CHAPTER XXI.
PET BEGINS HER EDUCATION
“A horrid specter rises to my sight.”
“I hear a knocking in the south entry.
Hark! more knocking!”
– Macbeth.
Throwing open the folding-doors, Mrs. Moodie passed into the school-room, closely followed by Pet.
It was a long, high, wide room, with desks running round the walls, and maps, globes, books and slates scattered profusely around. Before each desk was a chair, and some sixty girls of all sizes and sorts sat now busily conning their lessons.
Two or three teachers sat in various directions, round the room, before little tables, with their eyes fixed on the students, ready to note down the slightest infringement of the rules.
It was seldom the commander-in-chief of the establishment swept her silken flounces through the hot, dusty classe; and now, according to the long-established rule, teachers and pupils rose simultaneously, and courtesied profoundly to that august lady. Then every eye in sixty-three heads turned and fixed themselves upon the new pupil with that sharp, searching, unpitying stare that only school-girls understand. Petronilla, however, was not in the remotest degree troubled with that disagreeable failing, yclept bashfulness; and glancing round composedly, she swept the whole room at a glance, and returned every stare with compound interest.
“Young ladies,” said Mrs. Moodie, with a graceful wave of her hand toward Pet, “this young lady is Miss Petronilla Lawless, of Judestown, and will be your future companion and fellow-pupil. I hope you will be mutually pleased with each other, and try to make her at home among you as soon as possible. Miss Sharpe she will enter your division.”
And, with a stately bow of her beribboned head, Mrs. Moodie rustled loudly from the room, while teachers and pupils again bowed in deepest reverence.
Pet gave an assenting nod to Mrs. Moodie’s remarks, which had the effect of making two or three of the young ladies, indulge in a little giggle behind their handkerchiefs. Then, from a distant corner, came a small, keen, wiry-looking human terrier, known by the appropriate cognomen of Miss Sharpe, who immediately laid hands upon Pet, saying:
“Miss Lawless, come this way. You are to enter my class.”
Pet, as good a physiognomist as ever lived, raised her keen eyes to the cantankerous face of the cross-looking old young lady, and conceived, upon the spot, a most intense dislike to her. The other girls, at a silent motion from their teachers, had dropped into their seats, and resumed their studies – still, however, covertly watching the new pupil with all a schoolgirl’s curiosity.
Pet was led by sharp Miss Sharpe to the remote corner from whence she had issued, and where sat some dozen or two “juvenile ladies,” all smaller than Pet. Miss Lawless looked at them a moment in indisguised contempt, and then stopped short, jerked herself free from Miss Sharpe’s grasp, and coming to a sudden stand-still, decidedly began:
“I ain’t a-going to sit among them there little things. I want to go over there!”
And she pointed to where a number of young ladies, whose ages might have varied from seventeen to twenty, sat in the “First Division.”
A very little thing will produce a laugh in a silent school-room, where the pupils are ever ready to laugh at anything a new scholar does or says; and the effect of this brief speech was a universal burst of subdued laughter from the sixty “young ladies” aforesaid.
“Well, you can’t go there!” said Miss Sharpe, sharply, looking daggers at Pet. “You are to sit in my division – which is the lowest!”
“Yes, I see it is,” said Pet; “but you needn’t get so cross about it. I should think, when my papa pays for me, I could sit wherever I like. I’m sure this hot old room, without even a carpet on the floor, ain’t much of a place to sit in, anyway.”
Another universal laugh, louder than the first, followed this; and the sixty pairs of eyes flashed with wicked delight – for Miss Sharpe was the detestation of the school.
“Silence!” called the head monitor, sternly.
Miss Sharpe clutched Pet’s shoulder with no gentle hand, and jerked her into a seat with an angry scowl.
“You must keep silence, Miss Lawless,” she began, with asperity. “Young ladies are not allowed to talk in the class-room. You will have to sit wherever you are placed, and make no complaints. Such rude behavior is not allowed here. Hold your tongue, now, and read this.”
