had never had any children. She had alittle money—Mrs. Dennison didn't have any—and she had come to EastWilmington and bought the house they lived in. It was a real prettyhouse, though it was very old and run down. It had cost Mrs. Bird agood deal to put it in order. I guess that was the reason they took meto board. I guess they thought it would help along a little. I guesswhat I paid for my board about kept us all in victuals. Mrs. Bird hadenough to live on if they were careful, but she had spent so muchfixing up the old house that they must have been a little pinched forawhile.

"Anyhow, they took me to board, and I thought I was pretty lucky to getin there. I had a nice room, big and sunny and furnished pretty, thepaper and paint all new, and everything as neat as wax. Mrs. Dennisonwas one of the best cooks I ever saw, and I had a little stove in myroom, and there was always a nice fire there when I got home fromschool. I thought I hadn't been in such a nice place since I lost myown home, until I had been there about three weeks.

"I had been there about three weeks before I found it out, though Iguess it had been going on ever since they had been in the house, andthat was most four months. They hadn't said anything about it, and Ididn't wonder, for there they had just bought the house and been to somuch expense and trouble fixing it up.

"Well, I went there in September. I begun my school the first Monday.I remember it was a real cold fall, there was a frost the middle ofSeptember, and I had to put on my winter coat. I remember when I camehome that night (let me see, I began school on a Monday, and that wastwo weeks from the next Thursday), I took off my coat downstairs andlaid it on the table in the front entry. It was a real nice coat—heavyblack broadcloth trimmed with fur; I had had it the winter before.Mrs. Bird called after me as I went upstairs that I ought not to leaveit in the front entry for fear somebody might come in and take it, butI only laughed and called back to her that I wasn't afraid. I neverwas much afraid of burglars.

"Well, though it was hardly the middle of September, it was a real coldnight. I remember my room faced west, and the sun was getting low, andthe sky was a pale yellow and purple, just as you see it sometimes inthe winter when there is going to be a cold snap. I rather think thatwas the night the frost came the first time. I know Mrs. Dennisoncovered up some flowers she had in the front yard, anyhow. I rememberlooking out and seeing an old green plaid shawl of hers over theverbena bed. There was a fire in my little wood-stove. Mrs. Bird madeit, I know. She was a real motherly sort of woman; she always seemedto be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folkshappy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so.She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. 'It'slucky Abby never had any children,' she said, 'for she would havespoilt them.'

"Well, that night I sat down beside my nice little fire and ate anapple. There was a plate of nice apples on my table. Mrs. Bird putthem there. I was always very fond of apples. Well, I sat down andate an apple, and was having a beautiful time, and thinking how lucky Iwas to have got board in such a place with such nice folks, when Iheard a queer little sound at my door. It was such a little hesitatingsort of sound that it sounded more like a fumble than a knock, as ifsome one very timid, with very little hands, was feeling along thedoor, not quite daring to knock. For a minute I thought it was amouse. But I waited and it came again, and then I made up my mind itwas a knock, but a very little scared one, so I said, 'Come in.'

"But nobody came in, and then presently I heard the knock again. Then Igot up and opened the door, thinking it was very queer, and I had afrightened feeling without knowing why.

"Well, I opened the door, and the first thing I noticed was a draughtof cold air, as if the front door downstairs was open, but there was astrange close smell about the cold draught. It smelled more like acellar that had been shut up for years, than out-of-doors. Then I sawsomething. I saw my coat first. The thing that held it was so smallthat I couldn't see much of anything else. Then I saw a little whiteface with eyes so scared and wishful that they seemed as if they mighteat a hole in anybody's heart. It was a dreadful little face, withsomething about it which made it different from any other face onearth, but it was so pitiful that somehow it did away a good deal withthe dreadfulness. And there were two little hands spotted purple withthe cold, holding up my winter coat, and a strange little far-awayvoice said: 'I can't find my mother.'

"'For Heaven's sake,' I said, 'who are you?'

"Then the little voice said again: 'I can't find my mother.'

