The chops were served to us the next morning charred black, uneatable. I pointed them out to Julia on her appearing, and, with a view to deprecating her inevitable wrath, frankly so described them. My sister regarded the lost hopes of our meal with a preoccupied stare; then turned upon me with the wide distending of her eyelids which I knew portended a new worry.
"What sort of a night had you?" she asked.
"Excellent. And you?"
"Frightful. My nerves are all on the stretch, in consequence. I give you warning, Isabella, if you drop your knife or chink your teacup and saucer I shall scream aloud."
"You didn't sleep?"
"Not a wink."
"Were there noises to disturb you?"
"Not a sound. That was it! Not a din, Isabella."
"That's all right, then."
"Is it? You know my room?—just a lath-and-plaster partition between it and hers—that woman's. I ought to have heard every movement, even if she turned in her bed."