to back away from the alcove, her eyes still fixed upon its haunted
stairs. "Why do you think the servants left so sudden this morning?"
she went on. "Do you really believe the housemaid had appendicitis?
Or the cook's sister had twins?"

She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed
forefinger. Her voice had a note of doom.

"I bet a cent the cook never had any sister--and the sister never
had any twins," she said impressively. "No, Miss Neily, they
couldn't put it over on me like that! They were scared away. They
saw--It!"

She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish
Cassandra who had prophesied the evil to come.

"Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the
recital than she would have admitted. She tried to think of another
topic of conversation.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. "Half-past ten, Miss Neily."

Miss Cornelia yawned, a little dismally. She felt as if the last
two hours had not been hours but years.

"Miss Dale won't be home for half an hour," she said reflectively.
And if I have to spend another thirty minutes listening to Lizzie
shiver, she thought, Dale will find me a nervous wreck when she