“Well, Mrs. Bird said the child stroked that cat, while she and Mrs. Dennison stood watching it, and holding onto each other, for, no matter how hard they tried to think it was all right, it didn’t look right.  Finally Mrs. Dennison she spoke.

“‘What’s your name, little girl?’ says she.

“Then the child looks up and stops stroking the cat, and says she can’t find her mother, just the way she said it to me.  Then Mrs. Dennison she gave such a gasp that Mrs. Bird thought she was going to faint away, but she didn’t.  ‘Well, who is your mother?’ says she.  But the child just says again ’I can’t find my mother—­I can’t find my mother.’

“‘Where do you live, dear?’ says Mrs. Bird.

“‘I can’t find my mother,’ says the child.

“Well, that was the way it was.  Nothing happened.  Those two women stood there hanging onto each other, and the child stood in front of them, and they asked her questions, and everything she would say was:  ‘I can’t find my mother.’

“Then Mrs. Bird tried to catch hold of the child, for she thought in spite of what she saw that perhaps she was nervous and it was a real child, only perhaps not quite right in its head, that had run away in her little nightgown after she had been put to bed.

“She tried to catch the child.  She had an idea of putting a shawl around it and going out—­she was such a little thing she could have carried her easy enough—­and trying to find out to which of the neighbours she belonged.  But the minute she moved toward the child there wasn’t any child there; there was only that little voice seeming to come from nothing, saying ‘I can’t find my mother,’ and presently that died away.

“Well, that same thing kept happening, or something very much the same.  Once in awhile Mrs. Bird would be washing dishes, and all at once the child would be standing beside her with the dish-towel, wiping them.  Of course, that was terrible.  Mrs. Bird would wash the dishes all over.  Sometimes she didn’t tell Mrs. Dennison, it made her so nervous.  Sometimes when they were making cake they would find the raisins all picked over, and sometimes little sticks of kindling-wood would be found laying beside the kitchen stove.  They never knew when they would come across that child, and always she kept saying over and over that she couldn’t find her mother.  They never tried talking to her, except once in awhile Mrs. Bird would get desperate and ask her something, but the child never seemed to hear it; she always kept right on saying that she couldn’t find her mother.

“After they had told me all they had to tell about their experience with the child, they told me about the house and the people that had lived there before they did.  It seemed something dreadful had happened in that house.  And the land agent had never let on to them.  I don’t think they would have bought it if he had, no matter how cheap it was, for even if folks aren’t really