looked like a bag of flour! She pointed to the staircase leading to
the attic and asked me to go up there.

"So I says to her: 'Why do you want me to go up there? If there's a
haunt there, or a burglar, or a man after one of the girls, why
should I risk the precious neck of me, when it's the only one I've
got, with no prospect of ever getting another in case this one was
damaged beyond repair?' So she says to me, she says--"

"Never mind what she said," Ned interrupted, fearful of a long,
involved dialogue between the two servants. "Tell me what you did."

"I went up the staircase, three steps at a jump, an' bumped the head
of me on the edge of the door at the top of it. You can see the dent
in my coco now!"

"And what did you find there?" asked Ned.

"There was a rug on the floor and a hole in the floor, and a twinkle
of light shining into the attic from this room. Some one had been
listening there!"

"You saw no one?"

"Never a soul! I'm that sorry I can't express it!"

"When were you in that attic before--the last time before to-night?"

"Late yesterday afternoon it was."