terrors. Christian, even though
inured from childhood to the backstairs, held her habit skirt high,
and thanked, heaven for her riding-boots, as she made her way down the
worn stone steps, at some half-past four of a September morning.

Mount Music was one of the many houses of its period that, with, to
quote Mrs. Dixon, "the globe of Ireland to build over," had elected to
bestow its menials in dark and complex basements. Christian and her
candle traversed the long maze of underground passages. The smell of
past cooking was in the air, the black and evil glitter of cockroaches
twinkled on the walls on either hand. This was the horrible part of
subbing, thought Christian, and told herself that nothing but the
thought of seeing the _debut_ of Dido, the puppy that she had
walked, would compensate her for facing the cockroaches.

As she opened the kitchen door she was surprised to find a lighted
lamp on the table. In the same glance she caught a glimpse of a
figure, retreating hastily, with slippered shuffle, followed by the
trailing tappings of braces off duty. On one end of the long kitchen
table was seated a cat, in motionless meditation, like a profile in an
Egyptian hieroglyphic; at the other end was a steaming cup of cocoa
and plateful of bread and butter.

"Long life to Evans!" thought Christian, seating herself, like the
cat, on the edge of the table, and entering upon the cocoa.

"Miss Christian!" a raven-croak came through a slit of the
pantry-door; "keep off the Carmodys' land! Mind now what I'm tellin'
you!" The slit ceased.

"Thank you for the cocoa, Evans, but why must I?" called Christian,
in a breath.

A lower croak, that seemed to end with the words "black papishes,"
came through the closed door.

"Old lunatic!" thought Christian; she drank the cocoa, and putting out
the lamp, groped her way to the back-door. It opened on a shrieking
hinge, and she was out into a pale grey dawn, pure and cold, with the
shiver and freshness of new life in it.

The Mount Music stable yard was an immense square, with buildings
round its four sides, and a high, ivy-covered battlemented wall
surrounding and overlooking all. In the middle of the yard was an
island of grass, on which grew three wide-armed and sombre Irish yews,
dating, like the walls, from the days of Queen Elizabeth. Weeds were
growing in the gravel of the wide expanse; more than one stable-door
dropped on broken hinges under its old cut-stone pediments