Ann
Mary was timid and nervous, but she had a vein of philosophy, and she
generally grasped the situation with all the strength she had, when she
became convinced that she must. She had laid her plans while walking
home through the keen winter air, even as the tears were streaming over
her cheeks, and she proceeded to carry them into execution. She gave
Loretta's cat its supper, and she ate a piece of mince-pie herself; then
she fixed the kitchen and the sitting-room fires, and locked up the
house very thoroughly. Next, she took the cat and the lamp and went into
the dark bedroom and locked the door; then she and the cat were as safe
as she knew how to make them. The dark bedroom was in the very middle of
the house, the centre of a nest of rooms. It was small and square, had
no windows, and only one door. It was a sort of fastness. Ann Mary made
up her mind that she would not undress herself, and that she would keep
the lamp burning all night. She climbed into the big yellow-posted
bedstead, and the cat cuddled up to her and purred.
Ann Mary lay in bed and stared at the white satin scrolls on the
wall-paper, and listened for noises. She heard a great many, but they
were all mysterious and indefinable, till about ten o'clock. Then she
sat straight up in bed and her heart beat fast. She certainly heard
sleigh-bells; the sound penetrated even to the dark bedroom. Then came a
jarring pounding on the side door.
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