We cannot help being influenced by first impressions; and though Agnes felt the sincerest pity for this strange, awkward, shy girl, and did her best to make her feel at her ease, she could not but feel sorry that she was to be her bed-fellow. Ruth Glenn sat by herself in the school-room, always intently occupied with her book, having no communication with her school-mates, and always seizing on the moment of dismissal from the school-room to retire to her own apartment. And yet, as far as the girls could judge, she was full of kindness and generosity of feeling, evinced by many little quiet acts which one school-mate may always find it in her power to do for another. One night, the third or fourth after the arrival of Ruth Glenn at the school, the girls sleeping in the room with her were suddenly aroused from sleep by loud and piercing screams from little Carrie Holt. Agnes sprang up, and was by her side in a moment. As she left her bed she perceived that Miss Glenn was not there. “What is the matter, Carrie? Why do you scream so, dear?” asked Agnes. “Oh, Miss Elwyn!—that tall, white figure!—that tall, white figure! It came and stood by me, and laid its cold white hand right on my face. It was a ghost—I know it was—I saw it so plain in the moonlight. Oh, don’t leave me!—don’t leave me, Miss Elwyn! It will come again!” And the trembling child clung with both arms tightly around Agnes. “I will not leave the room, Carrie,” said Agnes; “but I must find out what has frightened you so. There are no such things as ghosts, Carrie: you have been dreaming.” “Oh no, Miss Elwyn, I did not dream that!” sobbed little Carrie; “I was having a beautiful dream about ho-o-o-me and mother, when that cold hand came on my cheek, and I opened my eyes, and saw that tall, white figure. Oh, it had such great hollow eyes! I saw them so plain in the moonlight!” “Now lie down, dear little Carrie, till I find out what all this means,” said Agnes. The weeping child obeyed, hugging up close to her little sister for protection. The light had been taken away at ten o’clock, as was the invariable custom at Mrs. Arlington’s; but Agnes opened both shutters, and admitted the bright moonlight into the room, making every object to be discerned almost as plainly as in the day-time. She then stepped to her own bed. Miss Glenn certainly was not there. She went to the door of her room, and found it locked on the inside, as she had left it when she went to bed. Miss Glenn, then, must still be in the room. Agnes walked around it, carefully examining every object: she then went into the closet, and felt carefully all around the walls. She began to think there was something very strange in all this; and the other girls, all of whom had been wide awake ever since they were aroused by the screams of little Carrie, were sitting up in their beds in a great state of agitation and alarm.