This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of spirits in general.  She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had never seen the devil.  Therefore such terrors as she that night experienced were new to her, and I can’t reasonably doubt the truth of her narrative.  Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old white-painted press showed its front from the wall.  So Moggy popped her head through her thin curtains at the side, and—­blessed hour!—­there she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.

The shape was very like her master.  The saints between us and harm!  The glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light.  She said he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the cape buttoned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all, sprinkled over with snow.

As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and with an awful ejaculation she cried, ‘’Tis you, Sir!’

‘Don’t stir, and you’ll meet no harm,’ he said, and over he posts to the bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more, and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down stairs.

In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had left them the night before.

You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light, and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut, discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable companionship.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

HOW AN EVENING PASSES AT THE ELMS, AND DR. TOOLE MAKES A LITTLE EXCURSION; AND TWO CHOICE SPIRITS DISCOURSE, AND HEBE TRIPS IN WITH THE NECTAR.