“What’s the matter, Liddy?” I asked at last. “Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“No, ma’m,” she said stiffly.
“Did you have two cups of coffee at your dinner?” I inquired.
“No, ma’m,” indignantly.
I sat up and almost upset my hot water—I always take a cup of hot water with a pinch of salt, before I get up. It tones the stomach.
“Liddy Allen,” I said, “stop combing that switch and tell me what is wrong with you.”
Liddy heaved a sigh.
“Girl and woman,” she said, “I’ve been with you twenty-five years, Miss Rachel, through good temper and bad—” the idea! and what I have taken from her in the way of sulks!—“but I guess I can’t stand it any longer. My trunk’s packed.”
“Who packed it?” I asked, expecting from her tone to be told she had wakened to find it done by some ghostly hand.
“I did; Miss Rachel, you won’t believe me when I tell you this house is haunted. Who was it fell down the clothes chute? Who was it scared Miss Louise almost into her grave?”