t has clung like a persistent shadow,
seeming to have in itself something of the substance of that to which
it pertained. Amanda was always conscious of this fragrance of lovage
as she tidied the room. She dusted the heavy mahogany pieces
punctiliously after she had opened the bed as her sister had directed.
She spread fresh towels over the wash-stand and the bureau; she made
the bed. Then she thought to take the purple gown from the easy chair
and carry it to the garret and put it in the trunk with the other
articles of the dead woman's wardrobe which had been packed away there;
BUT THE PURPLE GOWN WAS NOT ON THE CHAIR!

Amanda Gill was not a woman of strong convictions even as to her own
actions. She directly thought that possibly she had been mistaken and
had not removed it from the closet. She glanced at the closet door and
saw with surprise that it was open, and she had thought she had closed
it, but she instantly was not sure of that. So she entered the closet
and looked for the purple gown. IT WAS NOT THERE!

Amanda Gill went feebly out of the closet and looked at the easy chair
again. The purple gown was not there! She looked wildly around the
room. She went down on her trembling knees and peered under the bed,
she opened the bureau drawers, she looked again in the closet. Then
she stood in the middle of the floor and fairly wrung her hands.

"What does it mean?" she said in a shocked whisper.

She had certainly seen that loose purple gown of her dead Aunt
Harriet's.

There is a limit at which self-refutation must stop in any sane person.
Amanda Gill had reached it. She knew that she had seen that purple
gown in that closet; she knew that she had removed it and put it on the
easy chair. She also knew that she had not taken it out of the room.
She felt a curious sense of being inverted mentally. It was as if all
her traditions and laws of life were on their heads. Never in her
simple record had any garment not remained where she had placed it
unless removed by some palpable human agency.

Then the thought occurred to her that possibly her sister Sophia might
have entered the room unobserved while her back was turned and removed
the dress. A sensation of relief came over her. Her blood seemed to
flow back into its usual channels; the tension of her nerves relaxed.

"How silly I am," she said aloud.

She hurried out and downstairs into the kitchen where Sophia was making
cake, stirring with