“Yes, ye might a’ slept, I’m thinkin’, as sound before if ye had a mind, ma’am.”
“What the dickens does the lass mean?” said the blind woman, with a sleepy laugh. “As if people could sleep when they like. Why, woman, if that was so there would be no such thing as fidgets.”
“Well, I suppose, no more there wouldn’t—no more there wouldn’t. I may take away the tray, ma’am?”
“Let it be till morning—I want rest. Good-night. Are you going?—good-night.”
“Good-night, ma’am,” said Mildred, making her stiff little curtsy, although it was lost upon the lady, and a little thoughtfully she left the room.
The “old soldier” listened, sitting up, for she had lain down on her bed, and as she heard the click-clack of Mildred’s shoes grow fainter—
“Yes, good-night really, Mildred; I think you need visit no more to-night.”
And she got up, and secured the door that opened on the gallery.
“Good-night, old Tarnley,” she said, with a nod and an unpleasant smirk, and then a deep and dismal sigh. Then she threw herself again upon her bed and lay still.
Old Mildred seemed also to have come to a like conclusion as to the matter of further visiting for the night, for at the door, on the step of which the Dutchwoman sitting a few minutes before had startled her, she looked back suspiciously over her shoulder, and then shutting the door noiselessly, she locked it—leaving that restless spirit a prisoner till morning.