inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?"

"Martin says that he came up twice, when the old yard gate was being
repaired, before sunrise, and twice saw the same female figure walking
down the lime tree avenue."

"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river
fields," said Madame.

"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see
fool more frightened."

"You must not say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see down
that walk from her room window," I interposed, "and she is, if possible,
a greater coward than I."

Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day.

"I was so frightened last night," she said, so soon as were together,
"and I am sure I should have seen something dreadful if it had not been
for that charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I called
such hard names. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed,
and I awoke in a perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds,
I saw a dark figure near the chimney-piece, but I felt under my pillow
for my charm, and the moment my fingers touched it, the figure
disappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, that
something frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps,
throttled me, as it did those poor people we heard of.

"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the