t
it seemed to her silly, and she tried to get over it. But two or three
times, she said, when it got to be dusk, she felt somebody go by her up
the stairs. The front entry wa'n't very light in the daytime, and in the
storm, come five o'clock, it was so dark that all you could see was jest
a gleam o' some-thin', and two or three times when she started to go up
stairs she see a soft white suthin' that seemed goin' up before her, and
she stopped with her heart a beatin' like a trip-hammer, and she sort o'
saw it go up and along the entry to the cap'n's door, and then it seemed
to go right through, 'cause the door didn't open.

"Wal, Cinthy says she to old Quassia, says she, 'Is there anybody lives
in this house but us?'

"'Anybody lives here?' says Quassia: 'what you mean?' says she.

"Says Cinthy, 'I thought somebody went past me on the stairs last night
and to-night.'

"Lordy massy! how old Quassia did screech and laugh. 'Good Lord!' says
she, 'how foolish white folks is! Somebody went past you? Was't the
capt'in?'

"'No, it wa'n't the cap'n,' says she: 'it was somethin' soft and white,
and moved very still; it was like somethin' in the air,' says she.
Then Quassia she haw-hawed louder. Says she, 'It's hy-sterikes, Miss
Cinthy; that's all it is.'

"Wal, Cinthy she was kind o' 'shamed, but for all that she couldn't help
herself. Sometimes evenin's she'd be a settin' with the cap'n, and she'd
think she'd hear somebody a movin' in his room overhead; and she knowed
it wa'n't Quassia, 'cause Quassia was ironin' in the kitchen. She took
pains once or twice to find out that 'are.

"Wal, ye see, the cap'n's room was the gret front upper chamber over the
parlor, and then right oppi-site to it was the gret spare chamber where
Cinthy slept. It was jest as grand as could be, with a gret four-post
mahogany bedstead and damask curtains brought over from England; but it
was cold enough to freeze a white bear solid,--the way spare chambers
allers is. Then there was the entry between, run straight through the
house: one side was old Quassia's room, and the other was a sort o'
storeroom, where the old cap'n kep' all sorts o' traps.

"Wal, Cinthy she kep' a hevin' things happen and a seein' things, till
she didn't railly know what was in it. Once when she come into the
parlor jest at sundown, she was sure she see a white figure a vanishin'
out o' the door that went towards the side entry. She said it was so
dusk, that all she co