"All the time I could smell the cold and I saw that it was about thechild; that cold was clinging to her as if she had come out of somedeadly cold place. Well, I took my coat, I did not know what else todo, and the cold was clinging to that. It was as cold as if it hadcome off ice. When I had the coat I could see the child more plainly.She was dressed in one little white garment made very simply. It was anightgown, only very long, quite covering her feet, and I could seedimly through it her little thin body mottled purple with the cold.Her face did not look so cold; that was a clear waxen white. Her hairwas dark, but it looked as if it might be dark only because it was sodamp, almost wet, and might really be light hair. It clung very closeto her forehead, which was round and white. She would have been verybeautiful if she had not been so dreadful.

"'Who are you?' says I again, looking at her.

"She looked at me with her terrible pleading eyes and did not sayanything.

"'What are you?' says I. Then she went away. She did not seem to runor walk like other children. She flitted, like one of those littlefilmy white butterflies, that don't seem like real ones they are solight, and move as if they had no weight. But she looked back from thehead of the stairs. 'I can't find my mother,' said she, and I neverheard such a voice.

"'Who is your mother?' says I, but she was gone.

"Well, I thought for a moment I should faint away. The room got darkand I heard a singing in my ears. Then I flung my coat onto the bed.My hands were as cold as ice from holding it, and I stood in my door,and called first Mrs. Bird and then Mrs. Dennison. I didn't dare godown over the stairs where that had gone. It seemed to me I should gomad if I didn't see somebody or something like other folks on the faceof the earth. I thought I should never make anybody hear, but I couldhear them stepping about downstairs, and I could smell biscuits bakingfor supper. Somehow the smell of those biscuits seemed the onlynatural thing left to keep me in my right mind. I didn't dare go overthose stairs. I just stood there and called, and finally I heard theentry door open and Mrs. Bird called back:

"'What is it? Did you call, Miss Arms?'

"'Come up here; come up here as quick as you can, both of you,' Iscreamed out; 'quick, quick, quick!'

"I heard Mrs. Bird tell Mrs. Dennison: 'Come quick, Amelia, somethingis the matter in Miss Arms' room.' It struck me even then that sheexpressed herself rather queerly, and it struck me as very queer,indeed, when they both got upstairs and I saw that they knew what hadhappened, or that they knew of what nature the happening was.

"'What is it, dear?' asked Mrs. Bird, and her pretty, loving voice hada strained sound. I saw her look at Mrs. Dennison and I saw Mrs.Dennison look back at her.

"'For God's sake,' says I, and I never spoke so before—'for God'ssake, what was it brought my coat upstairs?'

"'What was it like?' asked Mrs. Dennison in a sort of failing voice,and she looked at her sister again and her sister looked back at her.

"'It was a child I have never seen here before. It looked like achild,' says I, 'but I never saw a child so dreadful, and it had on anightgown, and said she couldn't find her mother. Who was it? What wasit?'

"I thought for a minute Mrs. Dennison was going to faint, but Mrs. Birdhung onto her and rubbed her hands, and whispered in her ear (she hadthe cooingest kind of voice), and I ran and got her a glass of coldwater. I tell you it took considerable courage to go downstairs alone,but they had set a lamp on the entry table so I could see. I don'tbelieve I could have spunked up enough to have gone downstairs in thedark, thinking every second that child might be close to me. The lampand the smell of the biscuits baking seemed to sort of keep my courageup, but I tell you I didn't waste much time going down those stairs andout into the kitchen for a glass of water. I pumped as if the housewas afire, and I grabbed the first thing I came across in the shape ofa tumbler: it was a painted one that Mrs. Dennison's Sunday schoolclass gave her, and it was meant for a flower vase.

"Well, I filled it and then ran upstairs. I felt every minute as ifsomething would catch my feet, and I held the glass to Mrs. Dennison'slips, while Mrs. Bird held her head up, and she took a good longswallow, then she looked hard at the tumbler.

"'Yes,' says I, 'I know I got this one, but I took the first I cameacross, and it isn't hurt a mite.'

"'Don't get the painted flowers wet,' says Mrs. Dennison very feebly,'they'll wash off if you do.'

"'I'll be real careful,' says I. I knew she set a sight by thatpainted tumbler.

