floor a long corridor ran the length of the house, with rooms opening from both sides. In the wings were small corridors crossing the main one—the plan was simplicity itself. And just as I got back into bed, I heard a sound from the east wing, apparently, that made me stop, frozen, with one bedroom slipper half off, and listen. It was a rattling metallic sound, and it reverberated along the empty halls like the crash of doom. It was for all the world as if something heavy, perhaps a piece of steel, had rolled clattering and jangling down the hard-wood stairs leading to the card-room. 

 In the silence that followed Liddy stirred and snored again. I was exasperated: first she kept me awake by silly alarms, then when she was needed she slept like Joe Jefferson, or Rip,—they are always the same to me. I went in and aroused her, and I give her credit for being wide awake the minute I spoke. 

 “Get up,” I said, “if you don’t want to be murdered in your bed.” 

 “Where? How?” she yelled vociferously, and jumped up. 

 “There’s somebody in the house,” I said. “Get up. We’ll have to get to the telephone.” 

 “Not out in the hall!” she gasped; “Oh, Miss Rachel, not out in the hall!” trying to hold me back. But I am a large woman and Liddy is small. We got to the door, somehow, and Liddy held a brass andiron, which it was all she could do to lift, let alone brain anybody with. I listened, and, hearing nothing, opened the door a little and peered into the hall. It was a black void, full of terrible suggestion, and my candle only emphasized the gloom. Liddy squealed and drew me back again, and as the door slammed, the mirror I had put on the transom came down and hit her on the head. That completed our demoralization. It was some time before I could persuade her she had not been attacked from behind by a burglar, and when she found the mirror smashed on the floor she wasn’t much better. 

 “There’s going to be a death!” she wailed. “Oh, Miss Rachel, there’s going to be a death!” 

 “There will be,” I said grimly, “if you don’t keep quiet, Liddy Allen.” 

 And so we sat there until morning, wondering if the candle would last until dawn, and arranging what trains we could take back to town. If we had only stuck to that decision and gone back before it was too late! 

 The sun came finally, and from my window I watched the trees along the 

 Prev. P 8/167 next