“Why, what can ail the child,” she said to herself, “to be walking about barefoot this time of night?  She’ll get her death of cold;” and she put down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly lecture.  To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other living creature was in the room.  It could not have been the cat this time, for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs.  Miss Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a repetition of the sound.

Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly.  Miss Faithful started from her sleep with a cry of terror.  “Oh, I have had such a dream!” said she, clinging to her sister.

“What was it?” said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a child.

“I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the room.”

“What was it like?” asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of herself.

“I couldn’t see:  it was all shifty and mist-like—­like the shadow of smoke on the ground—­and I couldn’t tell if it was like a human being or not; but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it was trying to make me understand something, and couldn’t, just as it is when the cat sits and looks at you.  You know the creature wants something, if she could tell what it was.”

“She wants something out of the cupboard most generally,” said Miss Sophonisba; “but go on.”

“And finally,” said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, “after it had gone back and forth two or three times—­and I could hear it on the floor too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet—­it came close up to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some way—­I can’t tell you how—­and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up.”

“It made a noise, did it?” said Miss Sophonisba.

“Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it wanted and what it was.”

“It was the wind,” said Miss Sophonisba.  “It got mixed up in your dreams, I expect.  How it does blow!—­fit to take the roof off.  There! the cellar door has started open.  That latch doesn’t catch:  I must go down and bolt it.”

At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, intently watching the door.

“Has she got a fit?” exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in a very curious fashion.

“Some one has got in down stairs,” said Miss Faithful, turning white.  “Oh, Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!”