54 AN APPARITION. 



board ; but something withheld her, and, as if afraid to move, 

 she sat crouching in her great arm-chair. On that night her 

 old deadened senses seemed all at once restored to more than 

 youthful acuteness ; but solely for her torment. She generally 

 troubled others by her deafness ; but she was now troubled her- 

 self by excess of hearing. The monotonous ticking of her clock, 

 though it seemed louder than ever heard before, did not drown 

 the tapping of the death-watch which came at intervals 

 tick, tick, tick from the bottom of the walnut-tree drawers. 

 Her sight, by day, was very dim ; but by the glimmer of a 

 rush-candle, and without spectacles, she saw, and as she saw 

 it her blood curdled on that midsummer night, and her knees 

 and toothless jaws both knocked together she saw plain as 

 she had ever done at noonday gliding in at the closed door, 

 the figure of the old sexton, her thirteen years' lodger, 

 wearing the same brown coat and red handkerchief in which 

 she had last seen him in that kitchen, before he took to the 

 bed on which he died. Silent, and without a sound, the 

 apparition passed her, and stood (she knew it, though she 

 could not see it) bv the walnut-tree chest behind her chair 



/ V 



that chest which his own hands had fashioned for her use. 

 But what was his business with it now ? What had he come 

 to find ? She had the key in her pocket ; but she heard it 

 turn in the locks behind her. She heard and saw no more ; 

 fear, which had seemed to sharpen, now benumbed her senses. 



