not,
and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger
woman's door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins
before he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a
light in her hand.

'What's the person calling about?' she said in alarm.

Stockdale told the girl's errand, adding seriously, 'I cannot wake Mrs.
Newberry.'

'It is no matter,' said her mother. 'I can let the girl have what she
wants as well as my daughter.' And she came out of the room and went
downstairs.

Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs.
Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, 'I suppose there is
nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?'

'O no,' said the old lady hastily. 'Nothing at all.'

Still the minister was not satisfied. 'Will you go in and see?' he said.
'I should be much more at ease.'

Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter's room, and
came out again almost instantly. 'There is nothing at all the matter
with Lizzy,' she said; and descended again to attend to the applicant,
who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this interval.

Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy's
mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured
discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament
required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came
upstairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did not
fall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which was all
the more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable thing within
his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made such
a clamour at the door he could not possibly convince himself;
notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the usual time, go
into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all reason
was so much against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to go
back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard
neither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud enough to
rouse the Seven Sleepers.

Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and did
not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning,
before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the
weather was fine; b