Having Put The Keys Under Her Pillow, And Dismissed
Her Maid, She Sat By Her Toilet Arranging Her Hair; For, Being, In
Spite Of Her Grief For My Uncle, Rather A Buxom Widow, She Was A Little
Particular About Her Person.
She sat for a little while looking at her
face in the glass, first on one side, then on
The other, as ladies are
apt to do, when they would ascertain if they have been in good looks;
for a roystering country squire of the neighborhood, with whom she had
flirted when a girl, had called that day to welcome her to the country.
All of a sudden she thought she heard something move behind her. She
Looked hastily round, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the
grimly painted portrait of her poor dear man, which had been hung
against the wall. She gave a heavy sigh to his memory, as she was
accustomed to do, whenever she spoke of him in company; and went on
adjusting her nightdress. Her sigh was re-echoed; or answered by a
long-drawn breath. She looked round again, but no one was to be seen.
She ascribed these sounds to the wind, oozing through the rat holes of
the old mansion; and proceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers,
when, all at once, she thought she perceived one of the eyes of the
portrait move.
"The back of her head being towards it!" said the story-teller with the
ruined head, giving a knowing wink on the sound side of his
visage - "good!"
"Yes, sir!" replied drily the narrator, "her back being towards the
portrait, but her eye fixed on its reflection in the glass."
Well, as I was saying, she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait
move.
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