production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met
with. Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity
of hold in those specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon
her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably
shaking her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the
Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a
purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion
as with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the
protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating
her last wishes regarding her silver watch.

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was
among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded
woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of
hooded women. Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself
have sat in the dismal parlor, listening, until I have heard so
many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood
if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try
this in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own
comfortable fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any
house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every
nerve in your nervous system.

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and
there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses
in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always
primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-
triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions
that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established
the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If