“I don’t care.  I know he’ll be a conceited little snippet and I shall hate the sight of him.  There! there!  Auntie, you mustn’t mind me.  I told you I was a selfish pig.  But don’t you ask me to like this precious minister of yours, because I shan’t do it.  He has no business to come and separate me from the best friend I’ve got.  I’d tell him so if he was here—­What was that?”

Both women looked at each other with startled faces.  They listened intently.

“Why, wa’n’t that funny!” whispered Keziah.  “I thought I heard—­”

“You did hear.  So did I. What do you suppose—­”

“S-s-s-h-h!  It sounded from the front room somewhere.  And yet there can’t be anybody in there, because—­My soul! there ‘tis again.  I’m goin’ to find out.”

She grasped the stubby broom by the handle and moved determinedly toward the front hall.  Grace seized her by the arm.

“Don’t you do it, auntie!” she whispered frantically.  “Don’t you do it!  It may be a tramp.”

“I don’t care.  Whoever or whatever it is, it has no business in this house, and I’ll make that plain in a hurry.  Just like as not it’s a cat got in when Elkanah was here this forenoon.  Don’t be scared, Grace.  Come right along.”

The girl came along, but not with enthusiasm.  They tiptoed through the dark, narrow hall and peered into the parlor.  This apartment was dim and still and gloomy, as all proper parlors should be, but there was no sign of life.

“Humph!” sniffed Keziah.  “It might have been upstairs, but it didn’t sound so.  What did it sound like to you?”

“Like a footstep at first; and then like something falling—­and rustling.  Oh, what is the matter?”

Mrs. Coffin was glancing back down the hall with a strange expression on her face.  Her grip upon the broom handle tightened.

“What is it?” pleaded the girl in an agonized whisper.

“Grace,” was the low reply, “I’ve just remembered somethin’.  That study door isn’t stuck from the damp, because—­well, because I remember now that it was open this mornin’.”

Before her companion could fully grasp the import of this paralyzing fact, Keziah strode down the hall and seized the knob of the study door.

“Whoever you are in there,” she commanded sternly, “open this door and come out this minute.  Do you hear?  I’m orderin’ you to come out.”

There was an instant of silence; then a voice from within made answer, a man’s voice, and its tone indicated embarrassment.

“Madam,” it said, “I—­I am—­I will be out in another minute.  If you will just be patient—­”

Grace interrupted with a smothered shriek.  Keziah brandished the broom.

“Patient!” she repeated sharply.  “Well, I like that!  What do you mean by—­Open that door!  Grace, run out and get the—­the constable.”

This command was delivered entirely for effect.  The office of constable in Trumet is, generally speaking, a purely honorary one.  Its occupant had just departed for a week’s cruise as mate of a mackerel schooner.  However, the effect was instantaneous.  From behind the door came sounds of hurry and commotion.