r?" Mrs. Caldwell answered, awaking with a start.

"Aunt Victoria is coughing."

"Well, my dear child, I'm very sorry, but I can't help it; and it is
hardly enough to wake me for," Mrs. Caldwell answered. She settled
herself to sleep again, and the gale raged without; but Beth remained,
resting on her elbow, not listening so much as straining her attention
out into the darkness in an effort to perceive with her further
faculty what was beyond the range of her limited senses.

"Mamma!" she exclaimed once more, "Aunt Victoria is moaning."

"Nonsense, Beth," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. "You couldn't possibly hear
her if she were."

There was another little interval, then Beth jumped out of bed, crying
as she did so, "Mamma, Aunt Victoria is calling me."

"Beth," Mrs. Caldwell said, rousing herself, and speaking sternly,
"get into bed again directly, and lie down and go to sleep. It is the
gale that is making you so nervous. Put the bed-clothes over your
head, and then you won't hear it."

Beth had been huddling on the first thing she laid hold of in the
dark, a thick woollen dressing-gown of her mother's, while she was
speaking. "I shall go and see for myself," she replied.

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Caldwell. "It wouldn't be you if you didn't
upset the whole house for your fancies. When you have awakened your
aunt, and spoilt her night for nothing, as you have spoilt mine,
you'll be satisfied."

Beth opened the door, and stepped down into darkness, unrelieved by
the slightest glimmer of light. She had to descend some steps and go
up some others to get to Aunt Victoria's room; and, after the first
step, she felt as if she were floating in some new element, not moving
of her own accord, but borne along confidently, without seeing and
without feeling her way; and, as she went, she found that the long
thick garment she wore was making the same soft muffled sound she had
already heard, and also that there was no footstep audible.

She went into Aunt Victoria's room without knocking. It struck Beth as
being intensely cold. A candle was burning on the little table beside
the bed. The old lady was sitting, propped up uncomfortably with two
thin pillows and a hassock. She was breathing with difficulty, and
showed no surprise when she saw Beth enter. Her lips were moving, and
Beth could see she was mumbling something, but she could distinguish
no word until she went quite close, when she heard her say, "Comfort
ye, comfort