continued with more or less
intermission till daybreak. Allis fell asleep, but I spent the time in
appropriate reflections.

Early in the morning I removed the button from Miss Fellows's door. She
never knew anything about it.

I believe, however, that I had the fairness to exculpate her in my
secret heart from any trickish connection with the disturbances of that
night.

"Just keep quiet about this little affair," I said to my wife; "we shall
come across an explanation in time, and may never have any more of it."

We kept quiet, and for five days so did "the spirits," as Miss Fellows
was pleased to pronounce the trip-hammers.

The fifth day I came home early, as it chanced, from the office. Miss
Fellows was writing letters in the parlor. Allis, upstairs, was sorting
and putting away the weekly wash. I came into the room and sat down by
the register to watch her. I always liked to watch her sitting there on
the floor with the little heaps of linen and cotton stuff piled like
blocks of snow about her, and her pink hands darting in and out of the
uncertain sleeves that were just ready to give way in the gathers,
trying the stockings' heels briskly, and testing the buttons with a
little jerk.

She laid aside some under-clothing presently from the rest. "It will
not be needed again this winter," she observed, "and had better go into
the cedar closet." The garments, by the way, were marked and numbered in
indelible ink. I heard her run over the figures in a busy, housekeeper's
undertone, before carrying them into the closet. She locked the closet
door, I think, for I remember the click of the key. If I remember
accurately, I stepped into the hall after that to light a cigar, and
Alison flitted to and fro with her clothes, dropping the baby's little
white stockings every step or two, and anathematizing them
daintily--within orthodox bounds, of course. In about five minutes she
called me; her voice was sharp and alarmed.

"Come quick! O Fred, look here! All those clothes that I locked into the
cedar closet are out here on the bed!"

"My dear wife," I blandly observed, as I sauntered into the room, "too
much of Gertrude Fellows hath made thee mad. Let _me_ see the clothes!"

She pointed to the bed. Some white clothing lay upon it, folded in an
ugly way, to represent a corpse, with crossed hands.

"Is it meant for a joke, Alison? You did it yourself, I suppose!"

"Fred! I have not touched it with the tip of my littl