work. Sarah Batts was seated in an attitude of
luxurious repose, with her arms folded, and her feet on the fender.

"Was it either of you girls that screamed just now?" Ellen asked
anxiously.

"Screamed, ma'am! no, indeed," Martha Holden answered, with an air of
perfect good faith. "What should we scream for? I've been sitting here
at my work for the last hour, as quiet as could be."

"And, Sarah,--was it you, Sarah? For goodness' sake tell the truth."

"Me, mum! lor no, mum. I was up with master showing him and the strange
gentleman a light."

"You were upstairs with your master? And did you hear nothing? A piercing
shriek that rang through the house;--you must surely have heard it, both
of you."

Martha shook her head resolutely.

"Not me, mum; I didn't hear a sound. The kitchen-door was shut all the
time Sarah was away, and I was busy at work, and thinking of nothing but
my work. I wasn't upon the listen, as you may say."

The kitchen was at the extreme end of the house, remote from that
direction whence the unexplainable cry seemed to have come.

"It is most extraordinary," Ellen said gravely, perplexed beyond all
measure. "But you, Sarah; if you were upstairs with your master, you must
surely have heard that shriek; it seemed to come from upstairs."

"Did master hear it?" asked the girl deliberately.

"He says not."

"Then how should I, mum? No, mum, I didn't hear nothink; I can take my
Bible oath of that."

"I don't want any oaths; I only want to know the meaning of this
business. There would have been no harm in your screaming. You might just
as well speak the truth about it."

"Lor, mum, but it warn't me," answered Sarah Batts with an injured look.
"Whatever could go to put it in your head as it was me?"

"It must have been one or other of you two girls. There's no other woman
in the house; and as you were upstairs, it seems more likely to have been
you. However, there's no use talking any more about it. Only we both
heard the scream, didn't we, Mrs. Tadman?"

"I should think we did, indeed," responded the widow with a vehement
shudder. "My flesh is all upon the creep at this very moment. I don't
think I ever had such a turn in my life."

They went back to the parlour, leaving the two servants still sitting by
the fire; Sarah Batts with that look of injured innocence fixed upon her
wooden countenance, Martha Holden cheerfully employed in the construction
of her Sunday cap. In the parlour th