Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 5.djvu/184

174 the waves, I heard a curious sound in the house,—a muffled sort of moan, coming at regular intervals. And, as I sat up to make out where it was, another sound caught my attentive ear. Drip, drip, drip, went something out in the hall, and in an instant the tale told me on Sunset Hill came back with unpleasant vividness.

"Nonsense! it is raining, and the roof leaks," I said to myself, while a disagreeable thrill went through me, and fancy, aided by indigestion, began to people the house with uncanny inmates.

No rain had fallen for weeks, and peeping through my curtain I saw the big, bright stars shining in a cloudless sky; so that explanation failed, and still the drip, drip, drip went on. Likewise the moaning, so distinctly now that it was evident the little back bedroom was next the chamber in which I was quaking at that identical moment.

"Some one is sleeping there," I said, and then recollected that all the rooms were locked, and all the keys but mine in Mrs. Grant's pocket up at the house.

"Well, let the goblins enjoy themselves; I won't