This discovery seemed to me exactly like those tantalizing dreams in which you are sitting down at a table covered with everything nice, but before you have time to taste anything your visions are rudely dispelled, and you wake and look in vain for the tempting paraphernalia.  I once bore this in mind after being several times teased in this manner; and resolving not to be so deceived again, I succeeded in regaling myself with a mince-pie—­which appeared to me quite in the light of a triumph.  I now cast about me for some means to escape from this disagreeable dilemma; and having heard Mammy whisper to Jane:  “How very wild she looks!” I found that they supposed me to be walking in my sleep, a practice to which I was somewhat addicted; and not seeing why sleep-walkers should not direct their course to the cupboard as well as anywhere else, I boldly seized a loaf and commenced an attack upon it.

“Let us wait and see what she will do,” whispered Mammy.

“It is very evident what she will do, now that she has the loaf in her hands,” replied Jane in a sleepy tone.  “I do not believe that she is asleep at all, but just as wide awake as we are.  I have read a story somewhere,” she continued, “of a French girl who succeeded in persuading people that she lived without eating; but at last some one watched the girl closely, and one night discovered her at the pantry, regaling herself with cold chicken sufficiently to go without eating for a week.  Now, Miss Amy has eaten neither dinner nor supper, and she may be imitating the French girl, in order to be made a fuss with.  I will speak to her and see.”

“Not for the world!” exclaimed Mammy in terror, as she grasped the more enterprising Jane.  “Do not touch her—­for I have heard of its killing people to be awakened suddenly while in this state.”

Jane obeyed, although her face still wore an incredulous expression; and I continued eating, looking as wild as possible all the time.  The nursery-maid began at length to fear that I would put an end to my own life, if not spoken to; but Mammy still objected—­murmuring as she watched my voracious performances; “Poor child! how hungry she must have been to come down and eat in her sleep!  I wonder why she refused her tea?”

After a while, however, I became more sleepy than hungry; and Mammy and Jane kindly conveyed me back to my little bed, where I slept soundly till morning.  I was not destined to reap much glory from this escapade—­not even the glory of being a sleep-walker; for Jane, looking me steadily in the face, said:  “Now, Miss Amy, I wish you to tell me truly whether you were asleep last night, when you went down into the pantry and devoured almost a whole loaf of bread!  Now be a good girl, and tell the truth, for you frightened us very much.”