, in very inadequate apparel. The circumstances which attend Mrs.
B.'s alarms are generally of the following kind. I am awakened by the
mention of my baptismal name in that peculiar species of whisper
which has something uncanny in its very nature, besides the dismal
associations which belong to it, from the fact of its being used only
in melodramas and sick-rooms.

"_Henry, Henry, Henry!_"

How many times she had repeated this I know not; the sound falls on
my ear like the lapping of a hundred waves, or as the "Robin Crusoe,
Robin Crusoe," of the parrot smote upon the ear of the terrified
islander of Defoe; but at last I wake, to view, by the dim firelight,
this vision: Mrs. B. is sitting up beside me, in a listening attitude
of the very intensest kind; her nightcap (one with cherry-coloured
ribbons, such as it can be no harm to speak about) is tucked back
behind either ear; her hair--in paper--is rolled out of the way upon
each side like a banner furled; her eyes are rather wide open, and
her mouth very much so; her fingers would be held up to command
attention, but that she is supporting herself in a somewhat absurd
manner upon her hands.

"_Henry_, did you hear _that_?"

"What, my love?"

"That noise. There it is again; there--there."

The disturbance referred to is that caused by a mouse nibbling at the
wainscot; and I venture to say so much in a tone of the deepest
conviction.

"No, no, Henry; it's not the least like that: it's a file working at
the bars of the pantry-window. I will stake my existence, Henry, that
it is a file."

Whenever my wife makes use of this particular form of words I know
that opposition is useless. I rise, therefore, and put on my slippers
and dressing-gown. Mrs. B. refuses to let me have the candle, because
she will die of terror if she is left alone without a light. She puts
the poker into my hand, and with a gentle violence is about to expel
me from the chamber, when a sudden thought strikes her.

"Stop a bit, Henry," she exclaims, "until I have looked into the
cupboards and places;" which she proceeds to do most minutely,
investigating even the short drawers of a foot and a half square. I
am at length dismissed upon my perilous errand, and Mrs. B. locks and
double-locks the door behind me with a celerity that almost catches
my retreating garment. My expedition therefore combines all the
dangers of a sally, with the additional disadvantage of having my
retreat into my own f