's experience.

"I hope you are well this morning?" he said to her, anxiously; and she
smiled pensively, as she answered:

"I am better, thank you. The sunlight has chased away all the terrors of
the night, and I am wondering if indeed I could have dreamed that
horrible thing, as Aunt Judith declares."

"So, then, you were frightened by something!" he exclaimed, tenderly.
"Would you mind telling me all about it?"

"Perhaps you will think me very silly," she replied, dubiously, lifting
her large eyes with a wistful look that thrilled his heart.

"No, indeed. Let me hear it," he cried; while the others waited in
malicious joy, knowing how angry it always made him to hear any
reference to the family ghost.

Dainty drew a long, quivering sigh, and began:

"There isn't much to tell, after all; only that while I was dressing for
dinner, I heard in the next room the sound of a terrible hacking cough,
several times repeated, as of some one in the last stages of
consumption. When the maid came in I inquired about it, and she crossed
herself piously, looking behind her as if in fear, while she muttered to
herself about 'the old monk.' When I pressed her for an explanation, she
denied that there was any sick person in the next room, or even in the
house."

She paused timidly, wondering why his brow had grown gloomy as a
thunder-cloud; but he said, with a kind of impatient courtesy:

"Well, go on."

Dainty's hands began to tremble as they toyed with the richly chased
silver knife and fork; but she continued, falteringly:

"Afterward, when I was going back to my room, I told Ela what I had
heard; and she laughed, and said that the family ghost of Ellsworth was
a wicked old monk who had died of consumption."

"Ah!" he cried, with a keen look at Ela; but she was too much absorbed
in her dainty broiled chicken to meet his glance.

Then Dainty resumed:

"I retired to my room, but I was nervous and restless, having never
slept away from my mother before. I threw on a dressing-gown, and sat
down beside the window to watch the moonlit scenery, and to muse
on--mamma, wondering if she missed her child, and felt as lonely and
depressed as I did. So I fell asleep in my chair, and was awakened
suddenly by the touch of an icy hand, and a rasping cough in my ear. I
started up. Oh, heavens! I was not alone! Beside me stood the figure of
an old monk with a ghastly white face and glassy dead eyes!"

Her face went dead white, even