o New York.
It was necessary to take to her mother the corpse of his adored wife,
and on the other hand, the universal prejudice which would prevent his
doing so openly, was well known. Nine-tenths of the passengers would
have abandoned the ship rather than take passage with the dead body.

In this dilemma, Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being first
partially embalmed, and packed, with a large quantity of salt, in a box
of suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board as merchandise.
Nothing was to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it was well
understood that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became
necessary that some person should personate her during the voyage. This
the deceased's lady's maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra
state-room, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress' life,
was now merely retained. In this state-room the pseudo-wife slept, of
course, every night. In the daytime she performed, to the best of her
ability, the part of her mistress--whose person, it had been carefully
ascertained, was unknown to any of the passengers on board.

My own mistakes arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too
inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late, it is a rare
thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance which haunts
me, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which will forever ring
within my ears.

End of Project Gutenberg's At Whispering Pine Lodge, by Lawrence J. Leslie

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT WHISPERING PINE LODGE ***

***** This file should be named 10211.txt or 10211.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/2/1/10211/

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if y