ed a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like
the child that she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to
sleep, too.

I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring
wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My
heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was
oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something
had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that
my throat closed chokingly.

I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an
experience that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to
fight it, shut your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a
stone wall, refuse to let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it
would go as suddenly, as inexplicably, as it had come.

That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was
exhausted when I finally got back to sleep.

CHAPTER III

THE DEAR LITTLE GOD!

When we went over Hynds House the next morning and took stock, I
began to entertain very, very peculiar feelings toward Great-Aunt
Sophronisba Scarlett, who, it would appear, had given me a white
elephant which I could neither hire out for its keep, nor yet sell
out of hand. I had to live in Hynds House, and Hynds House as it
stood wasn't to be lived in.

The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable
calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of
the place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't
such an overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with
barbed-wire entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No
Trespassing" signs.

"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front
door."

But Alicia demurred.

"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just
one thing to be done to this house--first make it beautiful, and
then make it pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's _got_
to be done. And when it's done--we'll have a home. Vision it as it's
going to be, Sophy--rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and
china and prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been
able to dream of up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us!
We were born to come here and make it over: it's _our_ house!"
Alicia, has the gay courage of the Irish.

The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously.

"Uncle Adam thinks we've been