"Oh, Reuben! is it going to be very awful?" demanded Cynthia, apprehensively.
"Not very. Only just enough to half-scare you to death! He would put his hand out when girls stood by the door, and they would feel as if a whole pitcher of cold water had been poured down their backs.
"Once a boy came to the door. He was the son of the murdered man. The Ghost was afraid of him. 'Thomas!' said the Ghost.
"'Who speaks?' said the boy. He couldn't have heard if he hadn't been the son of the murdered man.
"'I'm the Ghost of your father's slayer,' said the Ghost. 'Tell me what I can do to be forgiven.'
"'I don't think you can be forgiven,' said the boy. Then the Ghost gave such a dreadful groan that the boy felt sorry for him.
"'I'll tell you, then,' he said. 'Go to my father's grave, and lay upon it a perfectly white blackberry, and a perfectly black snowdrop, and a valuable secret, and a hair from the head of a really happy person, and you shall be forgiven!'
"So the Ghost set out to find these four things. He had to bleach the blackberry and dye the snowdrop, and he got the hair from the head of a little baby who happened to be born with hair and hadn't had time to be unhappy, and the secret was about a goldmine that only the Ghost knew about. But just as he was laying them on the grave, a cold hand clutched—" The sentence ended in a three-fold shriek, for just at this exciting juncture the last candle went out.
"Children," said Mrs. Marsh, opening the door, "I'm afraid you've been frightening yourselves with your stories. That was foolish. I am glad there are no more little candles. Now, not another word to-night."
She straightened the tossed coverlids, heard their prayers, and went away. In a few minutes all that remained of the long-anticipated treat were three little drops of tallow where three little candles had quite burned out, three stories not quite told, and three children fast asleep.