in the dining-room: we don't need to stop our game."

They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was
like _Hamlet_ with the part of Hamlet left out.

"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the door." As
she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look:
people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person.

The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take
off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but
seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still
she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not
had time to get out of sight. Waiting a little without result, she
went back to the kitchen.

"Who was it?" cried the children.

"No one," she said.

"But the bell rang," said John.

"Of course it did," Will corroborated.

"And somebody must have rung it," John said.

"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I don't know
how he disappeared so fast."

Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had caught John,
and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief
round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, "You are making it far too tight,
John: you are hurting your sister."

"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is it too
tight, Bessie?"

"Rather, but I can bear it: go on."

"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said.

"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." She went
very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen,
when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again.

John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the
person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no
one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and
round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it
impossible that any figure should be there without being seen.

Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in an
ordinary town, an incident like this would create no surprise. It
happens often: true, it is not a very new or bright joke, still it is
a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. But away
in the country, at an old castle, with no house within a quarter of
a mile of it, the case is very different. How was it to be accounted
for?

The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the boys laughing
and sayi