The child did as she was directed, and, coming back, brought up a low chair, and rested her head on her grandmother's knee.
"Listen," Mrs. Wedge said again.
They were all perfectly quiet, and a timid step could be distinctly heard on the stair; it came up to the landing, and, after hesitating a moment, seemed to pass into the room into which no one was to look. The little girl shivered, and was lifted into her grandmother's lap, where she hid away in the folds of her dress.
Dorris was familiar with this step on the stair, for he had heard it frequently, and at night the thought had often occurred to him that some one was in the house, going quietly from one room to another. A great many times he had taken the light, and looked into every place from the cellar to the attic, but he found nothing, and discovered nothing, except that when in the attic he heard the strange, muffled, and ghostly noises in the rooms he had just left.
"It is not a ghost to frighten you," Mrs. Wedge said, looking at her employer, "but the spirit of an unhappy woman come back from the grave. Whenever the house is quiet, the step can always be heard on the stair, but I have never regarded it with horror, though I have been familiar with it for a great many years. I rather regard it as a visit from an old friend; and before you came I often sat alone in this room after dark, listening to the footsteps.
"Jerome Dudley, who built The Locks, was a young man of great intelligence, energy, and capacity; but his wife was lacking in these qualities. Perhaps I had better say that he thought so, for I never express an opinion of my own on the subject, since they were both my friends. I may say with propriety, however, that they were unsuited to each other, and that both knew and admitted it, and accepted their marriage as the blight of their lives. Differently situated, she would have been a useful woman; but she was worse than of no use to Jerome Dudley, as he was contemptible in many ways towards her in spite of his capacity for being a splendid man under different circumstances.
"The world is full of such marriages, I have been told; so I had sympathy for them both, and was as useful to them as I could be. When I came here as housekeeper, I knew at once that they were living a life of misery, for they occupied different rooms, and were never together except at six o'clock dinner.
"Mr. Dudley always went to his business in the morning before his wife was stirring, and did not return again until evening; and, after despatching his dinner, he either went back to his work, or into his own room, from which he did not emerge until morning. He was not a gloomy man, but he was dissatisfied with his wife, and felt that she was a drawback rather than a help to him.
"The management of the house was turned over to me completely, and when I presided at the table in the morning, he was always good-natured and respectful, (though he was always out of humor when his wife was in the same room with him) and frequently told me of his successes, and he had a great many, for he was a money-making man; but I am sure he never spoke of them to his wife. His household affairs he discussed only with me, and the fact that I remained in his service until I entered yours should be taken as evidence that I gave satisfaction."
Dorris bowed respectfully to Mrs. Wedge in assent, and she proceeded,—