Year: 1870

After while Rose came back, and
reporting that the cook had retired tC
her own fortress, was directed to make
all fast for the night With the
the thought of Peters wildly before
her, thele was no danger of her fail
ing in regard to any fthe bolts OF
bars; so Mrs. Somers did not accom-
pany her oa the tour of inspection,
but remained in the sitting room, un-
til she returned. Then the sleeping
baby was given to her charge, and
conveyed away up stairs, leaving the
doctors wife to the cnlivenimg pros
pect of her solitary evening. Oh
course she took up Very Hard Cash,
and began to read but, in her pres
eut mood, there WAS something ghast-
ly and awful in those dreadful mad
house scenes, and she felt herself be-
coming so sensibly influenced by them
that she Was at last, obliged to put
the volume down. She tried a little
music, but everything alb iut .he house
WAS so profoundly still that the chords
of the piano sounded unnaturally loud
and startling in her ears, and she
very soon gave up the attempt. Then
she got her sewing, little pIque skirt,
which she was braiding, and fell to
work very determinedly, but it was
dreadlully dull, she found this work
ing in utter silence, with nobody to
read or talk, or even to give that
sense of society which silent COM
panion can afford quite as we'll as a To-
.quacious one She yawned, and look
ed at the clock, and wondered where
poor John was, and if the colonel wai
really dying, and if Robert would in
herit the estate, and if Mrs. Brad
shaw made the punch as good as she
could have done, considering that
John had just had such long weary
ride; and if they had heard about Pc
ters at the Oaks, and where Peters
was, on this wild MI ght of storm, and if
he would kill anybody else, before he
was taken, and various other enter
tainlng things-until, at last, she
caught herself absolutely nodding over
her needle; and, rousing herself with
q laugh, began to think that she might
81 well go up stairs.


''I'll tell John what terrible fail
ure my evening has beeu," she said to
herself, as she folded away the pique
skirt, closed her work box, aHd put
things a little to rights before leaving
the room for the night After she
had lighted a chamber lamp, and took
her departure.


Just as she reached the head of the
staircase which led from the lower to
the upper hall, her attention was at
tracted by half open door on her
riSht-the door of the guest chamber
and remembering that it might be
easily reached by the sloping roof of
a lower piazza, she entered it to see if
Rose had fas eled the windows prop.
erly.


''I know 1 am shameAlly foolish, :"
she thought. with a good deal of self
apology; "but it is on baby's account,
not mine"


On baby's account, therefore, she
went round to each of the Windows,
and fastened the shutters, as Rose had
entirely forgotten to do, putting down
her lamp the while on toilet table
This toilet table WIS just on a line
with the door of closet next the
fire place, and when she turned round,
after Sc .uring the last shutter, she no
tioed that the flame of the lamp was
fickering, as if it had been blown by
a strong current of air.


She looked about for cause, and
saw the closet door slightly aiar. This
startled her, for she was almost sure
that she had noticed it when she came
in, and that it had then been tightly
closed, But she rallied Immediately,
and, thinking that she must, ot.course
have been mistaken, walked forward
to shut md lock it. Shut it she could,
and did, very readily, but locking it
was another matter, for the key was
gone. She looked everywhere for it,
on the tables, in the bureau drawers,
but it was not to be found She was