Master Dan, considerably recovered, was downstairs then. Rather pale and shaky, and accommodated with a chair and pillow, in front of the kitchen fire. The expedition pressed into the kitchen, and five hundred questions were lavished upon the boy. "What was it dressed in, Dan? Did you get a good sight of her face, Dan? Did it look just as Rachel used to look? Speak up, Dan." "It warn't Rachel at all," replied Dan. This unexpected assertion brought a pause of discomfiture. "He's head ain't right yet," observed Mrs. Duff apologetically; "and that's why I've not asked him nothing." "Yes, it is right, mother," said Dan. "I never see Rachel last night. I never said as I did." Another pause--spent in contemplating Dan. "I knowed a case like this, once afore," observed old Miss Till, who carried round the milk to Deerham. "A boy got a fright, and they couldn't bring him to at all. Epsum salts did it at last. Three pints of 'em they give, I think it was, and that brought his mind round." "It's a good remedy," acquiesced Mrs. Jones. "There's nothing like plenty of Epsum salts for boys. I'd try 'em on him, Mother Duff." "Dan, dear," said Susan Peckaby insinuatingly--for she had come in along with the rest, ignoring for the moment what might be waiting at her door--"was it in the pound as you saw Rachel's ghost?" "'Twarn't Rachel's ghost as I did see," persisted Dan. "Tell us who it was, then?" asked she, humouring him. The boy answered. But he answered below his breath; as if he scarcely dared to speak the name aloud. His mother partially caught it. "Whose?" she exclaimed, in a sharp voice, her tone changing. And Dan spoke a little louder. "It was Mr. Frederick Massingbird's!" CHAPTER LII. MATTHEW FROST'S NIGHT ENCOUNTER. Old Matthew Frost sat in his room at the back of the kitchen. It was his bedroom and sitting-room combined. Since he had grown feeble, the bustle of the kitchen and of Robin's family disturbed him, and he sat much in his chamber, they frequently taking his dinner in to him. A thoroughly comfortable arm-chair had Matthew. It had been the gift of Lionel Verner. At his elbow was a small round table, of very dark wood, rubbed to brightness. On that table Matthew's large Bible might generally be found open, and Matthew's spectacled eyes bending over it. But the Bible was closed to-day. He sat in deep thought. His hands clasped upon his stick, something after the manner of old Mr. Verner; and his eyes fixed through the open window at the September sun, as it played on the gooseberry and currant bushes in the cottage garden. The door opened, and Robin's wife--her hands and arms white, for she was kneading dough--appeared, showing in Lionel; who had come on after his conversation with Mrs. Duff, as you read of in the last chapter; for it is necessary to go back a few hours. One cannot tell two portions of a history at one and the same time. The old man rose, and stood leaning on his stick.