We accepted him at first as part of the fairy-story into which Destiny had pitchforked us.  He belonged to Hynds House, so to speak, and there one might meet him upon common ground.  But sometimes when I happened to glance up I would find him watching us with those reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so inscrutable.  And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a sinking heart, that he didn’t belong at all; that this beautiful and brilliant bird of passage was lightening for but a very brief space my sober skies.

Alicia said he made her think of peacocks and ivory.  He delighted and dazzled her, though he did not disquiet her as he did me, perhaps because she, too, was young and beautiful, and I—­wasn’t.

It will be seen, then, that our position, take it by and large, wasn’t one that called for flags and buntings.  Life didn’t look a bit rose-colored to me as I sat there that night, drafting a letter to the Head.  Of a sudden arose clamor in the hall, and howls, hideously loud at that hour and in that quiet house.  There came the noise of running feet, and there burst into the lighted library, with gray faces and rolling eyes, our two lately acquired colored maids, Fernolia the thin one, and Queen of Sheba, fat and brown.

“Good heavens!  What’s the matter?” I asked, fearfully.  It had been a terrible task to break in those two handmaids, to train them not to take part in the conversation at table, not to take off cap, and hair, not to do the thousand and one undisciplined and disorderly things they did do.

“Ghostes!  Sperets!  Ha’nts!” chattered the colored women.  “Ol’ Mis’ Scarlett’s walkin’ in de ca’iage house!”

“Nonsense!” At the same time I felt myself turning pale, and goose-flesh coming out on my spine.

“No, ma’am, Miss Sophy, ’t ain’t nonsense.  It’s ha’nts!” protested Fernolia.  She was the brighter of the two, but given to embroidering her facts.

“Yessum, I done saw ’er,” corroborated Queenasheeba. (That’s how one pronounced her name.)

The two occupied a very pleasant room above the carriage house, a room that had overcome their unwillingness to stay overnight at Hynds House.  Queenasheeba was just dozing, when she was awakened by Fernolia, who had been sitting by the window.  Both of them, peering through the scrim curtains, saw a tall white figure disappear into the spring-house.  A few minutes later, to their horror, they heard Something moving downstairs in the carriage house—­Something like the clank of a chain—­footsteps—­and then silence.  Almost paralyzed with terror, the two women clung together. Anything might be expected of ol’ Mis’ Scarlett!  However, nothing further happened.  With shaking hands Queenasheeba relighted the lamp.  Then, snatching up such clothes as they could grab, the two fled to us.