relatives. The sharp
shells gaped before me, a solemn voice said, "Take her by her little
head and eat her quick." Retribution was at hand, and, with a despairing
effort to escape by diving, I bumped my head smartly against the wall,
and woke up feeling as if there was an earthquake under the bed.

Collecting my scattered wits, I tried to compose myself to slumber
again; but alas! that fatal feast had murdered sleep, and I vainly tried
to lull my wakeful senses with the rustle of woodbine leaves about the
window, and the breaking waves upon the beach.

In one of the pauses between the ebb and flow of the waves, I heard a
curious sound in the house,--a muffled sort of moan, coming at regular
intervals. And, as I sat up to make out where it was, another sound
caught my attentive ear. Drip, drip, drip, went something out in the
hall, and in an instant the tale told me on Sunset Hill came back with
unpleasant vividness.

"Nonsense! it is raining, and the roof leaks," I said to myself, while a
disagreeable thrill went through me, and fancy, aided by indigestion,
began to people the house with uncanny inmates.

No rain had fallen for weeks, and peeping through my curtain I saw the
big, bright stars shining in a cloudless sky; so that explanation
failed, and still the drip, drip, drip went on. Likewise the moaning, so
distinctly now that it was evident the little back bedroom was next the
chamber in which I was quaking at that identical moment.

"Some one is sleeping there," I said, and then recollected that all the
rooms were locked, and all the keys but mine in Mrs. Grant's pocket up
at the house.

"Well, let the goblins enjoy themselves; I won't disturb them if they
let me alone. Some of the ladies thought me brave to dare to sleep here,
and it will never do to own I was scared by a foolish story and an odd
sound."

So down I lay, and said the multiplication table industriously for
several minutes, trying to turn a deaf ear to the outer world, and curb
my unruly thoughts. But it was a failure, and, when I found myself
saying over and over "Four times twelve is twenty-four," I gave up
affecting courage, and went in for a good honest scare.

As a cheerful subject for midnight meditation I kept thinking of B.
Tucker, in spite of every effort to abstain. In vain I recalled the fact
that the departed gentleman was "allers civil to the ladies." I still
was in mortal fear lest he might think it necessary to come and
apol