“You may well ask,” he replied “but as far as I can make out she did it, in the first place, simply out of a spirit of low mischief; for the pure pleasure of teasing the child, whom she evidently does not like, and amusing herself with her terrors. Before long she must have discovered that she could turn Sybil’s fears to useful account. For some time past it appears Miss Vyse has taken it into her head to have Lotty domiciled in her own room. Before this Sybil was comparatively happy; Lotty’s substantial presence appearing to her a sufficient safeguard against ghostly visitants. But when she was left alone in the room at night, her terrors increased so that she could not go to sleep. She begged my mother to let her have a light in the room till Emilie came to bed, but this request was refused, my mother having a notion that it would be bad for the child’s eyes. To make up for this however, Emilie was ordered to sit by Sybil every evening till the child fell asleep. Not the pleasantest of duties apparently, for Emilie regularly shirked it. Two or three times, on being thus left to herself, Sybil jumped out of bed and ran down stairs to fetch Emilie; conduct which that young person much resented, as it interfered with her more entertaining way of spending the evening, and also very nearly, more than once, brought her into disgrace with the authorities below stairs. So she hit on the ingenious expedient of telling Sybil that the headless spectres were said to have a special predilection for the long passage leading to her room. ‘They come along there every night,’ Sybil informed me, ‘and if they find any little girl awake, they come to the side of her bed and stand in a row.’ Isn’t it really frightful to think of the lonely little creature’s agonies?” “Horrible!” said Marion, “but what about the dresses hanging up?” “Oh, that was another clever dodge of Emilie’s, evidently. I asked Sybil how ever she could be frightened at dresses hanging on pegs, but she assured me she did not know there were any dresses there; so I suppose Emilie keeps the cupboard locked in the day-time, and opens it at night to prevent Sybil’s venturing to rush past the dreadful row of spectres at the doorway.” “But another thing, Sir Ralph,” said Marion, “why was Sybil afraid to tell me?”