ese keys
should fit the somnambulist's door.

While Uncle Israel was brewing a fresh supply of medicine on the kitchen
stove, she found, as she had suspected that one of them did fit, and
thereafter, every night, when Uncle Israel had retired, she locked him in,
letting him out shortly after seven each morning. When he remonstrated
with her, she replied, triumphantly, that it was necessary--otherwise he
would never have known that the door was locked.

On her first visit to "town" she made it her business to call upon Lawyer
Bradford and inquire as to Mr. Judson's last will and testament. She
learned that it did not concern her at all, and was to be probated, in
accordance with the dead man's instructions, at the Fall term of court.

"Then, as yet," she said, with a gleam of satisfaction in her small, beady
eyes, "they ain't holdin' the house legal. Any of us has the same right to
stay as them Carrs."

"That's as you look at it," returned Mr. Bradford, squirming uneasily in
his chair.

Try as she might, she could extract no further information, but she at
least had a bit of knowledge to work on. She went back, earnestly desiring
quiet, that she might study the problem without hindrance, but,
unfortunately for her purpose, the interior of the Jack-o'-Lantern
resembled pandemonium let loose.

Willie was sliding down the railing part of the time, and at frequent
intervals coasting downstairs on Mrs. Smithers's tea tray, vocally
expressing his pleasure with each trip. The twins, seated in front of the
library door, were pounding furiously on a milk-pan, which had not been
empty when they dragged it into the hall, but was now. Mrs. Smithers was
singing: "We have our trials here below, Oh, Glory, Hallelujah," and a
sickening odour from a fresh concoction of Uncle Israel's permeated the
premises. Having irreverently detached the false front from the keys of
the melodeon, Mr. Perkins was playing a sad, funereal composition of his
own, with all the power of the instrument turned loose on it. Upstairs,
Dick was whistling, with shrill and maddening persistence, and Dorothy,
quite helpless, sat miserably on the porch with her fingers in her ears.

Harlan burst out of the library, just as Mrs. Dodd came up the walk, his
temper not improved by stumbling over the twins and the milk-pan, and
above their united wails loudly censured Dorothy for the noise and
confusion. "How in the devil do you expect me to work?" he demanded,
ir