Miriam looked full into the bright black eyes, and then took the bowl, and drank every drop of the contents. "Thank you," she said. "It is perfectly horrid, but I must get up." "Now you take a good long nap, and then I hope you will feel quite able to go down and begin to keep house for your brother." "The first thing to do," said Miriam, as Miss Panney carefully adjusted the bedclothes about her shoulders, "is to see what sort a house we have got, and then I will know how I am to keep it." When her young patient had dropped asleep, Miss Panney went downstairs. In the lower hall she found Ralph walking up and down. "There is no earthly need of your worrying yourself about your sister. I am sure the doctor would say she is in no danger at all," said the old lady. "And now, if you don't mind, I would like very much to go up into the garret and see what frightened your sister." "It was apparently a box of human bones," he said, "but I barely glanced at it. You are perfectly welcome to go up and examine." It was a quarter of an hour before Miss Panney came down from the garret, laughing. "I studied anatomy on those bones," she said. "Every one of them is marked in ink with its name. I had forgotten all about them. Mathias' brother Reuben was a scientific man, and he used the skeleton. That is, he studied all sorts of things, though he never did anything worth notice. I took a look round the garret," she continued, "and I tell you, sir, that if you care anything for family relics and records, you have them to your heart's content. I expect there are things up there that have not been touched for fifty years." "I should suppose," said Ralph, "that the servants of the house would have had some curiosity about such objects, if no one else had." Miss Panney laughed. "There hasn't been a servant in that garret for many a long year," said she. "You evidently don't know that this house is considered haunted, particularly the garret; and I suppose that box of bones had a good deal to do with the notion." "Well," said Ralph, "no doubt the ghosts have been a great protection to our family treasures." "And to your whole house," said the old lady; "watch-dogs would be nothing to them." Miss Panney and Ralph ate dinner together. The old lady would not leave until the doctor had come; and the conversation was an education to young Haverley in regard to the Butterwood family and the Thorbury neighborhood. At the conclusion of the meal, Phoebe came into the room. "I went upstairs to see how she was gettin' on, sir," she said; "an' she was awake, an' she made me get a pencil an' paper out of her bag, an' she sent you this note."