“It is not more than twenty doors off,” said Kate, “and Liffie will go with you.”
“Lawks, ma’am,” said Liffie, “what could the likes o’ me do if we was attacked? An’ then—I should ’ave to return alone!”
“That is true,” said the tender-hearted Jessie; “what is to be done? Our landlady goes to bed early. It would never do to rouse her—and then, she may perhaps be as great a coward as we are. Oh! if there was only a man in the house. Even a boy would do.”
“Ah! I jist think ’e would,” said Liffie. “If little Billy was ’ere, I wouldn’t ax for no man.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Kate with a bright look of decision, “we’ll all go together. Get on your bonnet, Jessie.”
There was no resisting Kate when once she had made up her mind. She put on her own bonnet, and her sister quickly returned ready, “with a heart,” as Byron says, “for any fate?”
“Now don’t speak, any of you,” whispered Kate. “If we are attacked, let us give a united shriek. That will raise some one to our aid.”
“I should think it would, ma’am. It would a’most raise the dead,” said Liffie, who also prepared herself for the ordeal.
Dark and deserted streets at late hours, with dangerous characters known to be abroad, have terrors to some small extent, even for the averagely brave; what must they have, then, for those tender ones of the weaker sex whose spirits are gentle, perhaps timid, and whose nerves have been highly strung by much converse on subjects relating to violence?
The first shock experienced by our quartette was caused by the door. From some inscrutable impulse Liffie Lee had locked it after Ruth had rushed in.