hunting and other whips, bows, both cross and
long, cloaks, gloves, hats, and a multitude of
those familiar but indescribable articles known
as odds and ends.

Twenty ghosts might with ease have lain
concealed in such a room, and, search being out
of the question, the dark panelling and other
gloomy objects utterly devouring the light of
her chamber-lamp, Little Trout simply looked
to the fastenings of her door and windows,
undressed, and went to bed. There she lay for
some time, listening to and speculating dreamily
upon those singular creaks, cracks, groans,
squeaks, and rumbles, by which most venerable
mansions inform the silent night that their
constitutions are beginning to feel the touch of time.
The disturbance was presently increased by the
circumstance of a rat, who appeared to be held
in great social esteem, giving a party, which,
after much conviviality, ended in a general
fight. Hence it was past two before Little
Trout's blue eyes consented to slumber.

A cry! a shot!—two shots, in angry succession!
Trestwood-Darenth leaped to its feet.
Doors banged. Lights flashed. Half-dressed
people peeped over the banisters, and coughed
in the sulphurous haze, as the smoke still went
curling up. Little Trout, in her grey dressing-
gown, looking white as winter, but otherwise
unappalled, stood in front of her chamber door,
a pace or two within the hall, grasping, in her
still extended hand, a discharged pistol. The
shutters and sash of one of the hall windows
were open, admitting the moonlight. Some of
the furniture was in confusion, and on the
marble floor were drops and patches of blood,
clearly showing that the intruders had not
escaped scot-free.

Mademoiselle's story was soon told. She
had been aroused by a low grating sound at the
window of her room. It had a purpose and
persistence about it, easily distinguishable from
the wainscot noises to which she had been
listening before, and, when it suddenly ceased,
to be renewed, the next minute, at a more
distant window, Little Trout at once concluded
that the proper time had arrived for interference.

It was not, however, her intention to disturb
the sleeping household. Any indication of
watchfulness within, would suffice to hinder the
attempt. She therefore took a pistol from the
wall, charged it hastily from the materials on
the table, and opening her door softly, crept
into the hall. She was too late. A tall man,
with woollen socks drawn over his boots, and a
dark lantern in his hand, was crossing the hall
towards the butler's pantry and plate closet.
A second man, a thickset, powerful fellow, had
just leaped upon the floor, and catching sight
of Trautchen, muttered a low execration, and
made towards her, his comrade turning at the
same moment.

As the first man raised his arm, as if to grasp
her, Trautchen touched the trigger. There was
a guttural cry—a hurtling rush. She knew no
more.

Blood-marks near the window, upon the very
sill, seemed to indicate that the ruffians, wounded
and unwounded, had escaped by the way they
came, while the trampling of differently-sized
feet on the soft mould, led the searchers to
conclude that the band repulsed by Little Trout
consisted of at least three.

Great were the congratulations, manifold the
compliments, lavished on the gallant little lady.
Mr. Blackacre was profuse in commendation of
the defender of his plate clipboard, and old
General Dacre, a guest in the house, vowed he
would present a beautiful case of pistols to the
hand that knew so well how in use them. Mrs.
Blackacre insisted that a bed should be prepared
for mademoiselle in her own dressing-room,
there being, of course, every likelihood of a
renewal of the attempt before morning. But
this proposal mademoiselle negatived with her
crimson fillet, and was allowed to reoccupy her
chamber, escorted to the threshold by a company
as numerous as, though less elaborately attired
than, before.

This incident, as may be supposed, created
no small excitement, the attempt to rob a
house like Trestwood-Darenth, crowded, as it
was generally known to be, with guests and
servants, appearing audacious in the extreme. No
clue, however, was obtained that might lead
to the apprehension of the gang, and things
resumed their usual course, unless we may except
the circumstance that Little Trout, who had
hitherto been rather respected than loved by
the master and mistress, seemed to have taken
a sudden leap into the affections of both. There
followed a corresponding mollification in the
tone and bearing of that independent young lady
herself—a change all the more engaging, since
you might as well have expected the Duke of
Wellington to descend from his bronze
Copenhagen to do homage to a passing beadle, as
Mademoiselle Pfalz to court the good graces of
any living thing.

"Who practises the accordion—sweetly, I
must own—at two in the morning?" inquired
General Dacre, one day, at breakfast.

"Ay—who is it?" said a chorus of voices.

Mrs. Blackacre had a confused recollection of
a sweet melancholy peal of music mingling with
her dreams, but could form no idea whence it
came, no one then in the house having, so far as
she was aware, any skill in the instrument
named. It remained a mystery.

Another day or two elapsed, and the house
had become so singularly bare of guests, that
poor Mr. Blackacre had to sit down to dinner
with a depressing little party of sixteen, when
rumours, originating none knew exactly where,
began to circulate in reference to unaccountable
doings in and about the house. That
active individual, who divides with the cat the
responsibility of all the mischief of a household
—Mr. Nobody—was engaged in the most
extraordinary gambols. Not only was he heard
disporting himself in the dead of night, but
lamps were used, candles burned, provisions
stolen, books and even clothes borrowed by this
cool marauder. Cook, housekeeper, and butler
were at their wits' end with terror and perplexity;
and these had reached their climax, when one