give an order. Judith looked up.

"I'm in a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don't
know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He'd not like it to
get to the missis's ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to
tell her--for his sake."

Constance smiled. "Would you like to tell me, instead of mamma? Charley
has been at some mischief again, among the saucepans? Burnt out more
bottoms, perhaps?"

"Not he, the darling!" resentfully rejoined Judith. "The burning out of
that one was enough for him. I'm sure he took contrition to himself, as
if it had been made of gold."

"What is it, then?"

"Well," said Judith, looking round, as if fearing the walls would hear,
and speaking mysteriously, "it's about Mr. Hamish. I don't know but I
_will_ tell you, Miss Constance, and it'll be, so far, a weight off my
mind. I was just saying to myself that I had heard of ghosts walking,
but what Mr. Hamish does every blessed night, I never did hear of, in
all my born days."

Constance felt a little startled. "What does he do?" she hastily asked.

"You know, Miss Constance, my bedroom's overhead, above the kitchen
here, and, being built out on the side, I can see the windows at the
back of the house from it--as we can see 'em from this kitchen window,
for the matter of that, if we put our heads out. About a twelvemonth