back again.

"I can't find nothin'. But I never in all my life heard the floors creak
so! I could have sworn there was somebody walkin' over 'em!"

"I guess you're a little excited, a'n't ye?"

"No,--I got over that; but I _did_ hear noises!"

Mr. Ducklow, returning to his pillow, dismissed his fears, and once more
composed his mind for slumber. But the burden of which he had
temporarily relieved his wife now returned with redoubled force to the
bosom of that virtuous lady. It seemed as if there was only a certain
amount of available sleep in the house, and that, when one had it, the
other must go without; while at the same time a swarm of fears
perpetually buzzed in and out of the mind, whose windows wakefulness
left open.

"Father!" said Mrs. Ducklow, giving him a violent shake.

"Hey? what?"--arousing from his first sound sleep.

"Don't you smell something burning?"

Ducklow snuffed; Mrs. Ducklow snuffed; they sat up in bed, and snuffed
vivaciously in concert.

"No,--I can't say I do. Did you?"

"Jest as plain as ever I smelt anything in my life! But I don't
so"--snuff, snuff--"not quite so distinct now."

"Seems to me I _do_ smell somethin'," said Mr. Ducklow, imagination
coming to his aid. "It can't be the matches, can it?"

"I thought of the matches, but I certainly covered 'em up tight."

They snuffed again,--first one, then the other,--now a series of quick,
short snuffs, then one long, deep snuff, then a snuff by both together,
as if by uniting their energies, like two persons pulling at a rope,
they might accomplish what neither was equal to singly.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Ducklow.

"Why, what, father?"

"It's Thaddeus! He's been walkin' in his sleep. That's what we heard.
And now he's got the matches and set the house afire!"

He bounded out of bed; he went stumbling over the chairs in the kitchen,
and clattering among the tins in the pantry, and rushing blindly and
wildly up the kitchen stairs, only to find the matches all right, Taddy
fast asleep, and no indications anywhere, either to eye or nostril, of
anything burning.

"'Twas all your imagination, mother!"

"_My_ imagination! You was jest as frightened as I was. I'm sure I
can't tell what it was I smelt; I can't smell it now. Did you feel for
the--you know what?"

Mrs. Ducklow seemed to think there were evil ones listening, and it was
dangerous to mention by name what was uppermost in the minds of both.

"I wish you _wo