aid, at least, it made little
impression; but her grandson, a worthless fellow, sauntered in, and
began to tell a story of his own, hearing of whom we spoke. "I was
coming home late last night," said he, "and, as I was in that dark
place along by the Noroway pines, old Lady Ferry she went by me, and I
was near scared to death. She looked fearful tall--towered way up
above me. Her face was all lit up with blue light, and her feet didn't
touch the ground. She wasn't taking steps, she wasn't walking, but
movin' along like a sail-boat before the wind. I dodged behind some
little birches, and I was scared she'd see me; but she went right out
o' sight up the road. She ain't mortal."

"Don't scare the child with such foolishness," said his aunt
disdainfully. "You'll be seein' worse things a-dancin' before your
eyes than that poor, harmless old creatur' if you don't quit the ways
you've been following lately. If that was last night, you were too
drunk to see anything;" and the fellow muttered, and went out banging
the door. But the story had been told, and I was stiffened and chilled
with fright; and all the way home I was in terror, looking fearfully
behind me again and again.

When I saw cousin Agnes, I felt safer, and since cousin Matthew was not
at home, and we were alone, I could not resist telling her what I had
heard. She listened to me kindly, and seemed so confident that my
story was idle nonsense, that my fears were quieted. She talked to me
until I no longer was a believer in there being any unhappy mystery or
harmfulness; but I could not get over the fright, and I dreaded my
lonely room, and I was glad enough when cousin Agnes, with her
unfailing thoughtfulness, asked if I would like to have her come to
sleep with me, and even went up stairs with me at my own early bedtime,
saying that she should find it dull to sit all alone in the parlour.
So I went to sleep, thinking of what I had heard, it is true, but no
longer unhappy, because her dear arm was over me, and I was perfectly
safe. I waked up for a little while in the night, and it was light in
the room, so that I could see her face, fearless and sweet and sad, and
I wondered, in my blessed sense of security, if she were ever afraid of
Lady Ferry.

I will not tell other stories: they are much alike, all my memories of
those weeks and months at the ferry, and I have no wish to be
wearisome. The last time I saw Madam she was standing in the garden
d