My sister Alice and a young cousin who was near her age—fourteen—were sent off to bed a little after nine one evening, that they might get plenty of “beauty sleep.” Passing the drawing-room door, which was ajar, they were tempted to enter by the red gleam of the blazing fire of soft coal. Nobody else was there to enjoy it, and they sat them down for a school-girlish talk, prolonged until the far-off cry “All’s well!” of the sentinel at the “Barrack” on Capitol Square told the conscience-smitten pair that it was ten o’clock. Going into the hall, they were surprised to find it dark. We found afterward that the servant whose duty it was to fill the lamp had neglected it, and it had burned out. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and the great window on the lower landing of the staircase was unshuttered. The arched door dividing the two halls was open, and from the doorway of the parlor they had a full view of the stairs. The moonbeams flooded it half-way up to the upper landing; and from the dark hall they saw a white figure moving slowly down the steps. The mischievous pair instantly jumped to the conclusion that one of “the boys”—my brothers—was on his way, _en déshabillé_, to get a drink of water from the pitcher that always stood on a table in the reception-room, or main hall. To get it, he must pass within a few feet of them, and they shrank back into the embrasure of the door behind them, pinching each other in wicked glee to think how they would tease the boy about the prank next morning. Down the stairs it moved, without sound, and slowly, the concealed watchers imagined, listening for any movement that might make retreat expedient. They said, afterward, that his nightgown trailed on the stairs, also that he might have had something white cast over his head. These things did not strike them as singular while they watched his progress, so full were they of the fun of the adventure. It crossed the moonlit landing—an unbroken sheet of light—and stepped, yet more slowly, from stair to stair of the four that composed the lowermost flight. It was on the floor and almost within the archway when the front door opened suddenly and in walked the boys, who had been out for a stroll. In a quarter-second the apparition was gone. As Alice phrased it: “It did not go backward or forward. It did not sink into the floor. It just was _not_!” With wild screams the girls threw themselves upon the astonished boys, and sobbed out the story. In the full persuasion that a trick had been played upon the frightened children, the brothers rushed up-stairs and made a search of the premises. The hubbub called every grown member of the household to the spot except our deaf grandmother, who was fast asleep in her bed up-stairs.