I carried a blue cotton umbrella. As I passed before a mirror, I
could not help glancing at it, nor could I disguise from myself the
fact that I was not handsome.

Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly
awaiting the arrival of my master. Once or twice a fearful yell
rang through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses
uttered in a deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive
stillness. I began to feel my soul rising with the emergency of
the moment.

"You look alarmed, miss. You don't hear anything, my dear, do
you?" asked the housekeeper nervously.

"Nothing whatever," I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream,
followed by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above,
drowned for a moment my reply. "It is the silence, on the
contrary, which has made me foolishly nervous."

The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some
tea for me.

I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash,
and the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken
window.


CHAPTER III.