Hereupon she took from her table the “First Book of Lessons,” and put it into Pet’s hand, with another scowl, darker, if possible, than the first.
Pet took it, and holding it upside down for a while, seemed to be intently studying, thinking all the while that life in a school-room was not only as pleasant, but considerably pleasanter, than she had anticipated.
But for Pet Lawless to keep silent any length of time was simply a moral impossibility; so, finding the cross teacher’s lynx eyes turned for a moment the other way, she bent over toward her next neighbor, a little red-eyed, red-haired girl, about her own age, and whispered, in strict confidence, pointing to Miss Sharpe:
“Ain’t she a horrid cross old thing?”
But the young lady only glanced askance at the audacious little law-breaker at her side, and edged nervously away from her.
Petronilla not being easily affronted or slighted, however, came close to little red-head, and holding her book to her mouth, whispered again:
“Does she ever whip you or anything? She looks cross enough to do it. Ain’t it awful, coming to school?”
Seeing there was no escape from her persecutor, red-head thrust her knuckles into her eyes and began to cry.
“What’s the matter now?” said the teacher, turning sharply round, and looking threateningly at Pet.
“Why, Miss Sharpe, she keeps a-talking to me all the time and won’t stop,” whispered the unhappy owner of the red hair.
“What is she saying?” said Miss Sharpe, in a quick, irritated voice, that strongly reminded Pet of Dismal Hollow and Miss Priscilla Toosypegs.
“She – she – she says you’re a – a – a horrid cross old thing, please, ma’am!” wept the little one, digging her knuckles still further into her eyes.
Miss Sharpe’s face grew black as a thunder-cloud – owing to her peculiar complexion, she generally blushed black or deep orange. In all her thirteen years’ teaching, she had never encountered a pupil who had dared to call her a “horrid cross old thing” before. Old! – that was the the worst. To be called so before the whole school, too! Miss Sharpe sat for one awful moment perfectly speechless with rage, and so black in the face that there seemed serious danger of her bursting a blood-vessel on the spot.
Once again a loud laugh, that would not be restrained, came from the sixty pretty mouths of the sixty young ladies so often spoken of. Even the teachers, although they sternly called “silence!” were forced to cough violently to hide the smile that was creeping over their faces at Miss Sharpe’s rage.
Meantime, our dauntless Pet sat with a sort of head-up-and-heels-down look, that was a sight to see; her arms akimbo, and her bright black eyes blazing with defiance, daringly riveted on the face of the justly-offended teacher.
“Did – did you dare to say that, you – you impudent, impertinent – young saucy – ”
“Abandoned, outrageous son of a gun!” put in Pet, composedly.
“Silence! Did you dare to call me that – that name?”
“I didn’t call you any name – I said you were a horrid cross old thing; and I’ll leave it to everybody here if you ain’t! I ain’t used to hold my tongue – and I’m not going to do it, either!” said Pet, all ablaze with defiance.
Miss Sharpe sat unable to speak, her rage almost swamped in her utter amazement. In all her experience she had never come across so desperate and utterly depraved a case as this. Every book was dropped, and every eye fixed on Pet. Even the other teachers, unable longer to repress their smiles, exchanged glances of surprise, and watched with interest and curiosity, the little original, who sat staring at Miss Sharpe as if for a wager.
“I – I won’t endure this! I am not to be insulted in this manner!” said Miss Sharpe, rising passionately. “I’ll go and report her to Mrs. Moodie; and either she or I must leave this class.”
“My dear Miss Sharpe, be calm,” said the head teacher, a pleasant-faced young girl, as she rose and came over. “There is no use in troubling Mrs. Moodie about the matter. This little girl, you perceive, has been indulged and spoiled all her life, and cannot readily submit to authority now. My dear,” she added, turning to Pet, “you must sit still and not talk. It is against the rules; and you perceive you are giving Miss Sharpe a great deal of trouble.”
