Mrs. E. Baumer Williams

“ I have a very old friend named Stelling, who has a private asylum for lunatics at Ashmead.
He is the most delightful, open-handed fellow in the world; everyone has a good word for him, and though many years my senior, he and I are capital friends.
His dinners are good; his dances—well, just what dances should be, plenty of pretty girls and waltzing men, plenty of room, a good floor, a good band, and a hearty welcome. His wife is just such another kind, genial soul as himself. ”

“ I must, of course, try to convey her whence she came, and that without frightening her or raising an alarm; any undue excitement should be guarded against at any cost. The next instant I had to deplore my want of foresight. She must have been watching her opportunity, for, abruptly drawing her hand from mine, she darted behind me, and, before I had guessed her purpose, had possessed herself of the huge carving-knife, which I had a moment before placed on the table. ”

“ I am quite unable to say how long this state of things endured, though I remembered noticing with thanksgiving that when the candle expired with a sickly gasp in the socket, some faint rays of coming dawn were finding their way into the room.
And so we remained facing each other in the terrible silence, until at length it became intolerable, and I spoke again.
"Look! Do you see the day is breaking? Now, what if you were to go back to bed, and try for an hour's sleep before sunrise? It happens so often that, when sleep is driven away early in the night, one can rest just before morning. ”

“ A fine rambling old place it is, too, and in the cosy, habitable part it is next to impossible to realize anything suggestive of constraint or restriction within such easy reach. Indeed, the fact that I am in an asylum never crosses my mind when I am under Stelling's hospitable roof.
One of these delightful dances was on the tapis a short time ago, and though on the same evening there arose the densest fog I think I have ever seen, I was determined not to lose the fun and started for Ashmead. ”

“ Of course you will rely on me for the 25th, although your extraordinary secretiveness about the affair fills me with the gloomiest forebodings. Oh! Jack, Jack! has the fascinating Kitty really succeeded in bowling you over at last? Her efforts on board the Wilmots' yacht would enable me to credit anything with regard to her powers of persuasion—but you, no I'll not believe it! You used to be blessed with the usual average of intelligence. I hereby chuck Miss Kitty overboard, neck and crop, and await your answer to this. ”

“ Stelling's ward, and that, though staying in the house, a severe headache had kept her to her room during the dance, and of the subsequent housing of so many of the guests she, of course, knew nothing. On awakening from the first heavy sleep into which she had fallen, she was startled by the sound of the clicking of the sliding panel—which I manipulated clumsily enough—and, cautiously opening her door, she caught sight of a strange man creeping stealthily past. ”

“ To tell the truth, it had more than once crossed my mind that there might be a spice of jealousy at the bottom of it, for I should probably have forgotten her existence if he were not in the habit of constantly offering her up in his caustic way. The study of motive is a very curious one.
Well, but Kitty had nothing whatever to do with my plans for the 25th. So I, too, determined to "chuck her overboard," and decided to relate my plain, unvarnished tale to my old chum, determining that he should have no cause to grumble at paucity of detail. After all, he was too good a fellow to tease. ”

“ At least it was reassuring that someone besides ourselves was on the alert, and I began to pull myself together, and make headway against my absurd cowardice, when all at once, the sound of a ghastly and prolonged chuckle broke the stillness and threw me into a cold perspiration. ”

“ Stelling stopped here, and touching a spring in what I had always regarded as a blank wall, caused a sliding panel to glide one side, and admitted us to the unknown territory beyond. The panel closed again, and we found ourselves in the dark. "Wait," whispered Stelling, "till I strike a light." He need not have been alarmed ”

“ She is Dulcie Challis, my niece, and the Doctor's ward, and she sails in the Kangaroo on the 18th, to join her uncle and aunt in Jamaica."
I was afraid to be too inquisitive, and decided to wait as patiently as I could for the further development of my little romance, but I sounded my hostess cautiously as to the previous night—whether the visitors had enjoyed rest in their extempore shake-downs, etc., and could glean nothing that implied anything like the adventure in which I had so strangely shared. I therefore concluded that my fair friend had kept her counsel, as I religiously kept mine. ”

“ Who is 'she'? What is her name? Where did you meet her? And where, oh! where have all the matrimonial prejudices fled?
"If I am to be 'best man' on the 25th, it will never do for me to appear on the scene in such a condition of benighted ignorance upon current events; so I insist on full and detailed particulars by the next post, pending which I reserve my congratulations.—Yours most anxiously,
"Melton Winthrop. "P.S.—If it turns out that it is Kitty Simmonds, after all, you can look up another best man, for I'll not assist at the ceremony in any capacity." ”

“ The discovery of various odd corners in which the men could be stowed away; the lavish distribution of mattresses for the ladies; the extension of sundry easy-chairs for the accommodation of long legs ”