afford long entertainment. Clem would have liked dealing with some
one who showed fight--some one with whom she could try savage
issue in real tooth-and-claw conflict. She had in mind a really
exquisite piece of cruelty, but it was a joy necessarily postponed
to a late hour of the night. In the meantime, it would perhaps be as
well to take a stroll, with a view of meeting a few friends as they
came away from the work-rooms. She was pondering the invention of
some long and hard task to be executed by Jane in her absence, when
a knocking at the house-door made itself heard. Clem at once went up
to see who the visitor was.

A woman in a long cloak and a showy bonnet stood on the step,
protecting herself with an umbrella from the bitter sleet which the
wind was now driving through the darkness. She said that she wished
to see Mrs. Hewett.

'Second-floor front,' replied Clem in the offhand, impertinent tone
wherewith she always signified to strangers her position in the
house.

The visitor regarded her with a look of lofty contempt, and, having
deliberately closed her umbrella, advanced towards the stairs. Clem
drew into the back regions for a few moments, but as soon as she
heard the closing of a door in the upper part of the house, she too
ascended, going on tip-toe, with a noiselessness which indicated
another side of her character. Having reached the room which the
visitor had entered, she brought her ear close to the keyhole, and
remained in that attitude for a long time--nearly twenty minutes,
in fact. Her sudden and swift return to the foot of the stairs was
followed by the descent of the woman in the showy bonnet.