Gryce and his men lay
concealed with his thick cane, and even stopping to light his pipe in
front of the small apartment where cowered our good landlady with her
eternal basket of mending in her lap.
At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into a
small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable
impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few
minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as
I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her
father's presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of
apparel--taking care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a
pocket handkerchief to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by
the sneeze which at that very moment I took care should assail me)
walked boldly back to the room from which she had just come.
The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a
simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful
father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an
encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together
with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I
succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window
without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope you are
not going to bark too.
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