"The water seemed to do Mrs. Dennison good, for presently she pushedMrs. Bird away and sat up. She had been laying down on my bed.

"'I'm all over it now,' says she, but she was terribly white, and hereyes looked as if they saw something outside things. Mrs. Bird wasn'tmuch better, but she always had a sort of settled sweet, good look thatnothing could disturb to any great extent. I knew I looked dreadful,for I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass, and I would hardly haveknown who it was.

"Mrs. Dennison, she slid off the bed and walked sort of tottery to achair. 'I was silly to give way so,' says she.

"'No, you wasn't silly, sister,' says Mrs. Bird. 'I don't know whatthis means any more than you do, but whatever it is, no one ought to becalled silly for being overcome by anything so different from otherthings which we have known all our lives.'

"Mrs. Dennison looked at her sister, then she looked at me, then backat her sister again, and Mrs. Bird spoke as if she had been asked aquestion.

"'Yes,' says she, 'I do think Miss Arms ought to be told—that is, Ithink she ought to be told all we know ourselves.'

"'That isn't much,' said Mrs. Dennison with a dying-away sort of sigh.She looked as if she might faint away again any minute. She was a realdelicate-looking woman, but it turned out she was a good deal strongerthan poor Mrs. Bird.

"'No, there isn't much we do know,' says Mrs. Bird, 'but what littlethere is she ought to know. I felt as if she ought to when she firstcame here.'

"'Well, I didn't feel quite right about it,' said Mrs. Dennison, 'but Ikept hoping it might stop, and any way, that it might never troubleher, and you had put so much in the house, and we needed the money, andI didn't know but she might be nervous and think she couldn't come, andI didn't want to take a man boarder.'

"'And aside from the money, we were very anxious to have you come, mydear,' says Mrs. Bird.

"'Yes,' says Mrs. Dennison, 'we wanted the young company in the house;we were lonesome, and we both of us took a great liking to you theminute we set eyes on you.'

"And I guess they meant what they said, both of them. They werebeautiful women, and nobody could be any kinder to me than they were,and I never blamed them for not telling me before, and, as they said,there wasn't really much to tell.

"They hadn't any sooner fairly bought the house, and moved into it,than they began to see and hear things. Mrs. Bird said they weresitting together in the sitting-room one evening when they heard it thefirst time. She said her sister was knitting lace (Mrs. Dennison madebeautiful knitted lace) and she was reading the Missionary Herald (Mrs.Bird was very much interested in mission work), when all of a suddenthey heard something. She heard it first and she laid down herMissionary Herald and listened, and then Mrs. Dennison she saw herlistening and she drops her lace. 'What is it you are listening to,Abby?' says she. Then it came again and they both heard, and the coldshivers went down their backs to hear it, though they didn't know why.'It's the cat, isn't it?' says Mrs. Bird.

"'It isn't any cat,' says Mrs. Dennison.

"'Oh, I guess it MUST be the cat; maybe she's got a mouse,' says Mrs.Bird, real cheerful, to calm down Mrs. Dennison, for she saw she was'most scared to death, and she was always afraid of her fainting away.Then she opens the door and calls, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' They hadbrought their cat with them in a basket when they came to EastWilmington to live. It was a real handsome tiger cat, a tommy, and heknew a lot.

"Well, she called 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and sure enough the kittycame, and when he came in the door he gave a big yawl that didn't soundunlike what they had heard.

"'There, sister, here he is; you see it was the cat,' says Mrs. Bird.'Poor kitty!'

"But Mrs. Dennison she eyed the cat, and she give a great screech.

"'What's that? What's that?' says she.

"'What's what?' says Mrs. Bird, pretending to herself that she didn'tsee what her sister meant.

"'Somethin's got hold of that cat's tail,' says Mrs. Dennison.'Somethin's got hold of his tail. It's pulled straight out, an' hecan't get away. Just hear him yawl!'

"'It isn't anything,' says Mrs. Bird, but even as she said that shecould see a little hand holding fast to that cat's tail, and then thechild seemed to sort of clear out of the dimness behind the hand, andthe child was sort of laughing then, instead of looking sad, and shesaid that was a great deal worse. She said that laugh was the mostawful and the saddest thing she ever heard.

