“I don’t believe father has gone yet, I heard his step down-stairs, I’ll run down to say good-bye again and see if he wants anything, and go down cellar and get me some apples to munch on to keep me from being lonesome.  Father will take the horses and they will not need to be fed, and I told Morris I could feed the two cows and the hens myself, so he need not come home just for that.  But father is calling me.

“Afternoon.  Is it years and years since I began this letter?  My hair has not turned white and I am not an old woman; the ink and paper look fresh, too, fresher than the old bit of yellow paper that mother keeps so preciously, that has written on it the invitation to her mother’s wedding that somebody returned to her.  How slowly I am coming to it!  But I want to keep you in suspense.  I am up in the master’s chamber again, sitting on the hearth before a snapping fire, and I haven’t written one word since I wrote you that father was calling me.

“He did call me, and I ran down and found that he wanted an extra shawl for mother; for it might be colder to-morrow, or it might be a snow-storm.  I stood at the window and saw him pass and listened to the jingling of his bells until they were out of hearing, and then I lighted a bit of a candle (ah, me, that it was not longer) and went down cellar for my apples.  I opened one barrel and then another until I found the ones I wanted, the tender green ones that you used to like; I filled my basket and, just then hearing the back door open and a step in the entry over my head, I turned quickly and pushed my candlestick over, and, of course, that wee bit of light sputtered out.  I was frightened, for fear a spark might have fallen among the straw somewhere, and spent some time feeling around to find the candlestick and to wait to see if a spark had lighted the straw; and then, before I could cry out, I heard the footsteps pass the door and give it a pull and turn the key!  Father always does that, but this was not father.  I believe it was Captain Rheid, father left a message for him and expected him to call, and I suppose, out of habit, as he passed the door he shut it and locked it.  I could not shout in time, he was so quick about it, and then he went out and shut the outside door hard.

“I think I turned to stone for awhile, or fainted away, but when I came to myself there I stood, with the candlestick in my hand, all in the dark.  I could not think what to do.  I could not find the outside doors, they are trap doors, you know, and have to be pushed up, and in winter the steps are taken down, and I don’t know where they are put.  I had the candle, it is true, but I had no match.  I don’t know what I did do.  My first thought was to prowl around and find the steps and push up one of the doors, and I prowled and prowled and prowled till I was worn out.  The windows—­small windows, too,—­are filled up with straw or something in winter, so that it was as dark as a dungeon; it was a dungeon and I was a prisoner.