saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other,
she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and,
seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she
knocked loudly enough to awaken all the mountain echoes.

She waited a few minutes for an answer, but receiving none, she
knocked again, more loudly than before. Still there was no reply.
And growing impatient, she seized the knocker with both hands and
exerting all her strength, made the welkin ring again!

This brought a response. The door was unlocked and angrily jerked
open by a short, squarely formed, beetle-browed, stern-looking
woman, clothed in a black stuff gown and having a stiff muslin cap
upon her head.

"Who are you? What do you want here?" harshly demanded this woman,
whom Capitola instinctively recognized as Dorky Knight, the morose
housekeeper of the Hidden House.

"Who am I? What do I want? Old Nick fly away with you! It's plain
enough to be seen who I am and what I want. I am a young woman
caught out in the storm and I want shelter!" said Cap, indignantly.
And her words were endorsed by a terrific burst of the tempest in
lightning, thunder, wind and rain!

"Come in then and when you ask favors learn to keep a civil tongue
in your head!" said the woman sternly, taking the guest by the hand
and pulling her in and shutting and locking the door.

"Favors! Plague on you for a bearess! I asked no favor! Every storm-