me, and not a very long time, there were some steps in the
street and in the yard, and more women came into the house, but, worse
than that, the others stayed. Family duties were over now, and those
impudent creatures could be content to stay the rest of the evening.

For a moment the worried woman felt as if she would like to go to bed
and cover up her head and so escape these persistent persecutors. But
she shook her head. That would never do. She knew that when she awoke in
the morning some of those women would still be in the parlor, and, to
save her soul, she could not now imagine what it was that kept them
there like hounds upon her track.

It was now eleven o'clock. When had the Port house been open so late as
that? The people in the town must be talking about it, and there would
be more talking the next day. Perhaps it might be in the town paper. The
morning would be worse than the night. She could not bear it any longer.
There was now nothing to be heard in front but that maddening chatter in
the parlor, and up the back stairs came the snores of the servant. She
got a traveling-bag from a closet and proceeded to pack it; then she put
on her bonnet and shawl and put into her bag all the money she had with
her, trembling all the time as if she had been a thief: robbing her own
house. She could not go down the back stairs, because, as has been said,
she could have been seen from the parlor; but a carpenter had been
mending the railing of a little piazza at the back of the house, and she
remembered he had left his ladder. Down this ladder, with her bag in her
hand, Miss Port silently moved. She looked into the kitchen; she could
not see the servant, but she could hear her snoring on a bench. Clapping
her hand over the girl's mouth, she whispered into her ear, and without
a word the frightened creature sat up and followed Miss Port into the
yard.

"Now, then," said Miss Port, whispering as if she were sticking needles
into the frightened girl, "I'm goin' away, and don't you ask no
questions, for you won't get no answers. You just go to bed, and let
them people stay in the parlor all night. They'll be able to take care
of the house, I guess, and if they don't I'll make 'em suffer. In the
morning you can see Mrs. Faulkner--for she's the ringleader--and tell
her that you're goin' home to your mother, and that Miss Port expects
her to pull down all the blinds in this house, and shut and bolt the
doors. She is to see t