his hat on the rack for protection, and whenever any one goes to see her
after dark she always calls him, as if he were upstairs.

She lives by herself and is over seventy, and she's pretended so long
that he's living that they say she really believes he is. She almost
makes you believe it, too.

Miss Bray sent me there one night. She wanted some cherry-bounce for
Eliza Green, who had an awful pain, and after I'd knocked, I'd have run
if I'd dared.

In the hall I could hear Mrs. Peet pounding on the floor with her stick.
Then her little piping voice:

"Mr. Peet, Mr. Peet, you'd better come down! There's some one at the
door! You'd better come down, Mr. Peet!"

"It's just Mary Cary!" I called. "Miss Bray sent me, Mrs. Peet. She
wants some cherry-bounce."

"Oh, all right, Mr. Peet. You needn't bother to come down. It's just
little Mary Cary." And she opened the door a tiny crack and peeped
through.

"Mr. Peet isn't very well to-night," she said. "He's taken fresh cold.
But you can come in."

I came; but I didn't want to. And if Mr. Peet had come down those steps
and shaken hands I wouldn't have been surprised. It's certainly strange
how something you know isn't true seems true; and Mr. Peet, dead forty