She forgot to be afraid, remembering so distinctly. She forgot that it was said to presage evil if one unwittingly paused to watch a “spirit.” She forgot everything but the waltz movement which had once been dearer to her giddy soul than food to her healthy body. She leaned forward, entranced; but when, presently, the ghostly dancer began to sing, in time to her own motion, the very words of a love-song Margaret Capers had often sung, the fascinated observer aroused with a start.
It was her warning! She knew it, recognized it! She uttered a terrified shriek, so piercing that it silenced Melville from responding, and brought Aunt Ruth flying, like another ghost, in her long nightgown to the invalid’s room.
But when she beheld Grandmother Capers gazing distraught and horror-stricken through the open window, her glance followed swiftly after.
And with her own bodily eyes, in a sickening fear utterly new to her, Ruth Kinsolving looked upon what she actually believed to be her own sister’s wraith.
CHAPTER V.
That is, for one brief, ridiculous moment she so believed. Then, with a blush at her own credulity, Aunt Ruth speedily hurried out of doors and laid her energetic mortal hand upon the specter’s shoulder.
“Paula! Paula Pickel! What in the name of common-sense is thee doing?”
But, as it was something rather in the nature of uncommon-sense, Paula did not immediately answer.
A second, more vigorous shake awoke the young somnambulist, though to a dazed and unsatisfactory condition which was as puzzling to Aunt Ruth as the whole episode was. But the girl gradually came to herself, and her first exclamation cleared the ghostly mystery.
“Dear me! Have I been walking in my sleep again?”