“Well, so is she, just as bad! She’s giving me a great deal of trouble, too! I want to go and sit in your class.”
“But you can’t sit in my class, Miss Lawless. You must keep the place allotted you. Little girls should be docile and obedient, you know, and do as they are told. Will you sit still now, and be quiet?”
“Yes; if she lets me alone!” pointing to Miss Sharpe.
“You must do as your teacher says, child. Now, do be a good little girl, and don’t talk.” And the sweet-voiced young lady patted Pet’s black curly head kindly, and went back to her place.
Miss Sharpe, looking as if she would like to pounce upon Pet, and pound the life out of her, relapsed scowling into her seat; and Pet, curling her lip contemptuously at the cross teacher, took a lead pencil out of her pocket and began amusing herself drawing caricatures of her all over the book she held in her hand.
A profound silence again fell on the hot, close classe, and the girls bent over to-morrow’s tasks; now and then however, smiling slyly at each other, and glancing significantly at the new-comer, whose short half-hour in school had already created a sensation quite unparalleled in all the past history of the establishment, and which was destined to fill sixty letters home to “papa and mama” next time they wrote. Then, in half an hour more, a bell loudly rung, and every girl jumped eagerly up. This was the signal that school for the day was dismissed; and books, slates and pencils were hustled hastily out of sight; and two by two the girls marched through the now open folding-doors, beginning with the tallest, through the long hall staircase, through another hall, out of a side-room, and into an immense play-ground, furnished with wings, skipping-ropes, hoops and everything else necessary for recreation and amusement.
But no longer were hoops, and swings, and skipping-ropes seized with loud shouts as heretofore; newer and more attractive game was in view now, and every one crowded around our Pet, surveying her with open eyes as if she were some natural curiosity.
But Pet had no intention of standing there to be looked at and cross-questioned; and breaking through the ring with the yell of an Ojibewa Indian, she sprung into one of the swings, and invited “some of ’em to come and swing her.”
Like hops in beer, Pet’s presence seemed to throw the whole assembly in a ferment hitherto unknown. The swings flew wildly; the skipping-ropes went up and down with lightning-like velocity; the hoops whirled and flew over the ground in a way that must have astonished even themselves, if hoops ever can be astonished. The girls raced, and ran, and skipped, and laughed as they had never done before; and the noise and uproar waxed “fast and furious.” And wherever the fun was highest, the laughter loudest, the excitement wildest, there you might find Pet, the center and origin of it all. Cross Miss Sharpe, who had been sent out to look after them, and see that none of them broke their necks, if possible, wrung her hands in despair at the awful din, and rushed hither and thither, scolding, shaking, threatening, and vociferating at the top of her lungs; but all in vain. They were every one going crazy – that was evident; and that little minx, who had come there that day to throw the whole school in convulsions, was the cause of it all.
But even school-girls, with lungs, and throats, and faces very often of brass, must get exhausted at last; and after an hour’s steady screaming and yelling, the whole assemblage shrieked, laughed and shouted themselves into hoarseness and comparative quiet.
Pet, somewhat fatigued after her exertions, was seated in the midst of a group of girls, telling, in solemn tones, a most awful “raw-head and bloody bones” ghost story, which she “made up” as she went along, and which was destined to deprive at least twenty little individuals of a wink of sleep that night.
Every one was bending eagerly forward, listening breathlessly to Pet, who had just got “Jack” into the “haunted castle,” and was announcing the coming of a “great big black man, with red-hot coals for eyes, and flames of fire coming out of his mouth,” when a thin, sharp shadow fell over them, and, looking up with a terrified start, they beheld Miss Sharpe standing over them.
“What is she talking about now?” queried that lady, with no very amiable glances toward Pet.
“She’s telling a ghost story; that’s what she’s talking about!” said Pet, instantly beginning to be provoking.
