“She’s prowling round the house,” whispered that lady to herself. “It’s a mercy I didn’t fall asleep.”
Having located the enemy, Mrs. White slipped out in cautious pursuit. She heard Miss Katherine enter into the kitchen and open the cellar door and start down the stairs. She stole out the front way and went round the house to a cellar window. When she arrived at that vantage point she beheld Miss Katherine standing in the centre of the cellar, holding a lamp above her head that she might first get a good general view before beginning particular investigations.
“This is a difficult task,” she said aloud, “the cellar is so large that it would take me all night to sound all the walls. Now, would there be an old iron-bound sea-chest, the kind sailors hide things in, in a corner here?”
Holding her lamp well above her head, she slowly turned herself about that she might see every corner.
Now it happened that old Tabby had just presented the thankless household with a family of kittens. She had thought that some straw that lay in a corner of the cellar would be a soft, safe bed for her babies, and as a broken window provided ingress and egress for herself, she had taken possession of the corner. Old Tabby’s guard over her family was most vigilant, but she had not been disturbed until this strange figure made its appearance in the centre of the cellar.
As Miss Katherine brought her light to bear upon Tabby’s corner, the watcher at the window, who knew nothing of the family in the cellar, beheld the lamp dashed to the ground and heard a terrified but half-suppressed shriek and then flying footsteps. She did not wait to see or hear more but stole upstairs as fast as she could in a panic, not knowing but that she might meet the maniac on the stairs.
“I’ll be crazy, too, if I stay here any longer,” she said to herself. “If I’m spared till morning I’ll get out of this.”
She put all the movable furniture in her room against the door, sent up a fervent prayer for protection and got into bed, but not with the intention of sleeping.
The next morning she informed Miss Boulby that she was far from well, was all crippled with sciatica and would have to leave. Her pale face corroborated her words and reluctantly Miss Katherine let her go.
I should like now to turn the reader’s attention to our friend, Mr. Murphy. That gentleman had found comfortable lodgings and seemed to be getting much attached to Ocean View. By watching rather closely one might suspect that he wished to avoid the adults of Ocean View, excepting Mr. and Miss Boulby. He called upon them pretty frequently. The boys of the neighborhood found his society very entertaining and followed in a pack at his heels. He did not always welcome this following, however, for he often put a book in his pocket and rambled along the shore until he found just the right spot where he could sit and read undisturbed. He had taken to doing this immediately after his second call at the Boulbys’. The books he carried at first bore the mark of Ocean View Public Library. But one afternoon when he had found his favored spot, he drew from his pocket a glistening new volume.