Thinking it was one of
the other servants, she turned round, pleased to think that some one
else was up early too, and saw to her horror a dreadful-looking
object, that seemed to be partly human and partly animal. The body was
quite small, and its face bloated, and covered with yellow spots. It
had an enormous animal mouth, the lips of which, moving furiously
without emitting any sound, showed that the creature was endeavouring
to speak but could not. The moment Letty screamed for help the
phantasm vanished.
But her worst experience was yet to come. The spare attic which she
was told was so badly haunted that no one would sleep in it, was the
room next to hers. It was a room Letty could well believe was
haunted, for she had never seen another equally gloomy. The ceiling
was low and sloping, the window tiny, and the walls exhibited all
sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm-eaten, stood
in one recess, a black oak chest in another, and at right angles with
the door, in another recess, stood a wardrobe that used to creak and
groan alarmingly every time Letty walked a long the passage. Once she
heard a chuckle, a low, diabolical chuckle, which she fancied came
from the chest; and once, when the door of the room was open, she
caught the glitter of a pair of eyes--the same pale, malevolent eyes
that had so frightened her in the cellar. From her earliest childhood
Letty had been periodically given to somnambulism, and one night, just
about a year after she went into service, she got out of bed, and
walked, in her sleep, into the Haunted Room.
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