Lizzie's face assumed an expression of doleful reticence.

"It's not my place to speak," she said with a grim shake of her
head, "but I saw my grandmother last night, God rest her--plain as
life she was, the way she looked when they waked her--and if it
was my doing we'd be leaving this house this hour!"

"Cheese-pudding for supper--of course you saw your grandmother!"
said Miss Cornelia crisply, slitting open the first of her letters
with a paper knife. "Nonsense, Lizzie, I'm not going to be scared
away from an ideal country place because you happen to have a bad
dream!"

"Was it a bad dream I saw on the stairs last night when the lights
went out and I was looking for the candles?" said Lizzie heatedly.
"Was it a bad dream that ran away from me and out the back door, as
fast as Paddy's pig? No, Miss Neily, it was a man--Seven feet tall
he was, and eyes that shone in the dark and--"

"Lizzie Allen!"

"Well, it's true for all that," insisted Lizzie stubbornly. "And
why did the lights go out--tell me that, Miss Neily? They never
go out in the city."

"Well, this isn't the city," said Miss Cornelia decisively. "It's
the country, and very nice it is, and we're staying here all summer.
I suppose I may be thankful," she went on ironically, "that it was
only your grandmother you saw last night. It might have been the
Bat--and then where would you be this morning?"