h the noiseless glass door buzzed Josephine, on her way
to the basement, followed by Isabella on her way to the inner penetralia
of the second floor; while Col. Egbert Crawford shied his fatigue-cap at
the desk and drew up his chair to the side of the sofa occupied by the
invalid. Isabella really went up-stairs, and for the purpose designated.
Shame for Joe Harris, it must be said that while she really descended to
the basement and made an inroad on Norah's larder to the extent of the
wing of cold chicken and _one_ slice of bread-and-butter, yet she
thrust both the edibles into a piece of paper and into her pocket, at
the imminent risk of greasing the latter convenient receptacle, and was
back again on the parlor floor within the space of one and a half
minutes by the little Geneva watch which she carried so bewitchingly at
her belt. If mischief and sad earnest can both be blended in the
expression of one face at one and the same time, they were so blended in
hers at that moment. What was in the wind and who was to suffer?--for
suffer somebody always did when Josey fairly started out on a campaign!

From the door leading to the basement, to that opening into the parlor
from the hall, she probably stepped lighter than she had ever before
done since playing blind-man's buff in early girlhood; and it is
doubtful whether that parlor door had ever before opened and shut with
so little noise, since the skilful hanger first oiled the plated hinges.
From the door to the back part of the room she went on tip-toe--the fact
cannot be denied,--little noise as her light shoes would have made on
the heavy velvet. We all have something of the cat about us--man and the
other animals; though the quality developes itself under different
circumstances. Pussy treads even softer than usual, when after the
coveted cream; that larger pussy, the tiger, steals lightly towards the
ambushed hunter who is to furnish him the next delicious meal; and
"Tarquin's ravishing strides" are undoubtedly a misnomer, for the Roman
must have been something more or less than man if he did not tip-toe his
sandals or cast them off altogether, when he stole towards the midnight
bed of Lucrece.

The cream for which Pussy Harris--shame upon her for that same!--was
just then making an adventurous foray,--was _a hearing of the
conversation which might take place between Richard Crawford and his
cousin_! That conversation she had determined to hear, at all hazards;
fo