One evening she came screaming into the parlour, and assured her mamma that she had had the greatest difficulty to escape from a hideous creature, who, with outspread arms, was on the point of seizing her, and begged the door might be locked immediately. Her mamma, and her brothers and sisters, laughed immoderately at her strange story, which mortified her extremely; but they could not prevail on her to _shew_ them where she had seen the terrible creature: she could, however, tell them the exact spot, though she endeavoured to dissuade them from venturing to go to it; but she could not prevail on any of them to be frightened, and they soon discovered the monster, with its outspread arms, to be nothing more than the horse on which the servant had been beating her papa's coat.