defended that bright and delicate parlour from the dark, savage
universe without seemed to crack and shiver.

Mrs. Maldon, suddenly noticing that one blind was half an inch
short of the bottom of the window, rose nervously and pulled it down
farther.

"Why didn't you ask me to do that?" said Rachel, thinking what a
fidgety person the old lady was.

Mrs. Maldon replied--"It's all right, my dear. Did you fasten the
window on the upstairs landing?"

"As if burglars would try to get in by an upstairs window--and on
the street!" thought Rachel, pityingly impatient. "However, it's her
house, and I'm paid to do what I'm told," she added to herself, very
sensibly. Then she said, aloud, in a soothing tone--

"No, I didn't. But I will do it."

She moved towards the door, and at the same moment a knock on the
front door sent a vibration through the whole house. Nearly all
knocks on the front door shook the house; and further, burglars do
not generally knock as a preliminary to effecting an entrance.
Nevertheless, both women started--and were ashamed of starting.

"Surely he's rather early!" said Mrs. Maldon with an exaggerated
tranquillity.

And Rachel, with a similar lack of conviction in her calm gait, went