"Well, she was so dumfounded that she didn't know what to do, and shecouldn't sense at first that it was anything supernatural. She thoughtit must be one of the neighbour's children who had run away and wasmaking free of their house, and was teasing their cat, and that theymust be just nervous to feel so upset by it. So she speaks up sort ofsharp.

"'Don't you know that you mustn't pull the kitty's tail?' says she.'Don't you know you hurt the poor kitty, and she'll scratch you if youdon't take care. Poor kitty, you mustn't hurt her.'

"And with that she said the child stopped pulling that cat's tail andwent to stroking her just as soft and pitiful, and the cat put his backup and rubbed and purred as if he liked it. The cat never seemed amite afraid, and that seemed queer, for I had always heard that animalswere dreadfully afraid of ghosts; but then, that was a pretty harmlesslittle sort of ghost.

"Well, Mrs. Bird said the child stroked that cat, while she and Mrs.Dennison stood watching it, and holding onto each other, for, no matterhow hard they tried to think it was all right, it didn't look right.Finally Mrs. Dennison she spoke.

"'What's your name, little girl?' says she.

"Then the child looks up and stops stroking the cat, and says she can'tfind her mother, just the way she said it to me. Then Mrs. Dennisonshe gave such a gasp that Mrs. Bird thought she was going to faintaway, but she didn't. 'Well, who is your mother?' says she. But thechild just says again 'I can't find my mother—I can't find my mother.'

"'Where do you live, dear?' says Mrs. Bird.

"'I can't find my mother,' says the child.

"Well, that was the way it was. Nothing happened. Those two womenstood there hanging onto each other, and the child stood in front ofthem, and they asked her questions, and everything she would say was:'I can't find my mother.'

"Then Mrs. Bird tried to catch hold of the child, for she thought inspite of what she saw that perhaps she was nervous and it was a realchild, only perhaps not quite right in its head, that had run away inher little nightgown after she had been put to bed.

"She tried to catch the child. She had an idea of putting a shawlaround it and going out—she was such a little thing she could havecarried her easy enough—and trying to find out to which of theneighbours she belonged. But the minute she moved toward the childthere wasn't any child there; there was only that little voice seemingto come from nothing, saying 'I can't find my mother,' and presentlythat died away.

"Well, that same thing kept happening, or something very much the same.Once in awhile Mrs. Bird would be washing dishes, and all at once thechild would be standing beside her with the dish-towel, wiping them.Of course, that was terrible. Mrs. Bird would wash the dishes allover. Sometimes she didn't tell Mrs. Dennison, it made her so nervous.Sometimes when they were making cake they would find the raisins allpicked over, and sometimes little sticks of kindling-wood would befound laying beside the kitchen stove. They never knew when they wouldcome across that child, and always she kept saying over and over thatshe couldn't find her mother. They never tried talking to her, exceptonce in awhile Mrs. Bird would get desperate and ask her something, butthe child never seemed to hear it; she always kept right on saying thatshe couldn't find her mother.

"After they had told me all they had to tell about their experiencewith the child, they told me about the house and the people that hadlived there before they did. It seemed something dreadful had happenedin that house. And the land agent had never let on to them. I don'tthink they would have bought it if he had, no matter how cheap it was,for even if folks aren't really afraid of anything, they don't want tolive in houses where such dreadful things have happened that you keepthinking about them. I know after they told me I should never havestayed there another night, if I hadn't thought so much of them, nomatter how comfortable I was made; and I never was nervous, either.But I stayed. Of course, it didn't happen in my room. If it had Icould not have stayed."

"What was it?" asked Mrs. Emerson in an awed voice.

"It was an awful thing. That child had lived in the house with herfather and mother two years before. They had come—or the fatherhad—from a real good family. He had a good situation: he was adrummer for a big leather house in the city, and they lived realpretty, with plenty to do with. But the mother was a real wickedwoman. She was as handsome as a picture, and they said she came fromgood sort of people enough in Boston, but she was bad clean through,though she was real pretty spoken and most everybody liked her. Sheused to dress out and make a great show, and she never seemed to takemuch interest in the child, and folks began to say she wasn't treatedright.

