. "I do believe I
could make friends with him."

A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found
it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the
tips of her fingers Sara did not come to her for two or three minutes.
There was, indeed, such a silence in the room at first that Ermengarde
wondered if she could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she
heard her utter a little, low laugh and speak coaxingly to someone.

"There!" Ermengarde heard her say. "Take it and go home, Melchisedec!
Go home to your wife!"

Almost immediately Sara opened the door, and when she did so she found
Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold.

"Who--who ARE you talking to, Sara?" she gasped out.

Sara drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and
amused her.

"You must promise not to be frightened--not to scream the least bit, or
I can't tell you," she answered.

Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to
control herself. She looked all round the attic and saw no one. And
yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone. She thought of ghosts.

"Is it--something that will frighten me?" she asked timorously.

"Some people are afraid of them," said Sara. "I was at first--but I am
not now."

"Was it--a ghost?" quaked Ermengarde.

"No," said Sara, laughing. "It was my rat."

Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the little dingy
bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown and the red shawl. She
did not scream, but she gasped with fright.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried under her breath. "A rat! A rat!"

"I was afraid you would be frightened," said Sara. "But you needn't
be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and comes out when I
call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him?"

The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of scraps
brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, she
had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming
familiar with was a mere rat.

At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a
heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet, but the sight of Sara's
composed little countenance and the story of Melchisedec's first
appearance began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward
over the edge of the bed and watched Sara go and kneel down by the hole
in the skirting board.

"He