ou away from your friends?"

"The Queen of Sheba was spoken and passed by the Liverpool and New York
ocean steamer Arctic on Saturday, within three days' sail of land. And
he may arrive here any hour. I must wait to receive him."

"Indeed! I did not know that. My dear, I congratulate you on your coming
happiness. I can urge you no more, of course. It is a sacred duty as
well as a sweet delight for you to remain here and meet your husband.
So, of course, we must resign ourselves to our loss; but I hope, my
dear, that you and your husband will come together at an early date and
make us a long visit."

"I hope so, too, dearest lady!"

When, a little later in the evening, the Iron King heard the result of
this interview, he was--as his wife had feared--dreadfully disappointed,
and consequently in one of his morose and diabolical tempers, and
sullenly set his despotic will against the reasonable wishes of
everybody else. He announced that they should all set forward the next
day. It was high time they should all be at home looking after house and
business. So it was settled.

As the party needed rest, they retired very early.

That night Cora Haught had a rather strange adventure, to relate which
intelligibly I must describe the situation of their rooms.

The suite occupied by the Rockharrt party was on the third floor of the
house, and consisted of five rooms in a row, on the left hand side of
the corridor, from the head of the stairs. The front room, overlooking
an avenue, was tenanted by Mr. and Mrs. Rockharrt, the next one was
occupied by Cora Haught, the third room was the private parlor of the
suite, the fourth room was that of Mrs. Stillwater, and the fifth, and
largest, was a double-bedded room, tenanted jointly by Mr. Fabian and
Mr. Clarence. All these rooms had doors communicating with each other,
and also with the corridor, all or any of which could be left open or
made fast at discretion.

Cora's room, between her grandparents' bed-chamber and their private
parlor, was the smallest, the closest and the warmest of the suite. That
September night was sultry and stifling. Scarcely a breath of air came
from without.

The girl could not sleep for the heat. Anathematizing her room as a
"black hole" of Calcutta, she lay tossing from side to side, and
listening for the hourly strokes of a neighboring clock, and praying for
the night to be over. She heard that clock strike eleven, twelve, one.

At length Cora