Miss Pole came with her little basket at all hours of the evening,
as if her lonely house and the unfrequented road to it had never
been infested by that "murderous gang"; Mrs Forrester said she
thought that neither Jenny nor she need mind the headless lady who
wept and wailed in Darkness Lane, for surely the power was never
given to such beings to harm those who went about to try to do what
little good was in their power, to which Jenny tremblingly
assented; but the mistress's theory had little effect on the maid's
practice until she had sewn two pieces of red flannel in the shape
of a cross on her inner garment.
I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball--the ball that she used
to roll under her bed--with gay-coloured worsted in rainbow
stripes.
"My dear," said she, "my heart is sad for that little careworn
child. Although her father is a conjuror, she looks as if she had
never had a good game of play in her life. I used to make very
pretty balls in this way when I was a girl, and I thought I would
try if I could not make this one smart and take it to Phoebe this
afternoon. I think 'the gang' must have left the neighbourhood,
for one does not hear any more of their violence and robbery now."
We were all of us far too full of the signor's precarious state to
talk either about robbers or ghosts.
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