“There’s two on us so, ma’am,” said Mildred, as she led the lady back to her room, and having placed her in her arm-chair by the fire, Mildred Tarnley took the key from a brass-headed tack, on which it hung behind the bedpost.
“Here it is, ma’am,” she said, placing the key in her groping fingers.
“What key is it?” asked the old soldier.
“The key of the long linen closet that was.”
“And how do I know that?” she inquired, twirling it round in her large fingers, and smiling in such a way as to nettle Mrs. Tarnley, who began—
“Ye may know, I take it, because Mildred Tarnley says so, and I never yet played a trick. I never tells lies,” she concluded, pulling up on a sudden.
“Well, I know that. I know you’re truth itself, so far as human nature goes; but that has its limits, and can’t fly very high off the ground. Come, get me up—we’ll try the key. I’ll lock it myself—I’ll lock it with my own fingers. Seeing is believing, and I can’t see; but feeling has no fellow, and, not doubting you, Mrs. Tarnley, I’ll feel for myself.”
She placed her hand on Mrs. Tarnley’s shoulder, and when she had reached the corner at the further side of the bed, where the covered door, as she knew, was situated, with her scissors’ point, where the crevice of the door was covered over with the paper, she ripped it asunder (notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mildred, who told her she was “leavin’ it not worth a rag off the road”) all round the door, which thus freed, and discovering by her finger tips the point at which the keyhole was placed, she broke the paper through, introduced the key, turned it, and with very little resistance pulled the door partly open, with an ugly grimace and a chuckle at Mildred. Then, locking it fast, she said—
“And now I defy madam, do all she can—and you’ll clap the table against it, to make more sure; and so I think I may sleep—don’t you?”
Mildred scratched above her eyebrow with one finger for a moment, and she said—