“Ghosts!” said Miss Sharpe, turning up her nose though nature had already saved her the trouble. “Such stuff! You must not terrify the children by telling them such things, little girl.”
“It’s not stuff!” said Pet; “It’s as true as preaching. I’ve seen lots of ghosts myself. There, now!”
“Miss Lawless, do you know where little girls that tell fibs go to?” said Miss Sharpe, sternly.
“Yes, the same place you’ll go to, I expect,” said Pet, pertly; “but I ain’t telling fibs – I never do. And I have seen plenty of ghosts, too. There’s a whole settlement of them out where we live. I only wish I had brought some of them to school with me, and then you would see. That’s all!”
“You naughty little girl!” said Miss Sharpe, angrily. “How dare you tell me such a story? You have seen ghosts, indeed! Why, everybody knows there is no such thing.”
“What do you bet there’s not?” said Pet.
“Miss Lawless, you forget to whom you are speaking!” said Miss Sharpe, with dignity.
“No, I don’t; I know very well to whom I am speaking,” said Pet, imitating her tone; “and I know just as well there are ghosts. They’re great, tall, thin people, in white, with hollow eyes, that come at midnight and scare people. I’ve seen them, and I guess I ought to know.”
Miss Sharpe, disdaining an altercation with the elf, who was already bristling up in anticipation of a controversy, turned and walked away majestically, or, at least, as majestically as her four feet eight inches would allow.
Pet looked after her with a boding eye that told wonderful tales, if she could only have read it; but she contented herself with mentally exclaiming:
“Oh, I’ll dose you! Maybe you won’t see a ghost tonight, old Miss Vinegar.”
“There, now, go on with the story,” chorused half a dozen voices, when Miss Sharpe was gone.
“See here,” said Pet, without heeding the request, “where does she – Miss Sharpe I mean – sleep at night?”
“With us,” said one of the small girls, “in the children’s dormitory. The large girls have rooms to themselves, every two of them; but we sleep in a long room all full of beds, and Miss Sharpe sleeps there, too.”
“Hum-m-m! Do you know where I am to sleep?”
“Yes; all Miss Sharpe’s division sleep in the children’s dormitory. You’ll be there.”
“Um-m-m! I should like to see the place. Would we be let?”
“Oh, yes. If you can get one of the girls in the First Division to go with you, she can take you all over the house.”
Off ran Pet, and without much difficulty she persuaded one of the First Division girls to show her through the house.
The first place they visited was the children’s dormitory. This was a long room, with rows of white-curtained beds on either side for the children, and one larger than the rest, at the further end, for Miss Sharpe. Small washstands and mirrors were scattered around, and near each bed was placed a small trunk belonging to the children.
Pet scanned these arrangements with a thoughtful eye. Then, turning to her cicerone, she said:
“In which of the beds am I to sleep?”
“In this one,” said the girl, indicating one at the extreme end of the room, opposite Miss Sharpe’s. “The room was full; so they had to put it close to the window, and you will have a chance to see everybody that passes.”
Pet went over to examine. Within a few inches of the bed was a window overlooking the street. It was partly raised now, and Pet thrust her head out to “see what she could see,” as they say. The first thing that struck her was the fact that the window was in a straight line above the hall door, and only removed from it the distance of a foot or two. Instantly a demoniacal project of mischief flashed across her fertile brain; and as she withdrew her head her wicked eyes, under their long, drooping lashes, were fairly scintillating with the anticipation of coming fun.
“Do they use bells or knockers on their doors, around here?” she carelessly asked, as she flitted about.
“Some use one, some the other. There is a large brass knocker on this door. I am sure you must have seen it.”
“I had forgotten. This is my trunk, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What time do they go to bed here?”
“Nine in summer – eight in winter.”
“Hum-m-m! I know now. And do they stay out in that yard all the time?”
“Oh, no. As soon as it gets dusk we come in, have supper, and then the larger girls practice their music, or read, or write to their friends or study, or sew, or do whatever they like; and the little girls of your division play about the halls and passages.”
