aid of something every
night."

"That is just the plain truth. When I used to read about the horrors of
living in a solitary house in the country, I little thought how much of
the same terror I should feel from living solitary in a house in a
village. You wonder what could happen to me, I dare say; and perhaps it
would not be very easy to suppose any peril which would stand
examination."

"I was going to say that you and we are particularly safe, from being so
poor that there is no inducement to rob us. We and you have neither
money nor jewels, nor plate, that can tempt thieves!--for our few forks
and spoons are hardly worth breaking into a house for."

"People who want bread, however, may think it worth while to break in
for that: and while our thieves are this sort of people, and not the
London gentry whom Sydney is so fond of talking of, it may be enough
that gentlemen and ladies live in houses to make the starving suppose
that they shall find something valuable there."

"They would soon learn better if they came here. I doubt whether, when
you and I have done our supper, they would find anything to eat. But
how do you show your terrors, I should like to know? Do you scream?"

"I never screamed in my life, as far as I remember. Screaming appears
to me the most unnatural of human sounds. I never felt the slightest
inclination to express myself in that manner."

"Nor I: but I never said so, because I thought no one would believe me."

"No: the true mood for these doleful winter nights is, to sit trying to
read, but never able to fix your attention for five minutes, for some
odd noise or another. And yet it is almost worse to hear nothing but a
cinder falling on the hearth now and then, startling you like a
pistol-shot. Then it seems as if somebody was opening the shutter
outside, and then tapping at the window. I have got so into the habit
of looking at the window at night, expecting to see a face squeezed flat
against the pane, that I have yielded up my credit to myself, and
actually have the blinds drawn down when the outside shutters are
closed."

"How glad I am to find you are no braver than the rest of us!"

"No; do not be glad. It is very painful, night after night. Every step
clinks or craunches in the farrier's yard, you know. This ought to be a
comfort: but sometimes I cannot clearly tell where the sound comes from.
More than once lately I have fancied it was behind me, and have turned