were always hard on I."

"Because he doesn't believe the ghost story."

"Ay, told me so this blessed marnin'; and who be he? wanted I to own
'twas a lie, and take the blessed sacrament, and make a good end. 'Sir,'
says I, 'Mr. Martimer believed it, that's Mr. Melcombe now--and so 'e
did, sir.'"

"No, I didn't," said Valentine.

"No?" she exclaimed, in a high piping tone.

"No, I say. I thought you had either invented it--made it up, I mean--or
else dreamed it. I do not wish to be hard on you, but I want to remind
you how you said you had almost done with this world."

"Why did 'e goo away, and never tell I what 'e thought?" she
interrupted.

Valentine took no notice, but went on. "And the parson feels uneasy
about you, and so do I. I wish you would try to forget what is written
down in the book, and try to remember what you really saw; you must have
been quite a young girl then. Well, tell me how you got up very early in
the morning, almost before it was light, and tell what you saw, however
much it was, or however little; and if you are not quite sure on the
whole that you saw anything at all, tell that, and you will have a right
to hope that you shall be forgiven."

"I'n can't put it in fine words."

"No, and there is no need."

"Would 'e believe it, if I told it as true as I could?"

"Yes, I would."

"I will, then, as I hope to be saved."

"I mean to stand your friend, whatever you say, and I know how hard it
is to own a lie.'

"Ay, that it be, and God knows I'n told a many."

"Well, I ask you, then, as in the sight of God, is this one of them?"

"No, sir. It ain't."

"What! you did see a ghost?"

"Ay, I did."

Valentine concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and went on.

"You told me the orchard of pear-trees and cherry-trees was all in
blossom, as white as snow. Now don't you think, as it was so very early,
almost at dawn, that what you saw really might have been a young
cherry-tree standing all in white, but that you, being frightened, took
it for a ghost?"

"The sperit didn't walk in white," she answered; "I never said it was in
white."

"Why, my good woman, you said it was in a shroud!"

"Ay, I told the gentleman when he took it down, the ghost were wrapped
up in a cloak, a long cloak, and he said that were a shroud."

"But don't you know what a shroud is?" exclaimed Valentine, a good deal
surprised. "What is the dress called hereabout, that a man is buried
in?"

"