“Um-m-m! I see,” said Pet, in the same musing tone, while her wicked eyes, under their long, dark lashes, were twinkling with the very spirit of mischief. “Could you get me a good long cord, do you think? I want it for something.”
“Yes, I think so. Do you want it now?”
“Yes, please.”
“Very well; wait here till I go up to my room and get it for you,” said the unsuspecting young lady.
“Oh, ching-a-ring-a-ring-chaw!” shouted Pet, dancing round the long room with irrepressible glee, when she found herself alone. “Oh, won’t I have fun to-night! Won’t I show them what spiritual rapping is! Won’t there be weeping and gnashing of teeth before morning!
‘Mrs. MacShuttle,
She lived in a scuttle,
Along with her dog and her cat.’”
sang the imp, seizing a huge pitcher from one of the washstands and flourishing it over her head as she sung. Round and round she whirled, until her pitcher came furiously against the wall, and smash! in a thousand fragments it fell on the floor.
Arrested in her dance, Firefly stood still one moment, in dismay. Here was a winding-up of her extempore waltz quite unlooked for. There on the floor lay the pitcher, shivered into atoms, and there stood Pet, holding the handle still, and glancing utterly aghast from the ruins on the floor to the fragment of crockery in her hand.
“Whew! here’s a go!” was the elegant expression first jerked out of Pet by the exigency of the case. “I expect this pitcher’s been in the establishment ever since it was an establishment, and would have been in it as much longer only for me. Pet, child, look out! There’ll be murder, distraction, and a tearing off of our shirts! Fall of Jerusalem! won’t Miss Sharpe give me a blowing up, though!”
“Oh, Miss Lawless! what have you done?” cried the young lady, in tones of consternation, as she suddenly entered.
“Smashed the crockery,” said Pet, coolly pointing to the wreck.
“Oh, dear me! Oh, Miss Lawless! how could you do so?”
“Didn’t go for to do it. Got smashed itself.”
“Miss Sharpe will be very angry, Miss Lawless.”
“Well, that don’t worry me much,” said Pet.
“I am afraid she will blame me. I should not have left you here alone,” said the young lady, twisting her fingers in distress.
“No, she won’t. I’ll send out and buy another one.”
“Oh, you can’t. The servants are not allowed to run errands for the young ladies without permission from Mrs. Moodie. You will have to tell Miss Sharpe.”
“Well, come along then; I’ll tell her. Did you bring the string?”
“Yes, here it is. Oh, Miss Lawless! I am exceedingly sorry.”
“Well – my goodness! you needn’t be. An old blue pitcher! I used to throw half a dozen of them, every day, at the servants, at home, and nobody ever made a fuss about it. A common old blue pitcher – humph!”
“Oh! but it was different at home. They were your own, there; and Miss Sharpe is so – queer. She will scold you dreadfully.”
“Well, so will I, then – there! I can scold as long and as loud as she can, I reckon. An old blue pitcher! Humph! Wish to gracious I had smashed the whole set, and made one job of it.”
By this time they had reached the play-ground; and making her way through the crowd, Pet marched resolutely up to Miss Sharpe, and confronted that lady with an expression as severe as though she were about to have her arrested for high treason.
“Miss Sharpe, look here!” she began. “I’ve been upstairs and smashed an old blue pitcher. There!”
“What!” said Miss Sharpe, knitting her brows, and rather at a loss.
“Miss Lawless was in the children’s dormitory, Miss Sharpe,” explained the girl who had been Pet’s guide, “and she accidentally broke one of the pitchers. She could not help it, I assure you.”
“But I know she could help it,” screamed Miss Sharpe. “She has done it on purpose, just to provoke me. Oh, you little limb you! – you unbearable little mischief-maker! You deserve to be whipped till you can’t stand.”
“See here, Miss Sharpe; you’ll be hoarse pretty soon, if you keep screaming that way,” said Pet, calmly.
