rnoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or I
shouldn't have stayed there.'

'It is dreadful,' said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects of
such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become a
habit of everyday occurrence.

'But then,' she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, 'it only
happens when I stay awake all night. I don't go to sleep till five or
six in the morning sometimes.'

'Ah, that's another matter,' said Stockdale. 'Sleeplessness to such an
alarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?'

'O no--there is no need for doing that--it is all natural to me.' And
she went away without further remark.

Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of her
sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting in
his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him
perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the
household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o'clock. Before
he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first rather
timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the person
knocked again. As the house still remained undisturbed, Stockdale got
out of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the door, and opening
it, asked who was there.

A young woman's voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that she
had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make a
plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest.

The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act in
person. 'I will call Mrs. Newberry,' he said. Partly dressing himself;
he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy's door. She did not
answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, he
thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajar
under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed to. As there was
now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked no longer, but said in
firm tones, 'Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.'

The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any
part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space
of the door: 'Mrs. Newberry!'--still no answer, or movement of any kind
within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy's
mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had