er the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this
season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if he
ventured down-stairs to her apartment.

Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose
and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust
his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the
stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady
had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the
key with her, no doubt,--unless, indeed, she had got out by the
window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this
window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his
footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own
chamber, and held a council of war with himself.

He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It
was open. He then went to one of his trunks, wich he unlocked, and
began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not
stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various
patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in
certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of
these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and
drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a
noose,--a tough, well-seasoned _lasso_, looking as if it had seen
service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this
and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out
of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's
room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and with a
slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a match, found
a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously about him, as
Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in among the Vestals.

Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was
a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those
who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could
hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests,
which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the
forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a
quick eye and hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of
unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable grow