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 me early.' She undressed and threw herself into a dream-racked poisonous sleep.

They had not called her and the sun was abroad. She jerked at the cross-stitched bell-pull and heard it jingle far away downstairs. Although unrefreshed by her night's sleep, it had at least quieted her. Soberly enough she set about her dressing, buttoning and buttoning layers of garments, lacing her stays, hooking and hooking, and finally, in the thinnest of dull rose wool and with her India shawl and her bonnet in her hand, she began to look impatiently about the upper hall for the chambermaid. The door opposite stood ajar, and within she heard a giggling and humming suggestive of servant girls. So she knocked, and the door swung open at her touch. There were two maids half-heartedly engaged in tidying up the empty chamber. One was busy about the washstand. The other was hunting between the great canopied bed and the wall.

'He swore to me this morning there was a mousey hole back in here'—and both the girls began to giggle. Then they saw Lanice looking very pale, but in some mysterious way very wealthy, in the door. The big girl who had promised to call her was not here. She could not scold them for the other girl's negligence; instead she said, 'I rang and rang—and no one came.' The girls subsided into a frightened silence. 'But never mind—just find out for me what time it is.' The girl who had been hunting for the