“They are all right downstairs,” remarked Clementina from the back of the hall. But Tom went down and made a re-examination before he would be satisfied on that point. Mrs. Grant and Miss Latimer looked at each other bewildered. “I’ve not been upstairs to do up the rooms yet,” observed Clementina. “The only room I’ve tidied yet is Mr. Tom’s. I heard the mistress say to you, ma’am, as she went out, that she’d just been over all the burners, and that they were right.” “Poor dear lady,” said Mrs. Grant; “she has been so flurried and put about that when she tried the handles, she must have turned the gas on and never noticed that she did it!” “That must have been so, I suppose,” Miss Latimer reluctantly admitted; “but it’s hard to believe. Lucy is so wonderfully careful. However much she suffers herself, none of her duties suffer!” “Ah, but that’s different,” Mrs. Grant replied. “She thought she was thoroughly doing her duty now; only her mind slipped off, and she did it the other way about.” “I don’t believe it,” said Clementina energetically. “What don’t you believe?” asked Tom. “I don’t believe my mistress made any mistake. I never knew anybody so careful as she is.” “But what other explanation can we offer?” inquired Miss Latimer. Clementina answered solemnly, “I believe there is an evil spirit in this house just now.” Then, as if to give emphasis to her words, she turned and marched from the room. “She is very superstitious,” Miss Latimer observed to Mrs. Grant. “If she gets this sort of thing into her head, as I’ve felt she was doing for some time, she’ll go off, and her departure just now will be a great trial. Are many people in the north superstitious?” she asked. Mrs. Grant laughed. “Human nature is much the same everywhere,” she answered. “That’s what the Captain always said. He’s known folks black, and brown, and yellow, and every shade that they call white, but he says there are only two differences among them, and that’s goodness and badness, and that you find both everywhere. All the qualities, he says, are sprinkled over the world, pretty fairly divided. As for superstitions, what does the word mean? I believe in evil spirits, of course, but they work through ourselves.” “Well, I’m very glad I am not going to my pupils this morning,” observed Miss Latimer, “and as I shall spend most of my time supervising the gas-burners, I think you may rely that you will not find the house blown up when you return from your quest.” Mrs. Grant and Tom started off for the shipping office. As they went, she confided to him her plan of operations. “I shall send you in first,” she said. “Men often won’t tell a woman the worst, though they know she’s got to hear it. They put off the hard job on somebody else. It’s a cruel sort of kindness. Very likely they’ll tell you plainly what they would gloss over to Mrs. Challoner or me.” “But they’ll ask who sent me?” suggested Tom.