Empty of people, that is. Otherwise, it was occupied by large furniture, large mirrors, and on the wall opposite the door a large square oil painting of a motherly-looking barefoot lady wearing a Grecian robe and balancing a sort of pitcher on her shoulder. In the background, above an arrangement of sheep and ruins, fat pink sunset clouds swam in a school.
"Ma-a-a! Boo-hoo!" came the wail, directly it seemed, from the picture itself or from the wall behind it.
Portia felt her scalp creep and, turning, ran from the room, through the hall, and down the stairs, calling in her turn.
"Mother! Daddy! Mother! Daddy!"
Oh, I don't want it to be a ghost, she thought. Oh, I don't want our lovely house to be haunted!
Her mother, holding a ruler and a pair of pliers, emerged from the drawing room. Her father, holding a monkey wrench and a can of machine oil, came bounding up from the cellar stairs.
"What is it, Portia?"
"Upstairs, upstairs—oh, I hope it isn't a ghost—somebody's crying in the wall!"
"What?"
"Listen! Just listen!"