herself to work with her usual good sense to see how matters stood.

"In the first place," she reasoned, talking half aloud for the sake of the
company of her own voice, "I've had a fit of what the dictionary calls
somnambulism, I suppose. I eat too much pop-corn after supper, and that's
the whole of it,--it always makes me dream,--only I never was goose enough
to get out of bed before, and I rather think it'll be some time before I
do again. I came down stairs softly, and out of the back door. Nobody
heard me, and of course nobody will hear me till morning, and I'm in a
pretty fix. If I hadn't forgotten to lock the boat I should be back in bed
by this time. Oh dear! I wish I were. However, I'm too large to tip myself
over and get drowned, and I couldn't get hurt any other way; and there's
nothing to be afraid of if I do have to stay here till morning, except
sore throat, so there's no great harm done. The worst of it is, that old
Tom! Won't he laugh at me about the boat! I never expect to hear the end
of it. Then when they go to my room and find me gone, in the morning,
they'll be frightened. I'm rather sorry for that. I wish I knew what time
it is."

Just then the distant church-clock struck two. Gypsy held her breath, and
listened to it. It had a singular, solemn sound. She had never heard the
clock strike two in the morning but once before in her life. That was once
when she was very small, when her father was dangerously sick, and the
coming of the doctor had wakened her. She had always somehow associated
the hour with mysterious flickering lights, and anxious whispers and
softened steps, and a dread as terrible as it was undefined. Now, out here
in this desolate place, where the birds were asleep in their nests, and
the winds quiet among the mountain-tops, and the very frogs tired of their
chanting,--herself the only waking thing,--these two far, deep-toned
syllables seemed like a human voice. Like the voice, Gypsy fancied, of