When my stepmother returned she seemed to have suddenly grown older, and she looked at us through haggard and sunken eyes.

Surely this was a terrible punishment she was undergoing, and I pitied her.

Mr.Cobb had an important engagement to keep, she said, and hoped we would excuse him.

Slowly the evening wore away and at ten o'clock we were shown to our room, greatly fatigued by this trying experience.

It was a room fronting the street on the third floor, which I had occupied before I left home.