before the fire. I then related my
story, told my name and business, and by degrees established a mild flow
of conversation. The woman, as she washed the dishes and cleared up
things for the night, listened to us, and now and then made a remark
to the coffee-pot or frying-pan, evidently intended for our ears. Some
things which she said must have had a meaning hidden from me, for I
could see that the man winced, and at last he ventured to say,--

"Mary Ann, what's the use in talkin' about it?"

"Do as you like," she snapped back; "only I a'n't a-goin' to be blamed
for _your_ doin's. The stranger'll find out, soon enough."

"You find this life rather lonely, I should think," I remarked, with a
view of giving the conversation a different turn.

"Lonely!" she repeated, jerking out a fragment of malicious laughter.
"It's lonely enough in the daytime, Goodness knows; but you'll have your
fill o' company afore mornin'."

With that, she threw a defiant glance at her husband.

"Fact is," said he, shrinking from her eye, "we're sort o' troubled
with noises at night. P'raps you'll be skeered, but it's no more 'n
noise,--onpleasant, but never hurts nothin'."

"You don't mean to say this shanty is haunted?" I asked.

"Well,--yes: some folks 'd call it so. There _is_ noises an' things
goin' on, but you can't see nobody."

"Oh, if that is all," said I, "you need not be concerned on my account.
Nothing is so strange, but the cause of it can be discovered."

Again the man heaved a deep sigh. The woman said, in rather a milder
tone,--

"What's the good o' knowin' what makes it, when you can't stop it?"

As I was neither sleepy nor fatigued, this information was rather
welcome than otherwise. I had full confidence in my own courage; and if
anything _should_ happen, it would make a capital story for my first
New-York supper. I saw there was but one bed, and a small straw mattress
on the floor beside it for the boy, and therefore declared that I should
sleep on the bench, wrapped in my cloak. Neither objected to this, and
they presently retired. I determined, however, to keep awake as long as
possible. I threw a fresh log on the fire, lit another cigar, made a few
entries in my note-book, and finally took the "Iron Mask" of Dumas from
my valise, and tried to read by the wavering flashes of the fire.

In this manner another hour passed away. The deep breathing--not to say
snoring--from the recess indicated that my hosts were so