Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/317

Rh as Phup!" she kept muttering to herself as she went slowly up.

The second floor was reached and then she scuttled to the door in the back hall which led to the attic stairs. She stood a long time before this door trying to make up her mind to open it.

"If I gits up thar I kin fin' his conjer and break it up and then I'll be queen bee agin an' I kin bring trouble on him an' his maw. I'm as big a debble as he is! Th'ain't no hants a hanging theyse'fs in that there lof', 'case if they wa' they'd a got Phup long ago 'case he ain't no mo' strong than what I is."

She opened the door and inch by inch went up the steps. On some steps she would stand for many minutes, terror stricken at the thought of going any higher. She would move her feet back and forth along a step, raise a foot and make a tentative motion to mount and then draw it back. Her candle was getting low in the bottle. Some of the tallow dropped on her fingers, burning them. This brought her to a realization that minutes were flying and it might be almost time for the theatre-goers to return. With one more desperate effort the old woman glided up the last four steps and found herself in the dread attic. "’Tain't nothin' up here," she asserted bravely.