own room through the pitchy halls she
was glad to see that there was no light in the governess' room and that
all was darkness and silence within.

"Good! She's asleep by this time, the dear!" murmured the faithful
soul, and was soon snoring peacefully herself, quite worn out with the
excitement of the evening.

But Miss Blake was not asleep. Her eyes stared widely into the
darkness and her brain was spinning with all sorts of teasing thoughts.
She listened to the ticking of her watch beneath her pillow--to the
muffled chime of the tall clock in the room below--to the gentle rattle
of plaster inside the walls where some hidden mouse was scuttling in
search of a stolen supper, and tried to soothe herself into a doze but
failed and tried and failed again.

Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed. The sound she heard now was a
new one, and one that caused her flesh to tingle. It was the sound of
a stealthy hand upon her door. The knob turned noiselessly, the hinges
gave a faint whine, and there on the threshold stood a white-robed
figure, ghastly and spectral in the pallid light that fell upon it from
the cloud-freed moon outside. Miss Blake did not utter a sound and the
apparition glided forward with slow, measured steps until it stood
beside her bed. Its eyes were staring and wide and fixed.

"It's Nan!" thought Miss Blake, not daring to speak aloud.

The apparition did not remove its gaze. Presently it sighed. Then it
raised its head and spoke and its voice was weirdly low and mournful.

"Alas, alas!" it wailed. "This is the worst thing that ever happened
to me in all my life. My dear old home! To think that anybody who
isn't wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear old
home! What does she know of the way I feel? I can never tell her how
I hate to have her here, for that would be unladylike. But oh, how I
hate it! No, I must keep my lips closed and bear her persecution in
silence."

Two white hands were raised and wrung in a way that was truly tragic.

"O father, father!" groaned the ghost, making wild grabs at its hair,
"come home from Bombay and save me from this awful woman. Turn her out
of the house. Make her go back where she came from. Her hated form
haunts me in my sleep and I dream all night of her as I see her in the
daytime."

Miss Blake caught her breath in a struggling gasp of dread as to what
would come next.

"Tall and thin and lanky, with hair all dragged int