red the mouldering ankles, and the
wheel went merrily round."

It is unnecessary to repeat the couplet which Miss Thusa sang between
every descending _horror_, in a voice which sounded as if it came
through a fine-toothed comb, in little trembling wires, though it gave
indescribable effect to her gloomy tale.

"In a few moments," continued Miss Thusa, "she heard a shoving, pushing
sound in the chimney like something groaning and laboring against the
sides of the bricks, and presently a great, big, bloated body came down
and set itself on legs that were no larger than a pipe stem. Then a
little, scraggy neck, and, last of all, a monstrous skeleton head that
grinned from ear to ear. 'You want good company, and you shall have it,'
said the figure, and its voice did sound awfully--but the woman put up
her wheel and asked the grim thing to take a chair and make himself at
home.

"'I can't stay to-night,' said he, 'I've got a journey to take by the
moonlight. Come along and let us be company for each other. There is a
snug little place where we can rest when we're tired.'"

"Oh! Miss Thusa, she didn't go, did she?" interrupted Helen, whose eyes,
which had been gradually enlarging, looked like two full midnight moons.

"Hush, child, if you ask another question, I'll stop short. She didn't
do anything else but go, and they must have been a pretty sight walking
in the moonlight together. The lonely woman and the worm-eaten traveler.
On they went through the woods and over the plains, and up hill and down
hill, over bridges made of fallen trees, and streams that had no bridges
at all; when at last they came to a kind of uneven ground, and as the
moon went behind a cloud, they went stumbling along as if treading over
hillocks of corn.

"'Here it is,' cried the worm-eaten traveler, stopping on the brink of a
deep, open grave. The moon looked forth from behind a cloud, and showed
how awful deep it was. She wanted to turn back then, but the skeleton
arms of the figure seized hold of her, and down they both went without
ladder or rope, and no mortal ever set eyes on them more.

'Oh! if I'd good company--if I'd good company,
Oh! how happy should I be!'"

It is impossible to describe the intensity with which Helen listened to
this wild, dark legend, crouching closer and closer to the chimney
corner, while the chillness of superstitious terror quenched the burning
fire-rose on her cheek.

"Was the spinning woman _you_,