"Put down that toast before you drop it, Maggie," I said. "You're
shaking all over. And go out and shut the door."

"Very well," she said, with a meekness behind which she was both
indignant and frightened. "But there is one word I might mention
before I go, and that is--cats!"

"Cats!" said Willie, as she slammed the door.

"I think it is only one cat," I observed mildly. "It belongs to
Miss Emily, I fancy. It manages to be in a lot of places nearly
simultaneously, and Maggie swears it is a dozen."

Willie is not subtle. He is a practical young man with a growing
family, and a tendency the last year or two to flesh. But he ate
his breakfast thoughtfully.

"Don't you think it's rather isolated?" he asked finally. "Just you
three women here?" I had taken Delia, the cook, along.

"We have a telephone," I said, rather loftily. "Although--" I
checked myself. Maggie, I felt sure, was listening in the pantry,
and I intended to give her wild fancies no encouragement. To utter
a thing is, to Maggie, to give it life. By the mere use of the
spoken word it ceases to be supposition and becomes fact.

As a matter of fact, my uneasiness about the house resolved itself
into an uneasiness about the telephone. It seems less absurd now
than it did then. But I remember what Willie said about it that