I jumped up and moved toward the door she indicated.  It was slightly ajar, but Ellen was not behind it.

“There’s no one here,” said I.

She did not answer.  She was bending again over her work, and gave no indication of speaking again on that or the more serious topic we had previously been discussing.

Naturally I felt disappointed.  I had hoped much from the conversation, and now these hopes bade fair to fail me.  How could I restore matters to their former basis?  Idly I glanced out of the side window I was passing, and the view of the adjoining house I thus gained acted like an inspiration.  I would test her on a new topic, in the hope of reintroducing the old.  The glimpse I had gained into Mrs. Packard’s mind must not be lost quite as soon as this.

“You asked me a moment ago if I were ever nervous,” I began, as I regained my seat at her side.  “I replied, ‘Sometimes’; but I might have said if I had not feared being too abrupt, ’Never till I came into this house.’”

Her surprise partook more of curiosity than I expected.

“You are nervous here,” she repeated.  “What is the reason of that, pray?  Has Ellen been chattering to you?  I thought she knew enough not to do that.  There’s nothing to fear here, Miss Saunders; absolutely nothing for you to fear.  I should not have allowed you to remain here a night if there had been.  No ghost will visit you.”

“No, I hear they never wander above the second story,” I laughed.  “If they did I should hardly anticipate the honor of a visit.  It is not ghosts I fear; it is something quite different which affects me,—­living eyes, living passions, the old ladies next door,” I finished falteringly, for Mrs. Packard was looking at me with a show of startling alarm.  “They stare into my room night and day.  I never look out but I encounter the uncanny glance of one or the other of them.  Are they live women or embodied memories of the past?  They don’t seem to belong to the present.  I own that they frighten me.”

I had exaggerated my feelings in order to mark their effect upon her.  The result disappointed me; she was not afraid of these two poor old women.  Far from it.

“Draw your curtains,” she laughed.  “The poor things are crazy and not really accountable.  Their odd ways and manners troubled me at first, but I soon got over it.  I have even been in to see them.  That was to keep them from coming here.  I think if you were to call upon them they would leave you alone after that.  They are very fond of being called on.  They are persons of the highest gentility, you know.  They owned this house a few years ago, as well as the one they are now living in, but misfortunes overtook them and this one was sold for debt.  I am very sorry for them myself.  Sometimes I think they have not enough to eat.”

“Tell me about them,” I urged.  Lightly as she treated the topic I felt convinced that these strange neighbors of hers were more or less involved in the mystery of her own peculiar moods and unaccountable fears.