"The woman had a hard time keeping a girl. For some reason onewouldn't stay. They would leave and then talk about her awfully,telling all kinds of things. People didn't believe it at first; thenthey began to. They said that the woman made that little thing, thoughshe wasn't much over five years old, and small and babyish for her age,do most of the work, what there was done; they said the house used tolook like a pig-sty when she didn't have help. They said the littlething used to stand on a chair and wash dishes, and they'd seen hercarrying in sticks of wood most as big as she was many a time, andthey'd heard her mother scolding her. The woman was a fine singer, andhad a voice like a screech-owl when she scolded.

"The father was away most of the time, and when that happened he hadbeen away out West for some weeks. There had been a married manhanging about the mother for some time, and folks had talked some; butthey weren't sure there was anything wrong, and he was a man very highup, with money, so they kept pretty still for fear he would hear of itand make trouble for them, and of course nobody was sure, though folksdid say afterward that the father of the child had ought to have beentold.

"But that was very easy to say; it wouldn't have been so easy to findanybody who would have been willing to tell him such a thing as that,especially when they weren't any too sure. He set his eyes by hiswife, too. They said all he seemed to think of was to earn money tobuy things to deck her out in. And he about worshiped the child, too.They said he was a real nice man. The men that are treated so badmostly are real nice men. I've always noticed that.

"Well, one morning that man that there had been whispers about wasmissing. He had been gone quite a while, though, before they reallyknew that he was missing, because he had gone away and told his wifethat he had to go to New York on business and might be gone a week, andnot to worry if he didn't get home, and not to worry if he didn'twrite, because he should be thinking from day to day that he might takethe next train home and there would be no use in writing. So the wifewaited, and she tried not to worry until it was two days over the week,then she run into a neighbour's and fainted dead away on the floor; andthen they made inquiries and found out that he had skipped—with somemoney that didn't belong to him, too.

"Then folks began to ask where was that woman, and they found out bycomparing notes that nobody had seen her since the man went away; butthree or four women remembered that she had told them that she thoughtof taking the child and going to Boston to visit her folks, so whenthey hadn't seen her around, and the house shut, they jumped to theconclusion that was where she was. They were the neighbours that livedright around her, but they didn't have much to do with her, and she'dgone out of her way to tell them about her Boston plan, and they didn'tmake much reply when she did.

"Well, there was this house shut up, and the man and woman missing andthe child. Then all of a sudden one of the women that lived thenearest remembered something. She remembered that she had waked upthree nights running, thinking she heard a child crying somewhere, andonce she waked up her husband, but he said it must be the Bisbees'little girl, and she thought it must be. The child wasn't well and wasalways crying. It used to have colic spells, especially at night. Soshe didn't think any more about it until this came up, then all of asudden she did think of it. She told what she had heard, and finallyfolks began to think they had better enter that house and see if therewas anything wrong.

"Well, they did enter it, and they found that child dead, locked in oneof the rooms. (Mrs. Dennison and Mrs. Bird never used that room; itwas a back bedroom on the second floor.)

"Yes, they found that poor child there, starved to death, and frozen,though they weren't sure she had frozen to death, for she was in bedwith clothes enough to keep her pretty warm when she was alive. Butshe had been there a week, and she was nothing but skin and bone. Itlooked as if the mother had locked her into the house when she wentaway, and told her not to make any noise for fear the neighbours wouldhear her and find out that she herself had gone.

"Mrs. Dennison said she couldn't really believe that the woman hadmeant to have her own child starved to death. Probably she thought thelittle thing would raise somebody, or folks would try to get in thehouse and find her. Well, whatever she thought, there the child was,dead.

"But that wasn't all. The father came home, right in the midst of it;the child was just buried, and he was beside himself. And—he went onthe track of his wife, and he found her, and he shot her dead; it wasin all the papers at the time; then he disappeared. Nothing had beenseen of him since. Mrs. Dennison said that she thought he had eithermade way with himself or got out of the country, nobody knew, but theydid know there was something wrong with the house.

"'I knew folks acted queer when they asked me how I liked it when wefirst came here,' says Mrs. Dennison, 'but I never dreamed why till wesaw the child that night.'

