there before, and I looked up; and just beside the stove--the door opens _against_ the stove, you know, and so it had hidden it for a moment as it were--there, mamma, _stood a man_! I saw him as plainly as I see you. He was staring at the stove, afterwards I saw it must have been at your little blue paper parcel. He was a gentleman, mamma--quite young. I saw his coat, it was cut like George Norman's. I think he must have been an Englishman. His coat was dark, and bound with a little very narrow ribbon binding. I have seen coats like that. He had a dark blue neck-tie, his dress all looked neat and careful--like what all gentlemen are; I saw all that, mamma, before I clearly saw his face. He was tall and had fair hair--I saw that at once. But I was not frightened; just at first I did not even wonder how he _could_ have got into the room--now I see he _couldn't_ without my knowing. My first thought, it seems so silly," and Nora here smiled a little, "my first thought was, 'Oh, he will see I have no boot on,'"--which was very characteristic of the child, for Nora was a very "proper" little girl,--"and just as I thought that, _he_ seemed to know I was there, for he slowly turned his head from the stove and looked at me, and then I saw his face. Oh, mamma!" "Was there anything frightening about it?" I said. "I don't know," the child went on. "It was not like any face I ever saw, and yet it does not _sound_ strange. He had nice, rather wavy fair hair, and I think he must _have been_ nice-looking. His eyes were blue, and he had a little fair moustache. But he was so _fearfully_ pale, and a look over all that I can't describe. And his eyes when he looked at me _seemed not to see me_, and yet they turned on me. They looked dreadfully sad, and though they were so close to me, as if they were miles and miles away. Then his lips parted slightly, very slightly, as if he were going to speak. Mamma," Nora went on impressively, "they would have spoken if _I_ had said the least word--I felt they would. But just then--and remember, mamma, it couldn't have been yet two seconds since I came in, I hadn't yet had _time_ to get frightened--just then there came over me the most awful feeling. I _knew_ it was not a real man, and I seemed to hear myself saying inside my mind, 'It is a ghost,' and while I seemed to be saying it--I had not moved my eyes--while I looked at him----" "He disappeared?"