"Frighted! What is there to frighten her? What's the matter, Rosaline?" she continued, somewhat sharply. "Be you struck mooney, child?"
Nancy Tomson was one who liked her own opinion, and held to the fright. She advanced a step or two nearer Rosaline, dropping her voice to a low key.
"Heve you seen anything o' Dan Sandon? Maybe hes ghost shawed itself to you as you come by the Bottomless Shaaft?"
The words seemed to affect Rosaline so strongly that the table, not a very substantial one, vibrated beneath her weight.
"Then just you tell us whaat else it es," pursued Nancy Tomson, eager for enlightenment—for Rosaline had made a movement in the negative as to Dan Sandon's ghost. "Sure," added the woman to Mrs. Bell, "sure Janes and her be not a-fighting again! Sure he heven't been and killed her! Is it that whaat heve frighted you, Rosaline?"
"No, no," murmured Rosaline.
"Well, it must be something or t'other," urged the woman, beside herself with curiosity. "One caan't be frighted to death for nothing. Heve ye faaled down and hurted yerself?"
An idea, like an inspiration, seized upon Mrs. Bell. And it seemed to her so certain to be the true one that she only wondered she had not thought of it before. She laid her hand upon her daughter's shoulder.
"Rosaline! You have heard the Seven Whistlers!"
A slight pause. Rosaline neither stirred nor spoke. To Nancy Tomson the suggestion cleared up the mystery.