ted errands for me:--a yard of ribbon to be fetched from the
village, a letter posted, or a book returned to Mr. Ranford. As soon as
I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I looked forward to my walks
through the bare moist-smelling woods; but the moment I caught sight of
the house again my heart dropped down like a stone in a well. It was
not a gloomy house exactly, yet I never entered it but a feeling of
gloom came over me.

Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did
she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace. Excepting Mr. Ranford,
we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from D---- about once
a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction
about my mistress, and though he never told me what her illness was, I
thought, from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning, that it
might be the heart that ailed her. The season was soft and unwholesome,
and in January we had a long spell of rain. That was a sore trial to
me, I own, for I couldn't go out, and sitting over my sewing all day,
listening to the drip, drip of the eaves, I grew so nervous that the
least sound made me jump. Somehow, the thought of that locked room
across the passage began to weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long
rainy nights, I fancied I heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of
course, and the daylight drove such notions out of my head. Well, one
morning Mrs. Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me
she wished me to go to town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then
how low my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my first
sight of the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took
me out of myself. Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion
began to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of
Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the
dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once
been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number of
years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in the
interval. When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her eyes
and pulled a long face.

"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the
Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there three months."

"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her
tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be quiet."

She shook her head.