“Very well. You may go.”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You see, we’ve been hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn’t dare to stay in a house that had a ‘haunt.’”
“Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation will be found. You may return to your dusting.”
“Yes, ma’am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma’am, I’d like to be let off, and I’ll try to find somebody to take my place if you want me to.”
Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down, and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.
“What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?”
Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell; that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored race, they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again occurred.
“It’s very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I’m quite upset by it, and don’t know what to do.”
“It’s electric, ain’t it?”
“What? The bell? Yes, certainly.”