"Miss Jerry, I can't help it; I jes can't. Ef you're to kill me, I _did_ see 'em, too, and you can see 'em yerself ef you'll only look out ob de winder," sobbed Fly, digging her knuckles into her eyes. Miss Jerusha, with sternly shut-up lips, glared upon the unhappy little negress for a moment in ominous silence, and then getting up, went to the window and looked out. But the window was thickly covered with frost, and nothing was to be seen from it. "Ef you'd only come to de door, Miss Jerry," wept Fly, taking her knuckles out of one eye, where they had been firmly imbedded. With the tramp of an iron-shod dragon, Miss Jerusha walked to the kitchen door, opened it, and looked out. A blinding drift of snow, a piercing blast of wind, a cutting shower of sleet, met her in the face, and for one moment forced her back. Only for a moment, for Miss Jerusha was not one to yield to trifles, and then, shading her eyes with her hands, she strove to pierce the darkness made white by the falling snow. No ghost met her gaze, however, but something that startled her quite as much--a long line of red light streaming along the lonesome, deserted road. There was no one living save herself all along the way for two miles, and no house of any kind save the ruins of an old cottage, long since deserted, and popularly supposed to be haunted. "Great Jemima!" exclaimed Miss Jerusha, as, after her first start of astonishment, she came in, closed and locked the door, "who can be in the old house? Somebody's bin caught in the storm, and went in there for shelter. Well, lors! I hope they won't come bothering me. If they do, I'll pack them off agin with a flea in their ear. You, Fly! ain't them pancakes fried yet? Oh, you lazy, shif'less, idle, good-for-nothing little reptyle! Ef you don't ketch particler fits afore ever you sleep this night! And I 'clare to man the kittle ain't even biled, much less the tea adrawin'! _You, Fly!_" Fly came rushing frantically out, and dodged Miss Jerusha's uplifted hand, which came down with a stunning force on the table. With a suppressed howl of pain, the enraged spinster shook her tingling fingers, and was about to pounce bodily upon her unlucky little servitor, when, in a lull of the storm, a knock at the door arrested the descending blow. Both mistress and maid paused and held their breath to listen. The wind and sleet came driving in fierce gusts against the house, shaking the doors and rattling the windows; then came a lull, and then the knock was repeated, this time more loudly. "Oh, Miss Jerry, it's a ghos'! Oh, Miss Jerry, it's a ghos'! an' 'deed a' 'deed I don't want for to go!" shrieked the terrified Fly, clinging wildly to Miss Jerusha's dress. With a vigorous shake the spinster shook off the clinging hands of poor little Fly, and laid her sprawling on the floor. Then approaching the door, she called, loudly and threateningly: "Who's there?" Another knock, but no reply.