One night Clare heard a sound in the passage. It was that of a silk skirt brushing past the doorway, whispering crisply to the stairs, as its folds swept by. She was out after it in a moment, and saw Miss Woffington pass through the swing-doors on her way to the hall.
“They’re about again,” said Clare to herself joyfully, and she flew to the boys’ room. This was empty, and their voices were in the hall.
“I’m not going to racket with the children,” she said, “they’ll come directly they know Mrs. Inchbald promised stories; but I wonder where Miss Ross is all this time?” As she passed the drawing-room Clare looked in, and Miss Ross’s frame was empty.
“Then I shall see her, and talk to her,” said Clare; “when she speaks she may not look so sorrowful.” She ran swiftly to the far end of the room, where already a small company had assembled.
There she found Mrs. Inchbald, Marianne and Amelia, Miss Ross and all the children, and Miss Ridge.
“Just the right people,” she thought, as she sat down among them. “Lady Crosbie is too busy, and has too wide an acquaintance, and Mrs. Jordan is too airified, and Miss Fisher might have other things to do. These are the ones who are just right, and look as if they could tell stories if they chose.”
But a good deal of time is lost in real life in unnecessary conversation; so we’ll learn by that, and not lose any more here. I’ll just go straight on to Mrs. Inchbald’s story, as she told it that afternoon.
The Story of Mother Midnight, or the
Witch of Wendlestone.
“The scene of my narrative,” commenced Mrs. Inchbald, “lies before you, my dears. Which of you can find me a small forest cottage, a river, a white cow, a church, and an oak-tree?”
“I can.”