“It was not until the gray morning light crept into the window that we felt quite safe.  Every crack in the floor or nibbling mouse caused us to start, and at each quarter the clock of the station would strike as if to warn us to be on the alert.  But the bed was not bad, and the house remained quiet; and as soon as the dawn made our candle useless, we began to think we had been very foolish, and the result was a sound sleep.

“When we awoke it was ten o’clock:  the morning was bright and clear, and the terrors of the night had all departed during our refreshing rest.  The room certainly looked shabby, but if that were a crime, half the houses in the world would be sent to prison.  There was nothing in the least mysterious about it.  Our courage rose with the day, and we teased and joked each other about our fright.  Then, anticipating the glories of the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves that we had come.

“‘We won’t breakfast here,’ said Annie as she was dressing:  ’we will go down town to a nice restaurant, and sit at a window and see the people go by.  Afterward we will look up our friends and find a good hotel or boarding-house; and we must go to the Exposition this very day.  We shall have a famous time.  We can make up parties to drive out, and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, and to the theatre.  Ain’t you glad you came?’

“’The first thing we do must be to go back to the station and leave these bags with our trunks until we find lodgings,’ I remarked.

“Nan went into the next room to get some of the clothing she had left there.  When she returned, lowering her voice she said, ’Jane, there is a door behind my curtains.’

“‘Very well, let it alone:  I suppose it is a closet.’

“’No such thing:  it don’t look like a closet; and why would they hide a closet, I should like to know?  Come in and see it.’

“She walked back, and as I followed drew the curtain aside, and there in fact it was.

“‘I am going to open it before I leave the room,’ she said in a determined tone:  ‘there is something not right about it.’

“‘I wouldn’t,’ I remonstrated:  ‘some one may be in there.’

“’I am going to see:  I must look into it.  It is daylight, you know, and we sha’n’t be much frightened.  Help me to push away the bed.’

“’I won’t do anything so absurd.  This is a hotel, Annie, and there must be plenty of adjoining rooms in it.  Suppose that room is now occupied by a boarder?’

“’If it is occupied they will lock the door on the other side, and I will try the latch softly to see; but I know it is not.  Don’t you see that the only entrance must be from here?  There is the entry. opposite, and here is the court:  now, how could any one get into it but through this room?  It must be a small place, too, for here is the corner of the house, and it has been evidently planned to be kept concealed.”