e
much out of the common course, even though she had not also called to
him in an agitated tone.

Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting,
with a lighted candle in her hand.

'What's the matter, my dear?'

'I don't know; I don't know; but I wish you'd come up-stairs.'

Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin into
their own room: a second large room on the same floor as the room in
which the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him,
and saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on a
large chest, which Mrs Boffin had been sorting.

'What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! YOU frightened?'

'I am not one of that sort certainly,' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat down
in a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm; 'but it's
very strange!'

'What is, my dear?'

'Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over the
house to-night.'

'My dear?' exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortable
sensation gliding down his back.

'I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so.'

'Where did you think you saw them?'

'I don't know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt them.'

'Touched them?'

'No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, and
not thinking of the old man or the children, but singing to myself, when
all in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark.'

'What face?' asked her husband, looking about him.

'For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. For a
moment it was both the children's, and then it got older. For a moment
it was a strange face, and then it was all the faces.'

'And then it was gone?'

'Yes; and then it was gone.'

'Where were you then, old lady?'

'Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting,
and went on singing to myself. "Lor!" I says, "I'll think of something
else--something comfortable--and put it out of my head." So I thought
of the new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate
with that sheet there in my hand, when all of a sudden, the faces seemed
to be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop.'

As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it up
and laid it on the chest.

'And then you ran down stairs?'

'No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself,
"I'll go and walk slowly up