Old Amphy promised, during the maid’s absence, to mind the house, and to cook one of her own chickens for the lady’s dinner; and old Neptune brought up the carry-all and horse to take Susan to the village. She prepared herself and soon set out. She was absent several hours, but found it impossible to get any workmen to promise to come to the Headland House in less than a week or ten days. And with this insufficient satisfaction she was obliged to return home. There was in the grove near the house a curious arbor, the work of Captain Brande, erected of six jaw bones of the whale, set up on end in a circular form, and covered with a thick growth of the trumpet vine with its shining, dark green, star-shaped leaves, and flaming red vase-like flowers. As Susan drove into the park, she saw Lady Montressor sitting within that arbor, gazing out abstractedly upon the sea. Susan alighted and went up to her. “The evening is chilly, dear lady, pray do not sit here,” she urged, with affectionate solicitude. The lady lifted her large mournful eyes to the face of her faithful attendant, and without a word arose to accompany her to the house. Old Amphy had tea ready in the parlor, and soon after it was served and cleared away, Lady Montressor retired to her chamber and dismissed her attendant for the night. Old Amphy complaining of fatigue from having set up later than usual upon the preceding night, took leave and departed. Susan, also, from loss of rest, was very tired and sleepy, so she fastened up the house, put out the fire, said her prayers and went to bed. But with the darkness of solitude, and the silence, returned her superstitious terrors. She shut her eyes, and then, not content with that safeguard against spectral sights, she drew the bed-clothes tightly over her head. But Susan had capacious lungs that required a good supply of fresh air, and so the sense of being half suffocated grew so intolerable that she was forced to uncover her face for the purpose of breathing. But she kept her eyelids closed. Good angels! how solitary, how silent, and how dark it was! She could not see the darkness, but like the silence and the solitude, she _felt_ it, in the core of her heart, and quaked with vague terror. It was long before she could quiet herself. At last, however, she fell asleep. How long she had slept she did not know, for sleepers take no account of time; and why she awoke, she could not tell, for dreamers are not always cognizant of causes;—but as she awoke, she thoughtlessly opened her eyes, turned over, faced the uncurtained window, and saw the half-obscured, star-lighted sky, the level table land with its sentinel trees—the graveyard, with its gleaming spectral-like tombstones, and there—oh, Heaven of Heavens!—the gliding form of the graceful, white-robed woman!