Grace's sleep was haunted that night by witches and goblins. She felt the fever which had been predicted "coming to pass" in her burning veins, and was greatly relieved next morning when she awoke as well as usual. But the terrors of witchcraft still haunted her. In a few days another mysterious event took place. Grace lost her regard-ring. When she came from school one evening she was sure she had it on her finger. It must be lost in the house. All possible and impossible places were searched. So strange that Cassy's ring should disappear! Had it melted away like Cassy's friendship? At last Grace settled down to the conviction that Phebe, the little nurse, had stolen it. "What else could have gone with it, unless that wild woman had magicked it away?" Flying into the nursery, she met Phebe walking the floor with little Katie, who was wailing with the ache of some invisible little teeth. "Black people have light fingers, everybody knows," thought Grace, by way of fortifying herself. "Phebe Dolan, my beautiful regard-ring is gone--gone; and who do you suppose took it, Phebe Dolan? _You_ did!" Phebe's eyes rolled like wheels. In her surprise, she almost dropped the baby. "Why, now, I done declar, Miss Grace, I never took it--never seen it; much as ever I knowed you had a ring." "O, Phebe Dolan, you're trembling this minute. What could you want of my ring, you little wretch?" "I declar for't, Miss Grace, I hope to die fust!" "No, you mustn't hope to die, Phebe: you're too wicked to die!" "Then I never, never, in all my born days in this world, and never did, and never will," moaned Phebe, looking about for a handkerchief. It was the first time Grace had spoken sharply to her. She had been in Mrs. Clifford's family for two years, and in that time her excellent mistress had taught her much in regard to her duty; so, if Phebe had now broken the eighth commandment, it could not have been a sin of ignorance. The moment Grace's whirlwind of anger was over, she regretted her hasty words to the desolate little orphan. "Everything has gone wrong since Cassy went away," mused Grace. "I wonder what I'll do or say next? But there, Phebe needn't steal, I declare! It's good enough for her, if she did; and where's my ring if she didn't?" Grace would as soon have suspected one of Horace's pet doves, as Barbara Kinckle. Up to this time the little girls had not found their baskets. But one noon, Captain Clifford came home with a strange account of a crazy woman who had escaped from an almshouse in an adjoining county. She had been wandering about the woods for weeks, fancying herself a prophetess, and sometimes crying out to passers-by, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness; prepare ye the way." She had entered a country church and cut down one half of a pulpit curtain for a cloak. She had just been found now at Small's Enlargement, and had become so raving that she was carried away in a strait jacket.