red
Miss Libby.

"Ah, but who was her murderer? Surely Elizabeth Winterose, _you_ do not
dare to hint as it was my darling, that beautiful and noble lady who was
so nearly executed for the crime she never could have committed?"
demanded Miss Tabby, with awful gravity.

"Tabitha Winterose, you know I don't," answered Miss Libby, in solemn
indignation.

"I'm glad to hear you say so, for she never did it, nor yet could have
done it, though she had cause enough, poor dear! cause enough to go
raving mad with jealousy, and to hate her rival unto death, if ever a
lady had. But she never was that poor woman's death, though well the
woman might have deserved it at her hands. But she never did it! No, she
never did it!" reiterated Miss Tabby, with many vain repetitions, as she
wiped her faded blue eyes.

"And if Rosa Blondelle's spirit cannot rest in her grave, it an't so
much because her rale murderer is at large, as it is because Sybil
Berners, her benefactress, as she wronged so ungratefully when she was
alive, is now falsely accused of her death," whispered Miss Libby.

"Yes, and, would a been just as falsely executed for it too, if she
hadn't a been reskeed on that dreadful night of the flood. And where is
she now? Where is the last of the Berners now? An exile and a wanderer
over the face of the earth! A fugitive from justice, they call her! 'A
fugitive from justice!' when all she needs to make her happy in this
world, if she still lives in it, is jest simple justice. Oh! I shall
never, never, forget that awful night of the storm and flood, when with
her infant of a few hours old, which they had waited for it to be born
before they meant to murder her, she was suddenly snatched out of the
flooded prison and carried away from sight, as if the waters had
swallowed her! And that was the second horrible Hallow Eve of my life!"
sobbed Miss Tabby.

"Hush! hush! why harp upon the horrors that happened so many years ago?
'What's done is done,' and can't be undone," urged the old lady.

"I know it, mother; but it is some sort o' relief to talk--it keeps me
from thinking too deep about--"

"About what, Tabby? Don't be a fool!"

"About this, then; as there never was no dreadful thing ever happened to
us as didn't happen to happen on a dark, drizzly, dreary Hallow Eve!"
whimpered Miss Tabby.

"It is a fatality!" whispered Miss Libby.

"It is a fiddlestick!" snapped the old lady.

"Oh, mother, mother, you can't dispute i