"I think," said mamma, "that it was an enormous woman, with a baby in
her arms, but I really cannot be sure, for I only looked at the
face--such a hideous, repulsive face. I shall dream of it to-night, I
am convinced."

"A woman!" said Marguerite. "My impression was of a very
murderous-looking man--an Indian, I thought, he was so very dark."

Gabrielle's view of the case differed from the others. The creature
had, she said, a heavy black beard, which, was un-Indian-like, and was
garbed in a dark calico gown with open sleeves, through which she
plainly perceived a pair of unmistakably muscular, masculine arms. In
the words of Macbeth--

"You should be woman,
And yet your beard forbids me to interpret
That you are so."

Neither Marguerite nor Gabrielle had seen the baby, and Gabrielle's
conclusion that this frightful being was a convict who had escaped from
Sing Sing disguised as a woman, was quite logical.

"Chappaqua is certainly in unpleasant proximity to Sing Sing," I said
with a shudder, for I have not many elements of a heroine about me.

"Yes," was mamma's cheerful rejoinder, "and you know we were told
yesterday that one or two of the most dangerous convicts had recently
escaped, and had entered several houses in Chappaqua--to say nothing of
Mr. O'Dwyer's report that that dreadful Captain Jack has escaped, and