It was not her kitten, which might have playfully followed her upstairs—it was not a prowling rat making a hungry attack. A low titter accompanied this pluck at her dress, and she saw the wide pale face of the Dutchwoman turned up towards her with an odious smile. She was seated on the step, with her shoulder leaning upon the frame of the door.
“You thought I was asleep under the coverlet,” she drawled: “or awake, perhaps, in the other world—dead. I never sleep long, and I don’t die easily—see!”
“And what for are ye out o’ your bed at all, ma’am? Ye’ll break your neck in this house, if ye go walking about, wi’ its cranky steps, and stairs, and you blind.”
“When you go blind, old Mildred, you’ll find your memory sharper than you think, and steps, and corners, and doors, and chimney-pieces will come to mind like a picture. What was I about?”
“Well, what was ye about? Sure I am I don’t know, ma’am.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” said she.
“But you should be in your bed—that I know, ma’am.”
Still holding her dress, and with a lazy laugh, the lady made answer—
“So should you, old lass—a pair of us gadders; but I had a reason—I wanted you, old Mildred.”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t know how you’d ’a found me, for I sleep in the five-cornered room, two doors away from the spicery—you’d never ’a found me.”