wn
to be abroad, have terrors to some small extent, even for the averagely
brave; what must they have, then, for those tender ones of the weaker
sex whose spirits are gentle, perhaps timid, and whose nerves have been
highly strung by much converse on subjects relating to violence?

The first shock experienced by our quartette was caused by the door.
From some inscrutable impulse Liffie Lee had locked it after Ruth had
rushed in.

"Open it gently," whispered Jessie, for the party had now got to the
condition of feeling very much as if they were themselves burglars,
engaged in some unholy enterprise, and feared to arouse sleepers. But
they need not have feared, for their landlady was one of the "seven
sleepers" of Yarmouth.

Liffie exerted her little strength with caution, but the lock was stiff;
it would not move. She screwed up her mouth, and put-to more strength;
still it would not move. Screwing up her eyebrows as well as her mouth,
she tried again. It would not budge. She even screwed up her nose in a
stupendous effort, but all in vain. If there had been no need for
caution, the thing would have been easy, but Jessie kept whispering,
"Softly, Liffie, softly!" and Ruth echoed "Softly!" At last Liffie
screwed herself up entirely, body and soul, in one supreme effort; she
agonised with the key. It yielded, and the bolt flew back with a crack
like a pistol-shot.

"Oh!" burst in four different keys--not door-keys--from the party--under
their breath however.

"Open," whispered Jessie.

Liffie obeyed, and when the half-opened door revealed intense darkness
outside, a feeling of horror caused their very flesh to creep.

"How I _wish_ I hadn't stayed! I'll _never_ do it again!" whispered
poor Ruth in the tones of a child about to be punished.

"What's that!" exclaimed Jessie, with a start that caused Ruth almost to
shriek.

"Cats!" said Liffie Lee.

"Impossible!" said Kate.

But it was not impossible, for there, in a corner not far off, were
dimly seen two intensely black objects, with backs and tails arranged on
the moorish-arch principle, and a species of low thunder issuing from
them, suggestive of dynamite in the stomach.

Relieved to find it was nothing worse, the party emerged into the
street. The cats were too much enraged and engaged with each other to
observe them. They, like the ladies, were evidently cowards, for they
continued to threaten without attacking.

Liffie was left on guard wi