Men, Women, and Ghosts by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

[Footnote 1: The characters in this narrative are fictitious. The incidents the author does not profess to have witnessed. But they are given as related by eye-witnesses whose testimony would command a verdict from any honest jury. The author, however, draws no conclusions and suggests none.]

Alison was sitting on a bandbox. She had generally been sitting on a bandbox for three weeks, -- or on a bushel-basket, or a cupboard shelf, or a pile of old newspapers, or the baby's bath-tub. On one occasion it was the baby himself. She mistook him for the rag-bag.