When Martine reached the lower story all was still. Priscilla had said that her aunt was at a meeting. Evidently she had not yet returned.
On her way downstairs a mischievous plan had been forming in Martine's brain.
"I'll never have a better chance," she said to herself, and she tiptoed into the drawing-room.
A noise from the direction of the dining-room made her start. Then glancing around she took heart.
"I think I can do it," she murmured, "before any one appears on the scene."
Again she felt discouraged as she noted how massive, how immovable most of the furniture appeared. A large centre-table in the middle of the room pleased her; she pushed it from its place into a distant corner. Over it she threw a scarf that had decorated a sofa. Then from the great bookcase in the hall she took two or three volumes that she laid on the table open and face downward.
"Everything seems glued to the walls," she murmured, "and these tidies are so ugly. There can't be much harm in folding them up and putting them under the sofa."
Then she paused. "This little scarf—it is Roman, too,—is just the thing for Julius Cæsar." And tying the striped scarf around the neck of the great conqueror, she bolstered the bust on an easy-chair, draping an afghan around him to conceal his lack of body and limbs.