It was gruesome, as of course it was meant to be. But the teller had her reward. Some three or four pairs of blue eyes were all fixed on her, mouths open, breath coming in short gasps. And then, of course, she had the satisfaction of knowing that the children dared not go to bed at night, and the still greater satisfaction of knowing that they were too ashamed to own up to their fear. The most wonderful part about her was that she would stop quite calmly in the most awful part to remove an eye from the potato she was peeling, and then she would actually say, “Where did I get to? oh, yes.” There was something uncanny about that girl, she had so much _sang-froid_, and was never frightened at the workings of her own brain, as so many of us are. But if you were to be told all the marvellous deeds she did it would fill a book. In the end she was married and went to live in America. She married a Captain in the Salvation Army. Probably she fascinated him as much as she had the farmer’s children. But it would be a pity, whilst one is about it, not to mention another of her great charms. On a Sunday afternoon, when the work was all done and she was dressed in her best, and wearing a silver locket, having inside it the picture of her young man, the Captain, she would begin to rap, in a peculiar way, upon the kitchen table with her nails, and this is what she said, keeping absolute time with the aforementioned knockers,— “Go to bed, Tom. Go to bed, Tom. Father and mother and everyone.” One day when she was in an extra good humour she showed the children how to do it. And then it was glorious; you could just imagine them all walking off to bed carrying a candle apiece. There was a great deal of life going on about the farm—so, at least, the children thought. At night, when the men-servants came in from their day’s work, it was really quite cheerful. They used to sit at the wooden table. Then there was oat bread, and plain bread, and cheese, and beer, and milk, and porridge. Upon these occasions the girl always gave herself a few extra airs and graces. She would sing little snatches of songs that did not belong to the Salvation Army, and altogether her manner was different from what it had previously been. Those of the children who noticed this never commented on it. She was a person with whom they could never take liberties. The men-servants eyed her from a distance, but they never thought of approaching nearer. They had respect for her, and then, of course, they had been given to understand pretty early the mysteries of the silver locket, and respected the other gentleman’s claim.