“Well,” said Judith, looking round, as if fearing the walls would hear, and speaking mysteriously, “it’s about Mr. Hamish. I don’t know but I _will_ tell you, Miss Constance, and it’ll be, so far, a weight off my mind. I was just saying to myself that I had heard of ghosts walking, but what Mr. Hamish does every blessed night, I never did hear of, in all my born days.” Constance felt a little startled. “What does he do?” she hastily asked. “You know, Miss Constance, my bedroom’s overhead, above the kitchen here, and, being built out on the side, I can see the windows at the back of the house from it--as we can see ‘em from this kitchen window, for the matter of that, if we put our heads out. About a twelvemonth ago--I’m sure its not far short of it--I took to notice that the light in Mr. Hamish’s chamber wasn’t put out so soon as it was in the other rooms. So, one night, when I was half-crazy with that face-ache--you remember my having it, Miss Constance?--and knew I shouldn’t get to sleep, if I lay down, I thought I’d just see how long he kept it in. Would you believe, Miss Constance, that at three o’clock in the morning his light was still burning?” “Well,” said Constance, feeling the tale was not half told. “I thought, what on earth could he be after? I might have feared that he had got into bed and left it alight by mistake, but that I saw his shadow once or twice pass the blind. Well, I didn’t say a word to him next day, I thought he might not like it: but my mind wouldn’t be easy, and I looked out again, and I found that, night after night, that light was in. Miss Constance, I thought I’d trick him: so I took care to put just about an inch of candle in his bed candlestick, and no more: but, law bless me! when folks is bent on forbidden things, it is not candle-ends that will stop ‘em!” “I suppose you mean that the light burnt still, in spite of your inch of candle?” said Constance. “It just did,” returned Judith. “He gets into my kitchen and robs my candle-box, I thought to myself. So I counted my candles and marked ‘em; and I found I was wrong, for they wasn’t touched. But one day, when I was putting his cupboard to rights, I came upon a paper right at the back. Two great big composite candles it had in it, and another half burnt away. Oh, this is where you keep your store, my young master, is it? I thought. They were them big round things, which seems never to burn to an end, three to the pound.” Constance made no reply. Judith gathered breath, and continued: