“I was only frightened for a few minutes, Hester,” she said.  “My dreams are not vivid at all, usually.”

But howsoever bravely she ignored the shock she had received, it was not without its effect, which was that occasionally there drifted into her mind a recollection of the suggestion that Palstrey had a ghost.  She had never heard of it, and was in fact of an orthodoxy so ingenuously entire as to make her feel that belief in the existence of such things was a sort of defiance of ecclesiastical laws.  Still, such stories were often told in connection with old places, and it was natural to wonder what features marked this particular legend.  Did it lay hands on people’s sides when they were asleep?  Captain Osborn had asked his question as if with a sudden sense of recognition.  But she would not let herself think of the matter, and she would not make inquiries.

The result was that she did not sleep well for several nights.  She was annoyed at herself, because she found that she kept lying awake as if listening or waiting.  And it was not a good thing to lose one’s sleep when one wanted particularly to keep strong.

Jane Cupp during this week was, to use her own words, “given quite a turn” by an incident which, though a small matter, might have proved untoward in its results.

The house at Palstrey, despite its age, was in a wonderful state of preservation, the carved oak balustrades of the stairways being considered particularly fine.

“What but Providence,” said Jane piously, in speaking to her mother the next morning, “made me look down the staircase as I passed through the upper landing just before my lady was going down to dinner.  What but Providence I couldn’t say.  It certainly wasn’t because I’ve done it before that I remember.  But just that one evening I was obliged to cross the landing for something, and my eye just lowered itself by accident, and there it was!”

“Just where it would have tripped her up.  Good Lord! it makes my heart turn over to hear you tell it.  How big a bit of carving was it?” Mrs. Cupp’s opulent chest trimmings heaved.

“Only a small piece that had broken off from old age and worm-eatenness, I suppose, but it had dropped just where she wouldn’t have caught sight of it, and ten to one would have stepped on it and turned her ankle and been thrown from the top to the bottom of the whole flight.  Suppose I hadn’t seen it in time to pick it up before she went down.  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  Mother!”

“I should say so!” Mrs. Cupp’s manner approached the devout.  This incident it was which probably added to Jane’s nervous sense of responsibility.  She began to watch her mistress’s movements with hyper-sensitive anxiety.  She fell into the habit of going over her bedroom two or three times a day, giving a sort of examination to its contents.