afraid.  After a time, however, the oppression became more than she could bear.  She got up and lit her candle, and searched through the familiar room; but she found no trace that any one had been there.  The furniture was all in its usual order.  There was no hiding-place where any human thing could find refuge.  When she had satisfied herself, and was about to return to bed, suppressing a sensation which must, she said to herself, be altogether fantastic, she was startled by a low knocking at the door of communication.  Then she heard the voice of the elder girl.  “Oh, Miss Vivian what is it?  Have you seen anything?” A new sense of anger, disdain, humiliation, swept through Mary’s mind.  And if she had seen anything, she said to herself, what was that to those strangers?  She replied, “No, nothing; what should I see?” in a tone which was almost haughty, in spite of herself.

“I thought it might be—­the ghost.  Oh, please, don’t be angry.  I thought I heard this door open, but it is locked.  Oh! perhaps it is very silly, but I am so frightened, Miss Vivian.”

“Go back to bed,” said Mary; “there is no—­ghost.  I am going to sit up and write some—­letters.  You will see my light under the door.”

“Oh, thank you,” cried the girl.

Mary remembered what a consolation and strength in all wakefulness had been the glimmer of the light under her godmother’s door.  She smiled to think that she herself, so desolate as she was, was able to afford this innocent comfort to another girl, and then sat down and wept quietly, feeling her solitude and the chill about her, and the dark and the silence.  The moon had gone behind a cloud.  There seemed no light but her small miserable candle in earth and heaven.  And yet that poor little speck of light kept up the heart of another,—­which made her smile again in the middle of her tears.  And by-and-by the commotion in her head and heart calmed down, and she too fell asleep.

Next day she heard all the floating legends that were beginning to rise in the house.  They all arose from Connie’s questions about the old lady whom she had seen going up-stairs before her, the first evening after the new family’s arrival.  It was in the presence of the doctor,—­who had come to see the child, and whose surprise at finding Mary there was almost ludicrous,—­that she heard the story, though much against his will.

“There can be no need for troubling Miss Vivian about it,” he said, in a tone which was almost rude.  But Mrs. Turner was not sensitive.

“When Miss Vivian has just come like a dear, to help us with Connie!” the good woman cried.  “Of course she must hear it, doctor, for otherwise, how could she know what to do?”

“Is it true that you have come here—­here? to help—­Good heavens, Miss Mary, here?”

“Why not here?” Mary said, smiling as but she could.  “I am Connie’s governess, doctor.”