"No, no, I know the steps—I could find them in the dark."
"Those steps," said Henry, with a mock solemnity of manner—"those steps will you never tread again!"
"Oh, there is something you conceal from me!" exclaimed Clara. "Say what you will, I will go down and see Christina."
She turned quickly round and opened the door, but Henry clasped her as quickly in his arms.
"My dear," cried he, "will you break your neck?"
The secret was at once disclosed. They stepped together to the landing-place. There were no longer any stairs to be seen. Clara clasped her little hands as she looked first down into the dark precipice below, and then at her husband, who maintained the most comical gravity in the world. She then ran back to the stove, snatched up one of the pieces of wood, and, looking at it closely, said—"Ah, now I see why the grain was so different! So, then, we have burned up the stairs?"
"So it seems," answered Henry, quite calmly. "I hardly know why I kept this secret from you—perhaps that you might not be distressed by any superfluous scruples. Now that you know it, I am sure you will find it quite reasonable."
"But Christina?"
"Oh, she is quite well! In the morning I let her down a cord, to which she fastens her little basket. This I draw up, and afterwards the water-jug. Our housekeeping proceeds in the most orderly fashion in the world. When the banister was at an end, it struck me that one half at least of the steps of our staircase might be dispensed with; it was but to step a little higher, as one is forced to do in many houses. With the help of Christina, who entered into this philosophical view of the matter, I broke off the first, third, fifth, and so forth. When one half of the steps was consumed, the other half was also condemned as superfluous—for what do we want with stairs, we who never go out?"
"But the landlord?"