--oh, ever' place--and in here--and up the stairs--
and all them rooms up there--and you'll look behind
all the doors--and in all the cubboards--and under
all the beds--and then you'll look sorry-like, and
holler out, kind o' skeert, and you'll say: 'Where--
is--Mary--Alice--Smith?' And then you'll wait
and listen and hold yer breath; and then somepin' 'll
holler back, away fur off, and say: 'Oh--she--has
gone--home!' And then ever'thing'll be all still
ag'in, and you'll be afraid to holler any more--and
you dursn't play--and you can't laugh, and yer
throat'll thist hurt and hurt, like you been a-eatin'
too much calamus-root er somepin'!" And as the
little gipsy concluded her weird prophecy, with a
final flourish of her big pale eyes, we glanced
furtively at one another's awestruck faces, with a
superstitious dread of a vague indefinite disaster
most certainly awaiting us around some shadowy
corner of the future. Through all this speech she
had been slowly and silently groping up the winding
steps, her voice growing fainter and fainter,
and the littly pixy form fading, and wholly vanishing
at last around the spiral banister of the upper
landing. Then down to us from that alien recess
came the voice alone, touched with a tone as of
wild entreaty and despair: "Where--is--Mary--
Alice--Smith?" And then a long breathless pause,
in which our wide-eyed group below huddled still
closer, pale and mute. Then--far off and faint
and quavering with a tenderness of pathos that