"I never heard anything like it in my life," said Mrs. Emerson, staringat the other woman with awestruck eyes.

"I thought you'd say so," said Mrs. Meserve. "You don't wonder that Iain't disposed to speak light when I hear there is anything queer abouta house, do you?"

"No, I don't, after that," Mrs. Emerson said.

"But that ain't all," said Mrs. Meserve.

"Did you see it again?" Mrs. Emerson asked.

"Yes, I saw it a number of times before the last time. It was lucky Iwasn't nervous, or I never could have stayed there, much as I liked theplace and much as I thought of those two women; they were beautifulwomen, and no mistake. I loved those women. I hope Mrs. Dennison willcome and see me sometime.

"Well, I stayed, and I never knew when I'd see that child. I got so Iwas very careful to bring everything of mine upstairs, and not leaveany little thing in my room that needed doing, for fear she would comelugging up my coat or hat or gloves or I'd find things done whenthere'd been no live being in the room to do them. I can't tell youhow I dreaded seeing her; and worse than the seeing her was the hearingher say, 'I can't find my mother.' It was enough to make your bloodrun cold. I never heard a living child cry for its mother that wasanything so pitiful as that dead one. It was enough to break your heart.

"She used to come and say that to Mrs. Bird oftener than to any oneelse. Once I heard Mrs. Bird say she wondered if it was possible thatthe poor little thing couldn't really find her mother in the otherworld, she had been such a wicked woman.

"But Mrs. Dennison told her she didn't think she ought to speak so noreven think so, and Mrs. Bird said she shouldn't wonder if she wasright. Mrs. Bird was always very easy to put in the wrong. She was agood woman, and one that couldn't do things enough for other folks. Itseemed as if that was what she lived on. I don't think she was ever soscared by that poor little ghost, as much as she pitied it, and she was'most heartbroken because she couldn't do anything for it, as she couldhave done for a live child.

"'It seems to me sometimes as if I should die if I can't get that awfullittle white robe off that child and get her in some clothes and feedher and stop her looking for her mother,' I heard her say once, and shewas in earnest. She cried when she said it. That wasn't long beforeshe died.

"Now I am coming to the strangest part of it all. Mrs. Bird died verysudden. One morning—it was Saturday, and there wasn't any school—Iwent downstairs to breakfast, and Mrs. Bird wasn't there; there wasnobody but Mrs. Dennison. She was pouring out the coffee when I camein. 'Why, where's Mrs. Bird?' says I.

"'Abby ain't feeling very well this morning,' says she; 'there isn'tmuch the matter, I guess, but she didn't sleep very well, and her headaches, and she's sort of chilly, and I told her I thought she'd betterstay in bed till the house gets warm.' It was a very cold morning.

"'Maybe she's got cold,' says I.

"'Yes, I guess she has,' says Mrs. Dennison. 'I guess she's got cold.She'll be up before long. Abby ain't one to stay in bed a minutelonger than she can help.'

"Well, we went on eating our breakfast, and all at once a shadowflickered across one wall of the room and over the ceiling the way ashadow will sometimes when somebody passes the window outside. Mrs.Dennison and I both looked up, then out of the window; then Mrs.Dennison she gives a scream.

"'Why, Abby's crazy!' says she. 'There she is out this bitter coldmorning, and—and—' She didn't finish, but she meant the child. Forwe were both looking out, and we saw, as plain as we ever saw anythingin our lives, Mrs. Abby Bird walking off over the white snow-path withthat child holding fast to her hand, nestling close to her as if shehad found her own mother.

"'She's dead,' says Mrs. Dennison, clutching hold of me hard. 'She'sdead; my sister is dead!'

"She was. We hurried upstairs as fast as we could go, and she was deadin her bed, and smiling as if she was dreaming, and one arm and handwas stretched out as if something had hold of it; and it couldn't bestraightened even at the last—it lay out over her casket at thefuneral."

"Was the child ever seen again?" asked Mrs. Emerson in a shaking voice.

"No," replied Mrs. Meserve; "that child was never seen again after shewent out of the yard with Mrs. Bird."

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