longest, as well as of the oftenest. I mention
this to you, my dears, lest you should suppose
that my much thinking about Miss Hake was
the cause of the curious appearance which I am
about to tell you of. I did not think about
Miss Hake just at the time to which I refer.
Indeed, I seemed to have forgotten all about her.
No wonder! We were very busy, repeating the
holiday tasks, which (I am sorry to say) we had
not learnt—at least, I know I had not learnt
mine. Miss Lloyd was, on such occasions,
rather put out, and somewhat of the crossest.
About her I was obliged to think a great deal.
But, I do assure you, Miss Hake had gone quite
out of my head.

"One evening—it was towards the latter end
of August (our summer vacation was in July and
part of August), one warm summer evening, at
nearly eight o'clock, I was in my bedroom, with
some other girls who slept in the same apartment
(a good large apartment it was), and very busy
sorting my linen, which had just come from the
wash. By the same token, it was a Saturday evening.
Everything was regular at our school. As
soon as the linen was brought home from the wash
on Saturday evening, we girls went up to our
rooms to see that it was right, and to put it by.
Each girl had a little clothes-basket of light
wickerwork. Each girl had certain drawers to
herself in certain chests divided between the
occupants of the bedroom; and in these, one's own
drawers, and no others, each girl was expected
smoothly to lay away her linen—in nice order,
too. Articles were not to be mixed, but sorted,
so that caps should go with caps, and gowns
with gowns. If we did not do this—if we
tumbled our drawers—the inspectress, who
visited matters daily, reported us for untidiness,
and for untidiness Miss Lloyd exacted a fine.
Our week's pocket money had to pay for it.
These regulations were carefully enforced, in
order, as Miss Lloyd observed, 'to give us tidy
habits.' On the Saturday night I amention, I was
very busy sorting my linen, which had come
from the wash in a sadly mixed-up state.
The bill that accompanied it was not so easy as
usual to verify. I think some other girl's nightcaps
had got into my basket. At any rate, I was
longer than usual sorting my things, and all the
other girls had finished putting away their linen
before me. They had all left the room, however,
without my having taken much notice of that
circumstance. I had laid by most of the things
in the drawers, and was now stooping over my
little basket in order to take the last articles
from it. Though it was getting dusk, the light in
the room was quite strong enough to admit of
my seeing any object with perfect distinctness.
Suddenly some feeling made me lift my head
from the basket, and there, quite near me, close
to the window, and, as it were, looking out
from the window-curtain, though not at all
shaded by it, stood Miss Hake.

"I called out joyfully (for I was really
glad to see her), 'Oh! Miss Hake, are
you come?' Miss Hake made no answer. I
said, 'Oh! Miss Hake, won't you speak to
me? How long have you been here?' No
answer! Something else I said—I forget what
—but all of a sudden a little feeling of fear
crept over me, because Miss Hake would not
speak, and because she looked at me very fixedly
with her large dark eyes. Still, my only idea was
that Miss Hake was at her old tricks, and
wanted to frighten me. Indeed, I cried out,
'Oh! Miss Hake, you want to frighten me!'
But in the same moment I felt something
of more decided fear, and an impulse which
made me throw down the wicker basket that I
still held in my hand, run out of the room, and so
down into the eating-room, where the girls were
assembled for supper. 'Miss Hake is come!' I
cried out, now not the least afraid. 'Miss
Hake!' cried the girls; 'where is she?' 'Up
in my bedroom.' On which some of the older
and more privileged ran up-stairs. But they
came back rather angry, and said I had been
trifling with them, for no Miss Hake was
upstairs. I indignantly denied the trick. Then
the talk and the tumult attracted the attention
of Miss Lloyd herself. I was called up to her
as she sat in the great chair at the head of the
supper-table, and closely questioned as to why
I had asserted, and persisted in asserting,
that Miss Hake was come. I was known to
be a truth-teller, and when I simply related
my little story, Miss Lloyd so far paid respect
to it as to go herself all over the house to see if
Miss Hake was come. Perhaps Miss Lloyd, in
fact, only went through this ceremony to pacify
me, for I have since had reason to believe that
the schoolmistress knew that Miss Hake could not
be come; and, long after these things had passed
away, I remembered that Miss Lloyd looked
unusually scared and frightened at my reiterated
assurance that I had seen Miss Hake. However,
no word said she at the time, except (and this
was said in a nervous way which strove to be
dignified) that I, Miss Bridgeman, was mistaken
in my idea that I had seen Miss Hake. Then it
was hinted that the subject must be dropped—
a hint which doubtless operated the reverse
way. Of course I held very firm to what I
considered the evidence of my senses; and when
the girls of our room were unwatched and in
bed, there went about a whispered talk, and
many a whispered surmise, why Miss Hake had
come (for that she had come was now the popular
belief) and then gone away again. There was
a decided feeling that Miss Hake had been
smuggled out of the house, after having in some
odd way smuggled herself into it. I believe
murder was darkly hinted at. But, as to a
supernatural appearance, no one seemed even to
surmise anything so preposterous. For, was not
Miss Hake alive and well—at least, when I saw
her?

"Well, a few days, perhaps a week, had
passed since the time of Miss Hake's supposed
visit to the school. We were all assembled in
the schoolroom, just going to our morning tasks.
After prayers, there was a silence. Miss Lloyd
hemmed, and cleared her throat, as if she had
something out of the common way to say to us.