the proposed arrangement,
which was all this time looming darkly before me. But when our friend was
about to take her leave for the night I could keep it back no longer.

"'Mary,' I whispered, surprised and somewhat annoyed at my sister's
calmness, 'are you going to let her go away? You and I _can't_ stay here
all night alone.'

"'Do you mean that you are frightened, Laura dear?' she said kindly, in
the same tone. 'I don't see that there is anything to be frightened of;
and if there were, what good would another girl--for this young woman is
very little older than I--do us?'

"'She knows the house, any way, and it wouldn't seem so bad,' I replied,
adding aloud, 'Oh, Mrs. Atkins'--for I had heard the driver mention her
name--'can't you stay in the house with us? We shall feel so dreadfully
strange.'

"'I would have done so most gladly, Miss,' the young woman began, but
Mary interrupted her.

"'I know you can't,' she said; 'your husband is ill. Laura, it would be
very wrong of us to propose such a thing.'

"'That's just how it is,' said Mrs. Atkins. 'My husband has such bad
nights he can't be left, and there's no one I could get to sit with him.
Besides, it's such a dreadful night to seek for any one.'

"'Then the driver,' I said; 'couldn't he stay somewhere downstairs? He
might have a fire in one of the rooms.'

"Mrs. Atkins wished it had been thought of before. 'Giles,'--which it
appeared was the man's name--would have done it in a minute, she was
sure, but it was too late. He had already set off to seek a night's
lodging and some supper, no doubt, at a little inn half a mile down the
road.

"'An inn?' I cried. 'I wish we had gone there too. It would have been far
better than staying here.'

"'Oh, it's a very poor place--'The Drover's Rest,' they call it. It would
never do for you, Miss,' said Mrs. Atkins, looking distressed that all
her efforts for our comfort appeared to have been in vain. 'Giles might
ha' thought of it himself,' she added, 'but then you see it would never
strike him but what here--in the Grange--you'd be as safe as safe. It's
not a place for burglaries and such like, hereabouts.'

"'And of course we shall be quite safe,' said Mary. 'Laura dear, what has
made you so nervous all of a sudden?'

"I did not answer, for I was ashamed to speak of Mrs. Atkins' story of
the strange noises she had heard the previous night, which evidently Mary
had forgotten, but I followed the young woman with