open the door, being flurried, as the maids always is when they go in
there. Halfway down the gallery she says she heard a rustling, and
stopped. She's the pluckiest of 'em all, and she called out, 'I see
you!' thinking it was some of us trying to fright her. Nothing answered,
and she went on a bit, when suddenly the fire flared up one flash, and
there right before her was the ghost."

"Don't be foolish, John. Tell us what it was," said Octavia sharply,
though her face whitened and her heart sank as the last word passed the
man's lips.

"It was a tall, black figger, miss, with a dead-white face and a black
hood. She see it plain, and turned to go away, but she hadn't gone a
dozen steps when there it was again before her, the same tall, dark
thing with the dead-white face looking out from the black hood. It
lifted its arm as if to hold her, but she gave a spring and dreadful
screech, and ran to Mrs. Benson's room, where she dropped in a fit."

"How absurd to be frightened by the shadows of the figures in armor that
stand along the gallery!" said Rose, boldly enough, though she would
have declined entering the gallery without a light.

"Nay, I don't wonder, it's a ghostly place at night. How is the
poor thing?" asked Blanche, still hanging on the major's arm in her
best attitude.

"If Mamma knows nothing of it, tell Mrs. Benson to keep it from her,
please. She is not well, and such things annoy her very much," said
Octavia, adding as the man turned away, "Did anyone look in the gallery
after Patty told her tale?"