t laid down, the round
oaken table brought forward, and Jane Beckett, in afternoon trim,
tending her geraniums, the offspring of the parting Cheveleigh nosegay,
or gauffreing her mistress's caps. No wonder that on raw evenings,
Master James, Miss Clara, or my young Lord, had often been found
gossiping with Jane, toasting their own cheeks as well as the bread, or
pinching their fingers in her gauffreing machine.

Yet, poor little Charlotte Arnold learnt that the kitchen could be
dreary, when Mrs. Beckett had been summoned to nurse Lord Fitzjocelyn,
and she remained in sole charge, under Mrs. Martha's occasional
supervision. She found herself, her household cares over all too soon,
on a cold light March afternoon, with the clock ticking loud enough for
midnight, the smoke-jack indulging in supernatural groans, and the
whole lonely house full of undefined terrors, with an unlimited space
of the like solitude before her. She would even have been glad to be
sure of an evening of Mrs. Martha's good advice, and of darning
stockings! She sat down by the round table to Mr. James's wristbands;
but every creak or crack of the furniture made her start, and think of
death-watches. She might have learnt to contemn superstition, but that
did not prevent it from affecting her nerves.

She spread her favourite study, The Old English Baron, on the table
before her; but the hero had some connexion in her mind with Tom
Madison, for whom she had always coveted a battle-field in France. What
would he feel when he heard how he had filled up his course of evil,
being well-nigh the death of his benefactor! If any one ought to be
haunted, it would assuredly be no other than Tom!

Chills running over her at the thought, she turned to the fire as the
thing nearest life, but at the moment started at a hollow call of her
own name. A face was looking in at her through the geraniums! She
shrieked aloud, and clasped her hands over her eyes.

'Don't make a row. Open the door!'

It was such a relief to hear something unghostly, that she sprang to
the door; but as she undid it, all her scruples seized her, and she
tried to hold it, saying, 'Don't come in! You unfortunate boy, do you
know what you have done?'

But Tom Madison was in a mood to which her female nature cowered. He
pushed the door open, saying authoritatively, 'Tell me how he is!'

'He is as ill as he can be to be alive,' said Charlotte, actuated at
once by the importance of