o that ugly little
hard knob at the back of her head!"

The ghost paused, and its uneasy hands clasped each other convulsively
while it showed plainly that it was confused in its mind and struggling
to grasp a thought it could not express.

Miss Blake breathed a deep sigh of relief. She had really begun to
suspect that it was a vision of herself that was haunting Nan in her
nightmare. Of course now she knew better. For surely she was not
"tall and lanky," and her hair was certainly not "dragged into an ugly
little knob at the back of her head." How grateful she was it had not
proved to be herself.

"O father! her eyes are like needles."

Miss Blake could have shouted for joy. But who could this awful
bugbear be?

"They prick me when she looks! Save me! Save me! my heart will break
if some one doesn't come and rescue me from this terrible person. Take
her away! She's coming at me with her needly eyes! Daddy! Daddy!"

The uneasy spirit rocked backward and forward in the intensity of its
emotion. It stretched out its arms and wagged a threatening
forefinger, while it mumbled some unintelligible warning in a voice
that faltered and wavered, and then frayed off to a mere wheeze that
sounded suspiciously like a snore.

Miss Blake would have risen if she had dared, but she dreaded the
effect even the slightest shock might have upon Nan, in what she never
doubted was a somnambulistic trance. But when the white-robed figure
turned slowly about and retraced its steps to the threshold, she
started up and noiselessly followed after to make sure that the girl
arrived safely in her own bed and showed no sign of further wandering
that night.

Never was a passage from room to room made more deliberately, and when
the bed was reached the phantom scrambled into it, dragged the blankets
closely about her shoulders and with a sigh of satisfaction settled
herself to slumber.

The governess crept back to her own room, thoroughly chilled and
shivering with nervousness. It was an hour or more before she felt
herself growing drowsy, but at last she dropped asleep and slept
heavily until long past the usual rising hour.

Nan waked at her accustomed time, feeling tired and irritable. She
found Delia in the kitchen, preparing a tempting breakfast with more
than her habitual care.

"Huh!" grunted the girl. "We have hot muffins every morning, don't we?
And griddle-cakes! and eggs, and scallops, and fried potatoes, too!