“That’s a good idea, mother, I’ll write to him at once for you.” Then she turned her smiling face upon the old lady and shook a forefinger at her. “You’re an arch-plotter, lady mother. Look at Alice’s face. That’s not sunburn, I know.”
“Maybe it isn’t––maybe it isn’t,” replied Mrs. Malling, with a comfortable chuckle, whilst her fat face was turned up towards a gorgeous wool-worked text which hung directly over the head of the bed, “though I’ll not say but what a day in the sun like she’s just had mightn’t have redded the skin some.”
“I am very sun-burnt,” said Alice consciously.
“Why, we’ve been in the forest, where there’s no sun, nearly all day,” exclaimed Prudence quickly.
“Ah, them forests––them forests,” observed Hephzibah, in a pensive tone of reflection. “Folks says strange things about them forests.”
“Yes,” put in Alice, glad to turn attention from herself, “usually folks talk a lot of nonsense when they attribute supernatural things to certain places. But for once they’re right, mother Hephzy; I shall never disbelieve in ghosts again. Oh, the horror of it––it was awful,” and the girl gave a shudder of genuine horror.
“And could you see through ’em?” asked the old lady, in a tone of suppressed excitement.
“No, mother,” chimed in Prudence, leaving the 184 dressing-table and seating herself on the patchwork coverlet of the bed. “They seemed quite––solid.”
“But they wore long robes,” said Alice.
“Did they now?” said Mrs. Malling, wagging her head meaningly. “But the lore has it that spectres is flimsy things as ye can see through––like the steam from under the lid of a stewpan.”