grandfather awoke. He heard Mrs. Trussit's steps down the passage, then
locks were turned, the great door swung slowly open, and he saw her, as he
had pictured it, with a candle in her hand raised above her head, peering
into the dark.

"Oh! it's you, Master Peter," and she stood aside, without another word,
to let him in. He slipped past her, silently, into the hall and, after a
second's pause, she followed him in, banging the hall door behind her. Then
she opened the dining-room door announcing, grimly, "It's Master Peter come
in, sir." The marble clock struck half-past ten as she spoke.

He stood just inside the door blinking a little at the sudden light and
twisting his cloth cap round and round in his hands. He couldn't see
anything at first, and he could not collect his thoughts. At last he said,
in a very little voice:

"I've come back, father."

The lights settled before his eyes, and he saw them all exactly as he had
thought they would be. His father had not looked up from his paper, and
Peter could see the round bald patch on the top of his head. Aunt Jessie
was talking to herself about her cards in a very agitated whisper--"Now
it's the King I want--how provoking! Ah, there's the seven of spades, _and
the six and the five_--oh dear! it's a club," and not looking up at all.

No one answered his remark, and the silence was broken by his grandfather
waking up; a shrill piping voice came from out of the rugs. "Oh! dear, what
a doze I've had! It must be eight o'clock! What a doze for an old man to
have! on such a cold night too," and then fell asleep again immediately.