Year: 1879



 some noise would be made that I should not hear. then proceeded to investi gate the window fastenings. always felt so secure with Reuben, throw ing all responsibility on him, that I had never thought of looking at them before. There were none. Great goodness what was I to do?

 All that could do was to wrench down a couple of nails from the wardrobe, and by means of the poker drive them in over the sashes of the two front win dows. Going for some more for the back windows, I found that the rest were hooks, and it was in vain to try and get those out that had already driven in, so as to use them on the back windows i; they wouldn't come out. Very well, I said to myself, sha'n't go to bed to- night and I prepared myself for sitting up. If Reuben didn't come back for two or three days, could sleep in the day times, and sit up ready to meet the foe in the nights. To be sure, I should be all worn out, but what would he care :? had grim idea of satisfaction in think ing it was his fault I was undergoing so much, anyway. He might at least have left me 8 pistol, 1 said; but what good would it have done if he had? I was as much afraid of pistol as of house. breaker. And it wasn't only the cus- tomary house breaker in question now : the town was full of contrabands that had come in to work on the improve ments, and failing to find work were starving and images of some stalwart, brutal black wretch rose before me every time put my fingers on my eyes. In the day, the colored people had no stancher friend than I, but somehow they always figured in my nightmares. S It was not very inviting prospect, this of sitting up all night, already tired out as was. Still, I had a novel, I could read away part of the time, and as soon as the servants began to stir at five o'clock in the morning, I could go to bed and get three or four hours sleep anyway. 1t was idle after I had made myself comfortable, and opened my book, the words ran together, and it was im- possible to attach any sense to them, and what the book was all about have not the least idea. There was will, and love affair, and murder, and & changing of children in the cradle, but couldn't imagine how people could write and expect one to be interested in these trifing things when such real trouble as mine was in the world. heard the clock strike the slow quarters, and then strike twelve. put the book away, and got my sewing. But that was no better, for after few stitches it oc- cured to me that my light, streaming through the open folding doors and out | of those shutterless back windows with only the lace curtains for screen, was a direct invitation to those strolling beg gars of the back alley, and I tossed down my work, and turned down the gas, and thought would go and sit by the glim' mer of the Latrobe in the back room. How still the night was I listened, and

 listened, and listened, till my ears were strained. Now and then some street

 singers wandered along their way, fa1

 of, and seemed to be the only people 1T

 the universe now and then the slow

 and heavy foot of 8 policeman sounded

 in some other square, I thought nov

 and then some straggler hurried home

 with ringing steps; but all that wal

 comfort, and not at all suspicious. A

 last, however, I heard it-what I ha6

 been listening for, of course thumI

 ing and pumping to which my hear

 beat an echo sand then hurrying anG

 scurrying and scratching that told m

 the rats were stealing the potatoes in tn cellar. breathed mo re freely ; it wa actually something agreeable to feel evel

 the rats alive in the neighborhood, a

 long as they did not forsake the celia for any other place. Cats then; tn rattle of window sashes soot fallinI down the chimney i; the starting of som timber or some spike-an the noise without source that one hears at night as if they were part of the stirring of tn , springs in the earth, came along afte that in slew succession, and the cloc struck one.

 I was wretchedly sleepy now. Eve sitting bolt-upright in my chair an 3 palpitating with fear, it was all I coul 7 do to keep awake, when suddenly a started as if there had never been such thing as sleep in the world. There 3 was-a stealthy, muffled movement { ] the cellar grating at the front of the ol 8 house, 8 lifting of the iron, rattling ( 8 the glass, leap, fall, smothere

 curse-there was somebody in the cellar '- My heart stood still my voice was u r terly gone; if my life had depended c h it, I could not have spoken. Death a1 o destruction, in the shape of that burgla h were stealing nearer every minute. r was sure that there was an accompli, s in the house, in my room. I expecte n he would presently pounce on me ar B pinion me. Ihaf rose to escape throue l, one of the front windows, but T y membered that I had nailed the

 down-and if that were not so, cou e- not have left the chair into which 1t ). back. It seemed to me heard the lc I regular breathing of the accompic y and then, all at once, I was sure hea lt something very different, something th y set the blood bubbling in my veins u- music never did before-the subdu s, whistling of familiar strain benea ae my feet, and I recognized that it " ed Tom, the scullion, who had been belate ,y and was now keeping his courage ally