“I’ll go and tell Mrs. Moodie. I’ll go this minute. Such conduct as this, you’ll see, will not be tolerated here,” shrieked the exasperated lady, shaking her fist furiously at Pet.
“Mrs. Moodie has gone out,” said one of the girls.
“Then I’ll tell her to-morrow. I’ll – ”
Here the loud ringing of a bell put a stop to further declamation, and the girls all flew, flocking in, and marched, two by two, into another large room, where a long supper-table was laid out.
It was almost dark when the evening meal was over. Then the larger girls dispersed themselves to their various avocations, and the younger ones, under the care of a gentler monitor than Miss Sharpe, raced about the long halls and passages, and up and down-stairs.
Now was the time Pet had been waiting for. Gliding unobserved, up-stairs, she entered the dormitory, and securing one end of the string to the bed-post, let the remainder drop out of the window. Then returning down-stairs, she passed unnoticed through the front hall, and finally secured the other end of the string to the knocker of the door. It was too dark, as she knew, for any to observe the cord in opening the door.
This done, she returned to her companions, all aglow with delight at her success so far; and instigated by her, the din and uproar soon grew perfectly unbearable, and the whole phalanx were ordered off to bed half an hour earlier than usual, to get rid of the noise.
As Judge Lawless had said, it was a rigidly strict establishment; and the rule was that, at half-past nine, every light should be extinguished, and all should be safely tucked up in bed. Even Mrs. Moodie herself was no exception to this rule; for, either thinking example better than precept, or being fond of sleeping, ten o’clock always found her in the arms of Morpheus.
Therefore, at ten o’clock, silence, and darkness, and slumber, hung over the establishment of Mrs. Moodie. In the children’s dormitory, nestling in their white-draped beds, the little tired pupils were sleeping the calm, quiet sleep of childhood, undisturbed by feverish thoughts or gloomy forebodings of the morrow. Even Miss Sharpe had testily permitted herself to fall stiffly asleep, and lay with her mouth open, stretched out as straight as a ramrod, and about as grim. All were asleep – all but one.
One wicked, curly, mischief-brewing little head there was by far too full of naughty thoughts to sleep. Pet, nestling on her pillow, was actually quivering with suppressed delight at the coming fun.
She heard ten o’clock – eleven strike, and then she got up in bed and commenced operations. Her first care was to steal softly to one of the washstands, and thoroughly wet a sponge, which she placed on the window-ledge within her reach, knowing she would soon have occasion to use it.
Taking some phosphureted ether, which she had procured for the purpose of “fun” before leaving home, she rubbed it carefully over her face and hands.
Reader, did you ever see any one in the dark with their faces and hands rubbed over with phosphureted ether? looking as though they were all on fire – all encircled by flames? If you have, then you know how our Pet looked then.
Sitting there, a frightful object to contemplate, she waited impatiently for the hour of midnight to come.
The clock struck twelve, at last; the silence was so profound that the low, soft breathing of the young sleepers around her could be plainly heard. In her long, flowing night-wrapper, Pet got up and tiptoed softly across the room to the bed where the cross she-dragon lay.
Now, our Pet never thought there could be the slightest danger in what she was about to do, or, wild as she was, she would most assuredly not have done it. She merely wished to frighten Miss Sharpe for her obstinacy, unbelief in ghosts and crossness, and never gave the matter another thought.
Therefore, though it was altogether an inexcusable trick, still Pet was not so very much to blame as may at first appear.
Now she paused for a moment to contemplate the sour, grim-looking sleeper – thinking her even more repulsive in sleep than when awake; and then laying one hand on her face, she uttered a low, hollow groan, destined for her ears alone.
Miss Sharpe, awakened from a deep sleep by the disagreeable and startling consciousness of an icy-cold hand on her face, started up in affright, and then she beheld an awful vision! A white specter by her bedside, all in fire, with flames encircling face and hands, and sparks of fire seemingly darting from eyes and mouth!
