her through the room door, which she had not had time to
close completely. "Is that you, Mrs. Wragge?" she called out in her own
voice. "What is the matter?" She snatched up a towel while she spoke,
dipped it in water, and passed it rapidly over the lower part of
her face. At the sound of the familiar voice Mrs. Wragge turned
round--dropped a third parcel--and, forgetting it in her astonishment,
ascended the second flight of stairs. Magdalen stepped out on the
first-floor landing, with the towel held over her forehead as if she
was suffering from headache. Her false eyebrows required time for their
removal, and a headache assumed for the occasion suggested the most
convenient pretext she could devise for hiding them as they were hidden
now.

"What are you disturbing the house for?" she asked. "Pray be quiet; I am
half blind with the headache."

"Anything wrong, ma'am?" inquired the landlady from the passage.

"Nothing whatever," replied Magdalen. "My friend is timid; and the
dispute with the cabman has frightened her. Pay the man what he wants,
and let him go."

"Where is She?" asked Mrs. Wragge, in a tremulous whisper. "Where's the
woman who scuttled by me into your room?"

"Pooh!" said Magdalen. "No woman scuttled by you--as you call it. Look
in and see for yourself."

She threw open the door. Mrs. Wragge walked into the room--looked all
over it--saw nobody--and indicated her astonishment at the result by
dropping a fourth parcel, and trembling helplessly from head to foot.

"I saw her go in here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman
in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me
on the stairs--she did. Here's the room, and no woman in it. Give us a
Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her
whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in a little cascade
of commodities. "I want to read something Good. I want to think of my
latter end. I've seen a Ghost!"

"Nonsense!" said Magdalen. "You're dreaming; the shopping has been too
much for you. Go into your own room and take your bonnet off."

"I've heard tell of ghosts in night-gowns, ghosts in sheets, and ghosts
in chains," proceeded Mrs. Wragge, standing petrified in her own magic
circle of linen-drapers' parcels. "Here's a worse ghost than any of
'em--a ghost in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. I know what it is,"
continued Mrs. Wragge, melting into penitent tears. "It's a judgment on
me for