A most effective sound nevertheless; for the rascal dropped as if shot, and, with one upward glance at the white figure dimly seen in the starlight, fled as if a legion of goblins were at his heels. "What next?" thought I, wondering whether tragedy or comedy would close this eventful night. I sat and waited, chilly, but valiant, while the weird sounds went on within, and silence reigned without, till the cheerful crow of the punctual "cockadoo," as Margie called him, announced the dawn and laid the ghosts. A red glow in the east banished my last fear, and, wrapping the drapery of my couch about me, I soon lay down to quiet slumber, quite worn out. The sun shining in my face waked me; a bell ringing spasmodically warned me to hurry, and a childish voice calling out, "Bet-fast is most weady, Miss Wee," assured me that sweet little spirits haunted the cottage as well as ghostly ones. As I left my room to join Margie, who was waiting in the porch, and looking like a rosy morning-glory half-way up the woodbine trellis, I saw two things which caused me to feel that the horrors of the night were not all imaginary. Just outside the back bedroom door was a damp place, as if that part of the floor had been newly washed; and when, goaded by curiosity, I peeped through the keyhole of the haunted chamber, my eye distinctly saw an open razor lying on a dusty table. My vision was limited to that one object, but it was quite enough, and I went up the hill brooding darkly over the secret hidden in my breast. I longed to tell some one, but was ashamed, and, when asked why so pale and absent-minded, I answered, with a gloomy smile,-- "It is the clams." All day I hid my sufferings pretty well, but as night approached, and I thought of another lonely vigil in the haunted cottage, my heart began to fail, and, when we sat telling stories in the dusk, a brilliant idea came into my head. I would relate my ghost story, and rouse the curiosity of the listeners to such a pitch that some of them would offer to share my quarters, in hopes of seeing the spirit of the restless Tucker. Cheered by this delusive fancy, when my turn came I made a thrilling tale of the night's adventures, and, having worked my audience up to a flattering state of excitement, paused for applause. It came in a most unexpected form, however, for Mrs. Grant burst out laughing, and the two boys, Johnny and Joe, rolled off the piazza in convulsions of merriment. Much disgusted at this unseemly demonstration, I demanded the cause of it, and involuntarily joined in the general shout when Mrs. Grant demolished my ghost by informing me that Bezee Tucker lived, died in, and haunted the tumble-down house at the _other_ end of the lane. "Then who or what made those mysterious noises?" I asked, relieved but rather nettled at the downfall of my romance.