t would be too cowardly, and I might injure her."

The next minute he had given a heavy peal on knocker and bell, listened
to the hollow echoes raised within the forbidding place, and stood
waiting for the opening of the door.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE BOOKWORM AT HOME.

As Chester waited for an answer to his summons the thought of the
awkwardness of his position struck him, but he was strung up and
determined to go on with his quest at all hazards. At the end of a
minute there was no reply, and he knocked and rang again, with the hope
rising that he was on the right tack at last, for the silence accorded
with the mystery of the place he sought.

It was not until he had roused the echoes within the house for the third
time that he heard the rattle of a chain being taken down; then the door
was opened slowly, and Chester's heart sank as he found himself face to
face with a dim-eyed, sleepy-looking old man, thin, stooping, and untidy
of aspect, in his long, dusty dressing-gown and slippers. He was
wearing an old-fashioned pair of round glass, silver-rimmed spectacles,
whose ends were secured by a piece of black ribbon; and these he pushed
up on his forehead as he turned his head side-wise and peered at the
visitor.

"I'm afraid you knocked before, sir," he said in a quiet, dreamy tone.

"Yes--yes. I ought not to have come in this unceremonious way."

"Pray do not apologise," said the old gentleman, mildly. "I was busy
reading, and did not hear."

He pushed his glasses a little higher and smiled in a pleasant,
benevolent fashion, while at the first glance Chester saw that he was
quite off the scent. For he gazed past the old man into the great hall
whose walls were covered with book-shelves, while parcels and piles of
volumes were heaped up in every available corner.

"I see that I have made a mistake," said Chester, hastily.

"Indeed?"

"I have come to the wrong house. I am very sorry. I am trying to find
some people here."

"Yes? Well, houses are very much alike. Will you step in? I can
perhaps help you. I think I have a Directory somewhere--somewhere, if I
can lay my hand upon it, for I seldom use such a work, and I have so
many books."

The old gentleman, whose appearance branded him as a dreamy, absorbed
bookworm, drew back, and Chester involuntarily entered the hall, to note
that with the book-cases away it would be such a place as he had
visited; but while that was magnificently furnished,