for one close to her sister.

No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a
very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves
crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent
to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire
to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss
Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New
England expressively calls "skrimping."

Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after
tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly
perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba,
having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up
rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she
heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a
regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards.

"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about
barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put
down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly
lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other
living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time,
for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss
Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a
repetition of the sound.

Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started
from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said
she, clinging to her sister.