om; I'd rather have it than the one I've got. If I was afraid
to sleep in a room where a good woman died, I wouldn't tell of it. If
I saw things or heard things I'd think the fault must be with my own
guilty conscience." Then she turned to Miss Stark. "Any time you feel
timid in that room I'm ready and willing to change with you," said she.

"Thank you; I have no desire to change. I am perfectly satisfied with
my room," replied Miss Stark with freezing dignity, which was thrown
away upon the widow.

"Well," said she, "any time, if you should feel timid, you know what to
do. I've got a real nice room; it faces east and gets the morning sun,
but it isn't so nice as yours, according to my way of thinking. I'd
rather take my chances any day in a room anybody had died in than in
one that was hot in summer. I'm more afraid of a sunstroke than of
spooks, for my part."

Miss Sophia Gill, who had not spoken one word, but whose mouth had
become more and more rigidly compressed, suddenly rose from the table,
forcing the minister to leave a little pudding, at which he glanced
regretfully.

Miss Louisa Stark did not sit down in the parlour with the other
boarders. She went straight to her room. She felt tired after her
journey, and meditated a loose wrapper and writing a few letters
quietly before she went to bed. Then, too, she was conscious of a
feeling that if she delayed, the going there at all might assume more
terrifying proportions. She was full of defiance against herself and
her own lurking weakness.

So she went resolutely and entered the southwest chamber. There was
through the room a soft twilight. She could dimly discern everything,
the white satin scroll-work on the wall paper and the white counterpane
on the bed being most evident. Consequently both arrested her
attention first. She saw against the wall-paper directly facing the
door the waist of her best black satin dress hung over a picture.

"That is very strange," she said to herself, and again a thrill of
vague horror came over her.

She knew, or thought she knew, that she had put that black satin dress
waist away nicely folded between towels in her trunk. She was very
choice of her black satin dress.

She took down the black waist and laid it on the bed preparatory to
folding it, but when she attempted to do so she discovered that the two
sleeves were firmly sewed together. Louisa Stark stared at the sewed
sleeves. "What does this me