"Yet you said just now that the young ladies were expecting me to breakfast."
"Yes, and why not?" Her look was absolutely guileless. "Miss Lucetta sometimes keeps us up half the night, but she does not miss breakfast on that account. When the turn is over, she is as well as ever she was. A fine young lady, Miss Lucetta. I'd lose my two hands for her any day."
"She certainly is a remarkable girl," I declared, not, however, as dryly as I felt. "I can hardly believe I dreamed about the key. Let me feel of your pocket," I laughed.
She, without the smallest hesitancy, pulled aside her apron.
"I am sorry you put so little confidence in my word, ma'am, but Lor' me, what you heard is nothing to what some of our guests have complained of—in the days, I mean, when we did have guests. I have known them to scream out themselves in the middle of the night and vow they saw white figures creeping up and down the halls—all nonsense, ma'am, but believed in by some folks. You don't look as if you believed in ghosts."
"And I don't," I said, "not a whit. It would be a poor way to try to frighten me. How is Mr. William this morning?"
"Oh, he's well and feeding the dogs, ma'am. What made you think of him?"
"Politeness, Hannah," I found myself forced to say. "He's the only man in the house. Why shouldn't I think of him?"
She fingered her apron a minute and laughed.
"I didn't know you liked him. He's so rough, it isn't everybody who understands him," she said.