ngle--jingle down came a suit of armor in
the hall, and a voice came and cried, "Fatima! Fatima! Fatima! look,
look, look; the tomb, the tomb, the tomb!"

She looked. The vault door was open, and there in the moonlight stood
Bluebeard, exactly as he was represented in the picture, in his yeomanry
dress, his face frightfully pale, and his great blue beard curling over
his chest, as awful as Mr. Muntz's.

Sister Anne saw the vision as well as Fatima. We shall spare the account
of their terrors and screams. Strange to say, John Thomas, who slept in
the attic above his mistress's bedroom, declared he was on the watch all
night, and had seen nothing in the churchyard, and heard no sort of
voices in the house.

And now the question came, What could the ghost want by appearing? "Is
there anything," exclaimed the unhappy and perplexed Fatima, "that he
would have me do? It is well to say 'now, now, now,' and to show
himself; but what is it that makes my blessed husband so uneasy in his
grave?" And all parties consulted agreed that it was a very sensible
question.

John Thomas, the footman, whose excessive terror at the appearance of
the ghost had procured him his mistress's confidence, advised Mr. Screw,
the butler, who communicated with Mrs. Baggs, the housekeeper, who
condescended to impart her observations to Mrs. Bustle, the
lady's-maid,--John Thomas, I say, decidedly advised that my lady should
consult a cunning man. There was such a man in town; he had prophesied
who should marry his (John Thomas's) cousin; he had cured Farmer Horn's
cattle, which were evidently bewitched; he could raise ghosts, and make
them speak, and he therefore was the very person to be consulted in the
present juncture.

"What nonsense is this you have been talking to the maids, John Thomas,
about the conjurer who lives in--in--"

"In Hangman's Lane, ma'am, where the gibbet used to stand," replied
John, who was bringing in the muffins. "It's no nonsense, my lady. Every
word as that man says comes true, and he knows everything."

"I desire you will not frighten the girls in the servants' hall with any
of those silly stories," said the widow; and the meaning of this speech
may, of course, at once be guessed. It was that the widow meant to
consult the conjurer that very night. Sister Anne said that she would
never, under such circumstances, desert her dear Fatima. John Thomas was
summoned to attend the ladies with a dark lantern, and forth they