urtain writhed in
horrible contortions of glee, as if they rejoiced over a calamity which
had befallen that house.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT THE MORNING BROUGHT.

The child woke about seven o'clock. She knew the time by the sun's rays
upon the window curtains. In that strong, cheerful light, the phantom
faces had shrunk back to great red bunches of flowers again. She thought
of the absurd dream, or vision, as of something that had happened ages
ago, and wondered that she had been foolish enough to be frightened
by it.

There was no noise in her father's room. But that was not strange, for
he rarely retired to bed before three o'clock in the morning (even when
he did not sit up all night), and slept till eight. His sleep, though
short, was sound; and it was Pet's custom to prepare breakfast in her
father's room without waking him.

She washed her face, which looked rosy and bewitching in the little
cracked mirror, and dressed her hair in two simple bands down the
cheeks, and put on a white calico dress with small red spots, and a
white apron bound with blue. This was the dress that her father loved
the best. She looked in the glass, and examined her damaged reflection
with a charming coquetry, and said, "Pet, child, you are looking well
to-day. Now for breakfast."

Pet walked to the door, humming her last music lesson in a low voice.

She placed her hand upon the latch, and opened the door softly. As it
swung on its hinges, and she began to obtain a glimpse of the room, she
noticed the gas still burning, though the daylight filled the apartment.
This was strange. A shudder passed through her frame, and her cheeks
began to pale.

"Pooh! what nonsense!" she said. She pushed the door wide open.

Was it another mocking, maddening vision that she saw? She rubbed her
eyes in wild affright, and then raised her hands aloft with a
piercing shriek.

There, before her, lay the dead body of her father. In the centre of his
ghastly forehead was a small wound, from which the blood had trickled
over the temples, bedabbling his thin gray hairs, and forming a small
red pool by his side. Near him, on the floor, was a club with an iron
tip, which had done the dreadful deed. She recognized it at once as a
part of the machine.

The monstrous vision of the night was true! Her father was dead! Mr.
Wilkeson was his murderer! She was an orphan!

These agonizing thoughts flashed through her brain in the single
instant. She felt her h