For one terrible moment she was unable to utter a sound for utter, unspeakable horror. Then, with one wild piercing shriek, she buried her head under the clothes, to shut out the awful specter. Such a shriek as it was! No hyena, no screech-owl, no peacock ever uttered so ear-splitting throat-rending a scream as that. No word or words in the whole English language can give the faintest idea of that terrible screech. Before its last vibration had died away on the air, every sleeper in the establishment, including madame herself, had sprung out of bed, and stood pale and trembling, listening for a repetition of that awful cry. From twenty beds in the dormitory, twenty little sleepers sprung, and immediately began to make night hideous with small editions of Miss Sharpe’s shriek. Gathering strength from numbers, twenty voices rose an octave higher at every scream, and yell, after yell, in the shrillest soprano, pierced the air, although not one of them had the remotest idea of what it was all about.
At the first alarm, Firefly had flitted swiftly and fleetly across the room, jumped into bed, and seizing the sponge, gave her face and hands a vigorous rubbing; and now stood screaming with the rest, not to say considerably louder than any of them.
“Oh, Miss Sharpe, get up! the house is on fire! we’re all murdered in our beds!” yelled Pet, going over and catching that lady by the shoulder with a vigorous shake.
And “Oh, Miss Sharpe! Oh, Miss Sharpe! Get up. Oh-oh-oh!” shrieked the terrified children, clustering round the bed, and those who could springing in and shaking her.
With a disagreeable sense of being half crushed to death, Miss Sharpe was induced to remove her head from under the clothes, and cast a quick, terrified glance around. But the coast was clear – the awful specter was gone.
And now another noise met her ears – the coming footsteps of every one within the walls of the establishment, from Mrs. Moodie down to the little maid-of-all-work in the kitchen. In they rushed, armed with bedroom-candlesticks, rulers, ink-bottles, slate-frames, and various other warlike weapons, prepared to do battle to the last gasp.
And then it was: “Oh, what on earth is the matter? What on earth is the matter? What is the matter?” from every lip.
Miss Sharpe sprung out of bed and fled in terror to the side of Mrs. Moodie.
“Oh, Mrs. Moodie, it was awful! Oh, it was dreadful! With flames of fire coming out of its mouth, and all dressed in white. Oh, it was terrible! Ten feet high and all in flames!” shrieked Miss Sharpe, like one demented.
“Miss Sharpe, what in the name of Heaven is all this about?” asked the startled Mrs. Moodie, while the sixty “young ladies” clung together, white with mortal fear.
“Oh, Mrs. Moodie, I’ve seen it! It was frightful! all in flames of fire!” screamed the terrified Miss Sharpe.
“Seen it! seen what? Explain yourself, Miss Sharpe.”
“Oh, it was a ghost! a spirit! a demon! a fiend! I felt its blazing hands cold as ice on my face. Oh, good Heaven!” And again Miss Sharpe’s shriek at the recollection resounded through the room.
“Blazing hands cold as ice! Miss Sharpe, you are crazy! Calm yourself, I command you, and explain why we are all roused out of our beds at this hour of night by your shrieks,” said Mrs. Moodie, fixing her sharp eyes steadily upon her.
That look of rising anger brought Miss Sharpe to her senses. Wringing her hands, she cried out:
“Oh, I saw a ghost, Mrs. Moodie; an awful ghost! It came to my bedside all on fire, and – ”
“A ghost! nonsense, Miss Sharpe!” broke out the now thoroughly enraged Mrs. Moodie, as she caught Miss Sharpe by the shoulder, and shook her soundly. “You have been dreaming; you have had the nightmare; you are crazy! A pretty thing, indeed! that the whole house is to be aroused and terrified in this way. I am ashamed of you, Miss Sharpe, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to terrify those little children committed to your charge in this manner. I never heard of anything so abominable in my life before,” said the angry Mrs. Moodie.