Thankful dropped the patchwork comforter.

“Who’s that?” she asked, sharply.

There was no answer.  No sounds except those of the storm.  Thankful picked up the comforter.

“Humph!” she said aloud—­talking to herself was a habit developed during the years of housekeeping for deaf old Mrs. Pearson.  “Humph!  I must be gettin’ nerves, I guess.”

She began folding the old quilt in order to make it easier to carry downstairs.  And then she heard another groan, or sigh, or combination of both.  It sounded, not outside the window or outside the house, but in that very room.

Again Mrs. Barnes dropped the comforter.  Also she went out of the room.  But she did not go far.  Halfway across the floor of the adjoining room she stopped and put her foot down, physically and mentally.

“Fool!” she said, disgustedly.  Then, turning on her heel, she marched back to the little bedroom and picked up the lantern; its flame had dwindled to the feeblest of feeble sparks.

“Now then,” said Thankful, with determination, “whoever—­or—­or whatever thing you are that’s makin’ that noise you might just as well show yourself.  If you’re hidin’ you’d better come out, for I’ll find you.”

But no one or no “thing” came out.  Thankful waited a moment and then proceeded to give that room a very thorough looking-over.  It was such a small apartment that the process took but little time.  There was no closet.  Except for the one window and the door by which she had entered, the four walls, covered with old-fashioned ugly paper, had no openings of any kind.  There could be no attic or empty space above the ceiling because she could hear the rain upon the sloping roof.  She looked under the bed and found nothing but dust.  She looked in the bed, even under the rocking-chair.

“Well, there!” she muttered.  “I said it and I was right.  I am gettin’ to be a nervous old fool.  I’m glad Emily ain’t here to see me.  And yet I did—­I swear I did hear somethin’.”

The pictures on the wall by the window caught her eye.  She walked over and looked at them.  The lantern gave so little light that she could scarcely see anything, but she managed to make out that one was a dingy chromo with a Scriptural subject.  The other was a battered “crayon enlargement,” a portrait of a man, a middle-aged man with a chin beard.  There was something familiar about the face in the portrait.  Something—­

Thankful gasped.  “Uncle Abner!” she cried.  “Why—­why—­”

Then the lantern flame gave a last feeble sputter and went out.  She heard the groan again.  And in that room, the room she had examined so carefully, so close as to seem almost at her very ear, a faint voice wailed agonizingly, “Oh, Lord!”

Thankful went away.  She left the comforter and the lantern upon the floor and she did not stop to close the door of the little bedroom.  Through the black darkness of the long hall she rushed and down the creaky stairs.  Her entrance to the sitting-room was more noisy than her exit had been and Miss Howes stirred upon the sofa and opened her eyes.