two of us who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, whatever
her faults and shortcomings (too many of them recorded in this book),
Agnes Anne acted the part of a good sister to me that night, and her
peaceful breathing seemed to wall us off from the world.

"Duncan?" queried Miss Irma, repeating my name softly as to herself;
"you are called Duncan, are you not?"

I nodded. "And you?" I asked, though of course I knew well enough.

"Irma Sobieski," she answered. And then, perhaps because everything
inside and out was so still and lonely, she shivered a little, and,
without any reason at all, we moved nearer to each other on the
window-seat--ever so little, but still nearer.

"You may call me Irma, if you like!" she said, very low, after a long
pause.

Just then something brushed the window, going by with a soft _woof_ of
feathers.

"An owl! A big white one--I saw him!" I said. For indeed the bird had
seemed as large as a goose, and appeared alarming enough to people so
strung as we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably acute in
the effort of watching.

"Are you not frightened?" she demanded.

"No, Irma--no, Miss Irma!" I faltered.

"Well, I am," she whispered; "I was not before when the mob came,
because I had to do everything. But now--I am glad that you are here"
(she paused the space of a breath), "you and your sister."

I was glad, too, though not particularly about Agnes Anne.

"How old are you, Duncan?" she asked next.

I gave my age with the usual one year's majoration. It was not a lie,
for my birthday had been the day before. Still, it made Irma thoughtful.

"I did not think you were so much older than your sister," she said
musingly; "why, you are older than I am!"

"Of course I am," I answered, gallantly facing the danger, and
determined to brave it out.

On the spot I resolved to have a private interview with Agnes Anne as
soon as might be, and, after reminding her of my birthday just past,
tell her that in future I was to be referred to as "going on for
twenty"--and that there was no real need to insert the words "going on
for."

Irma Sobieski considered the subject a while longer, and I could see her
eyes turned towards me as if studying me deeply. I wondered what she was
thinking about with a brow so knotted, and I knew instinctively that it
must be something of consequence, because it made her forget the letter
nailed to the door, and the warning which might veil a thr