anxiously. "Something has been hanging over me all day," said she
simply, and at this the needles clicked faster than ever.

"We've been taking rather a low range," suggested Mrs. Jake. "We
shall get to telling over ghost stories if we don't look out, and I
for one shall be sca't to go home. By the way, I suppose you have
heard about old Billy Dow's experience night afore last, Mis'
Thacher?"

"John being away, I ain't had nobody to fetch me the news these few
days past," said the hostess. "Why what's happened to Billy now?"

The two women looked at each other: "He was getting himself home as
best he could,--he owned up to having made a lively evenin' of
it,--and I expect he was wandering all over the road and didn't know
nothin' except that he was p'inted towards home, an' he stepped off
from the high bank this side o' Dunnell's, and rolled down, over and
over; and when he come to there was a great white creatur' a-standin'
over him, and he thought 't was a ghost. 'T was higher up on the bank
than him, and it kind of moved along down's if 't was coming right on
to him, and he got on to his knees and begun to say his Ten
Commandments fast's he could rattle 'em out. He got 'em mixed up, and
when the boys heard his teeth a-chattering, they began to laugh and he
up an' cleared. Dunnell's boys had been down the road a piece and was
just coming home, an' 't was their old white hoss that had got out of
the barn, it bein' such a mild night, an' was wandering off. They said
to Billy that't wa'n't everybody could lay a ghost so quick as he
could, and they didn't 'spose he had the means so handy."

The three friends laughed, but Mrs. Thacher's face quickly lost its