He got up, and lighted one of the candles on the side-board. Then
he very carefully opened the other door of the dining-room, and we
all followed him out into a hall. There we listened again, but
could hear nothing. He led the way up the back-stairs, and we tip-
toed behind him. The candle which he carried flickered, and cast a
dim light into two rooms which opened off the landing. One was a
nursery, with children's blocks, stuffed elephants, and Noah's Ark
animals on the floor, and on a couch. The moon, which had come out
of the fog, shone in at a window, and its light fell right on a
white rabbit sitting under a doll's parasol. He had tea-cups and
saucers on the floor in front of him, but he was perfectly quiet.
The noise did not come from him. The room on the other side of the
landing was an ordinary bed-room, quite empty.

We stole along the landing toward the front of the house. Here
were two more large bed-rooms. The beds were smooth and
undisturbed, and both rooms were quiet as the grave.

"Nothing here," whispered Mr. Daddles, "we'll go down the front
stairs."

He spoke in the lowest kind of a whisper,--I could hardly make
out what he said. But he beckoned toward the stairs, and we all
tip-toed in that direction. I can see how that hall looked,--I can
see it now, just as I saw it, as we came down stairs. The wood-
work was all painted white, some little moonlight came in through
the glass over the front door, and that, with the candle, made it
fairly clear. The stairs were broad, and they sloped gradually.
There were two big portraits on the wall, one of them over the