FullReads

“Well, I filled it and then ran upstairs. I felt every minute as if something would catch my feet, and I held the glass to Mrs. Dennison’s lips, while Mrs. Bird held her head up, and she took a good long swallow, then she looked hard at the tumbler.

“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I know I got this one, but I took the first I came across, and it isn’t hurt a mite.’

“‘Don’t get the painted flowers wet,’ says Mrs. Dennison very feebly, ‘they’ll wash off if you do.’

“‘I’ll be real careful,’ says I. I knew she set a sight by that painted tumbler.

“The water seemed to do Mrs. Dennison good, for presently she pushed Mrs. Bird away and sat up. She had been laying down on my bed.

“‘I’m all over it now,’ says she, but she was terribly white, and her eyes looked as if they saw something outside things. Mrs. Bird wasn’t much better, but she always had a sort of settled sweet, good look that nothing could disturb to any great extent. I knew I looked dreadful, for I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass, and I would hardly have known who it was.

“Mrs. Dennison, she slid off the bed and walked sort of tottery to a chair.’I was silly to give way so,’ says she.

“‘No, you wasn’t silly, sister,’ says Mrs. Bird.’I don’t know what this means any more than you do, but whatever it is, no one ought to be called silly for being overcome by anything so different from other things which we have known all our lives.’

“Mrs. Dennison looked at her sister, then she looked at me, then back at her sister again, and Mrs. Bird spoke as if she had been asked a question.

“‘Yes,’ says she, ‘I do think Miss Arms ought to be told – that is, I think she ought to be told all we know ourselves.’

“‘That isn’t much,’ said Mrs. Dennison with a dying-away sort of sigh. She looked as if she might faint away again any minute. She was a real delicate-looking woman, but it turned out she was a good deal stronger than poor Mrs. Bird.

“‘No, there isn’t much we do know,’ says Mrs. Bird, ‘but what little there is she ought to know. I felt as if she ought to when she first came here.’

“‘Well, I didn’t feel quite right about it,’ said Mrs. Dennison, ‘but I kept hoping it might stop, and any way, that it might never trouble her, and you had put so much in the house, and we needed the money, and I didn’t know but she might be nervous and think she couldn’t come, and I didn’t want to take a man boarder.’

“‘And aside from the money, we were very anxious to have you come, my dear,’ says Mrs. Bird.

“‘Yes,’ says Mrs. Dennison, ‘we wanted the young company in the house; we were lonesome, and we both of us took a great liking to you the minute we set eyes on you.’

“And I guess they meant what they said, both of them. They were beautiful women, and nobody could be any kinder to me than they were, and I never blamed them for not telling me before, and, as they said, there wasn’t really much to tell.

“They hadn’t any sooner fairly bought the house, and moved into it, than they began to see and hear things. Mrs. Bird said they were sitting together in the sitting-room one evening when they heard it the first time. She said her sister was knitting lace (Mrs. Dennison made beautiful knitted lace) and she was reading the Missionary Herald(Mrs. Bird was very much interested in mission work), when all of a sudden they heard something. She heard it first and she laid down her Missionary Heraldand listened, and then Mrs. Dennison she saw her listening and she drops her lace.’What is it you are listening to, Abby?’ says she. Then it came again and they both heard, and the cold shivers went down their backs to hear it, though they didn’t know why.’It’s the cat, isn’t it?’ says Mrs. Bird.