We looked back to see her still standing in the doorway.  “Who in the world can she be?” said Kate.  And we wondered and puzzled and talked over “the ghost” until we saw Miss Honora Carew, who told us that it was Miss Sally Chauncey.

“Indeed, I know her, poor old soul!” said Miss Honora; “she has such a sad history.  She is the last survivor of one of the most aristocratic old colonial families.  The Chaunceys were of great renown until early in the present century, and then their fortunes changed.  They had always been rich and well-educated, and I suppose nobody ever had a gayer, happier time than Miss Sally did in her girlhood, for they entertained a great deal of company and lived in fine style; but her father was unfortunate in business, and at last was utterly ruined at the time of the embargo; then he became partially insane, and died after many years of poverty.  I have often heard a tradition that a sailor to whom he had broken a promise had cursed him, and that none of the family had died in their beds or had any good luck since.  The East Parish people seem to believe in it, and it is certainly strange what terrible sorrow has come to the Chaunceys.  One of Miss Sally’s brothers, a fine young officer in the navy who was at home on leave, asked her one day if she could get on without him, and she said yes, thinking he meant to go back to sea; but in a few minutes she heard the noise of a pistol in his room, and hurried in to find him lying dead on the floor.  Then there was another brother who was insane, and who became so violent that he was chained for years in one of the upper chambers, a dangerous prisoner.  I have heard his horrid cries myself, when I was a young girl,” said Miss Honora, with a shiver.

“Miss Sally is insane, and has been for many years, and this seems to me the saddest part of the story.  When she first lost her reason she was sent to a hospital, for there was no one who could take care of her.  The mania was so acute that no one had the slightest thought that she would recover or even live long.  Her guardian sold the furniture and pictures and china, almost everything but clothing, to pay the bills at the hospital, until the house was fairly empty; and then one spring day, I remember it well, she came home in her right mind, and, without a thought of what was awaiting her, ran eagerly into her home.  It was a terrible shock, and she never has recovered from it, though after a long illness her insanity took a mild form, and she has always been perfectly harmless.  She has been alone many years, and no one can persuade her to leave the old house, where she seems to be contented, and does not realize her troubles; though she lives mostly in the past, and has little idea of the present, except in her house affairs, which seem pitiful to me, for I remember the housekeeping of the Chaunceys when I was a child.  I have always been to see her, and she usually knows me, though I have been but seldom of late years.