"Wait a minute and I will tell you. My mother was in the front hall still talking with Aunt Hannah. She didn't hear me at first, but I ran out there and dragged her through the front room, saying, 'The room is here—it is all right.'
"It seemed for a minute as if my mother would faint. She clung to me in terror. I can remember now how strained her eyes looked and how pale she was.
"I called out to Aunt Hannah and asked her when they had had the closet taken away and the little room built; for in my excitement I thought that that was what had been done.
"'That little room has always been there,' said Aunt Hannah, 'ever since the house was built.'
"'But mamma said there wasn't any little room here, only a china-closet, when she was here with papa,' said I.
"'No, there has never been any china-closet there; it has always been just as it is now,' said Aunt Hannah.
"Then mother spoke; her voice sound
ed weak and far off. She said, slowly, and with an effort, 'Maria, don't you remember that you told me that there had never been any little room here? and Hannah said so too, and then I said I must have dreamed it?'
"'No, I don't remember anything of the kind,' said Maria, without the slightest emotion. 'I don't remember you ever said anything about any china-closet. The house has never been altered; you used to play in this room when you were a child, don't you remember?'
"'I know it,' said mother, in that queer slow voice that made me feel frightened. 'Hannah, don't you remember my finding the china-closet here, with the gilt-edge china on the shelves, and then you said that the china-closet had always been here?'