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Page 32
Amanda Gill was not a woman of strong convictions even as to her
own actions. She directly thought that possibly she had been
mistaken and had not removed it from the closet. She glanced at
the closet door and saw with surprise that it was open, and she had
thought she had closed it, but she instantly was not sure of that.
So she entered the closet and looked for the purple gown. IT WAS
NOT THERE!
Amanda Gill went feebly out of the closet and looked at the easy
chair again. The purple gown was not there! She looked wildly
around the room. She went down on her trembling knees and peered
under the bed, she opened the bureau drawers, she looked again in
the closet. Then she stood in the middle of the floor and fairly
wrung her hands.
"What does it mean?" she said in a shocked whisper.
She had certainly seen that loose purple gown of her dead Aunt
Harriet's.
There is a limit at which self-refutation must stop in any sane
person. Amanda Gill had reached it. She knew that she had seen
that purple gown in that closet; she knew that she had removed it
and put it on the easy chair. She also knew that she had not taken
it out of the room. She felt a curious sense of being inverted
mentally. It was as if all her traditions and laws of life were on
their heads. Never in her simple record had any garment not
remained where she had placed it unless removed by some palpable
human agency.
Then the thought occurred to her that possibly her sister Sophia
might have entered the room unobserved while her back was turned
and removed the dress. A sensation of relief came over her. Her
blood seemed to flow back into its usual channels; the tension of
her nerves relaxed.
"How silly I am," she said aloud.
She hurried out and downstairs into the kitchen where Sophia was
making cake, stirring with splendid circular sweeps of a wooden
spoon a creamy yellow mass. She looked up as her sister entered.
"Have you got it done?" said she.
"Yes," replied Amanda. Then she hesitated. A sudden terror
overcame her. It did not seem as if it were at all probable that
Sophia had left that foamy cake mixture a second to go to Aunt
Harriet's chamber and remove that purple gown.
"Well," said Sophia, "if you have got that done I wish you would
take hold and string those beans. The first thing we know there
won't be time to boil them for dinner."
Amanda moved toward the pan of beans on the table, then she looked
at her sister.
"Did you come up in Aunt Harriet's room while I was there?" she
asked weakly.
She knew while she asked what the answer would be.
"Up in Aunt Harriet's room? Of course I didn't. I couldn't leave
this cake without having it fall. You know that well enough.
Why?"
"Nothing," replied Amanda.
Suddenly she realized that she could not tell her sister what had
happened, for before the utter absurdity of the whole thing her
belief in her own reason quailed. She knew what Sophia would say
if she told her. She could hear her.
"Amanda Gill, have you gone stark staring mad?"
She resolved that she would never tell Sophia. She dropped into a
chair and begun shelling the beans with nerveless fingers. Sophia
looked at her curiously.
"Amanda Gill, what on earth ails you?" she asked.
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