Good night."
"Good night, sir," answered together the two faithful female dependents
of the house of Blyth, obeying their master's order with simpering
docility, and deferring to a future opportunity all further
considerations connected with the garden door.
The fire was fading out fast in the studio grate. Now and then, at long
intervals, a thin tongue of flame leapt up faintly against the
ever-invading gloom, flickered for an instant over the brighter and
more prominent objects in the room, then dropped back again into
darkness. The profound silence was only interrupted by those weird
house-noises which live in the death of night and die in the life of
day; by that sudden crackling in the wall, by that mysterious creaking
in the furniture, by those still small ghostly sounds from inanimate
bodies, which we have all been startled by, over and over again, while
lingering at our book after the rest of the family are asleep in bed,
while waiting up for a friend who is out late, or while watching alone
through the dark hours in a sick chamber. Excepting such occasional
night-noises as these, so familiar, yet always so strange, the perfect
tranquillity of the studio remained undisturbed for nearly an hour
after Mr.
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