and I heard a
church-bell ring two o'clock in a town far up the river. I never had
heard this solemn bell before, and it seemed frightful; but I knew
afterward that in the silence of a misty night the sound of it came
down along the water.

In the morning I found that there had been a gale in the night; and
cousin Matthew said at breakfast time that the tide had risen so that
it had carried off two old boats that had been left on the shore to go
to pieces. I sprang to the window, and sure enough they had
disappeared. I had played in one of them the day before. Should I
tell cousin Matthew what I had seen or dreamed? But I was too sure
that he would only laugh at me: and yet I was none the less sure that
those boats had carried passengers.

When I went out to the garden, I hurried to the porch, and saw, to my
disappointment, that there were great spiders' webs in the corners of
the door, and around the latch, and that it had not been opened since I
was there before. But I saw something shining in the grass, and found
it was a silver knee-buckle. It must have belonged to one of the
ghostly guests, and my faith in them came back for a while, in spite of
the cobwebs. By and by I bravely carried it up to Madam, and asked if
it were hers. Sometimes she would not answer for a long time, when one
rudely broke in upon her reveries, and she hesitated now, looking at me
with singular earnestness. Deborah was in the room; and, when she saw
the buckle, she quietly said that it had been on the window-ledge the
day before, and must have slipped out. "I found it down by the
doorstep in the grass," said I humbly; and then I offered Lady Ferry
some strawberries which I had picked for her on a broad green leaf, and
came away again.

A day or two after this, while my dream was still fresh in my mind, I
went with Martha to her own home, which was a mile or two distant,--a
comfortable farmhouse for those days, where I was always made welcome.
The servants were all very kind to me: as I recall it now, they seemed
to have pity for me, because I was the only child perhaps. I was very
happy, that is certain, and I enjoyed my childish amusements as
heartily as if there were no unfathomable mysteries or perplexities or
sorrows anywhere in the world.

I was sitting by the fireplace at Martha's, and her grandmother, who
was very old, and who was fast losing her wits, had been talking to me
about Madam. I do not remember what she s