Her first movement, when she fully recovered her senses, was to clutch hold of Jan on the one side, of Mr. Bourne on the other.

“Is it gone?” she gasped, in a voice of the most intense terror.

“Is what gone, child?” asked Mr. Bourne.

“The ghost,” she answered.  “It came right up, sir, just after you left me.  I’d rather die than see it again.”

She was shaking from head to foot.  There was no mistaking that her terror was intense.  To attempt to meet it with confuting arguments would have been simply folly, and both gentlemen knew that it would.  Mr Bourne concluded that the same sight, which had so astonished him, had been seen by the girl.

“I sat down again after you went, sir,” she resumed, her teeth chattering.  “I knew there was no mighty hurry for my being back, as you had gone on to mother, and I sat on ever so long, and it came right up again me, brushing my knees with its things as it passed.  At the first moment I thought it might be you coming back, to say something to me, sir, and I looked up.  It turned its face upon me, and I never remember nothing after that.”

“Whose face?” questioned Jan.

“The ghost’s, sir.  Mr. Fred Massingbird’s.”

“Bah!” said Jan.  “Faces look alike in the moonlight.”

“Twas his face,” answered the girl, from between her shaking lips.  “I saw its every feature, sir.”

“Porcupine and all?” retorted Jan, ironically.

“Porkypine and all, sir.  I’m not sure that I should have knowed it at first, but for the porkypine.”

What were they to do with the girl?  Leave her there, and go?  Jan, who was more skilled in ailments than Mr. Bourne, thought it possible that the fright had seriously injured her.

“You must go to bed at once,” said he.  “I’ll just say a word to your father.”

Jan was acquainted with the private arrangements of the Hooks’ household.  He knew that there was but one sleeping apartment for the whole family—­the room above, where the sick mother was lying.  Father, mother, sons, and daughters all slept there together.  The “house” consisted of the kitchen below and the room above it.  There were many such on the Verner estate.

Jan, carrying the candle to guide him, went softly up the creaky staircase.  The wife was sleeping.  Hook was sleeping, too, and snoring heavily.  Jan had something to do to awake him; shaking seemed useless.

“Look here,” said he in a whisper, when the man was aroused, “Alice has had a fright, and I think she may perhaps be ill through it; if so, mind you come for me without loss of time.  Do you understand, Hook?”

Hook signified that he did.

“Very well,” replied Jan.  “Should——­”

“What’s that! what’s that?”

The alarmed cry came from the mother.  She had suddenly awoke.

“It’s nothing,” said Jan.  “I only had a word to say to Hook.  You go to sleep again, and sleep quietly.”