Oh, I do hope Gracie won't wake! for she could never help screaming; and then he'd jump out and kill us both." So with heroic courage she lay there, perfectly quiet and hardly moving a muscle for what seemed to her an age of suffering, every moment expecting the creature under the bed to spring out upon her, and in constant fear that Grace would awake and precipitate the calamity by a scream of affright.
All was quiet again for some time, she lying there, straining her ears for a repetition of the dreaded sounds; then, as they came again louder than before, she had great difficulty in restraining herself from springing from the bed and shrieking aloud, in a paroxysm of panic terror.
But she did control herself, lay perfectly still, and allowed not the slightest sound to escape her lips.
That last clanking noise had awakened Elsie, and she too now lay wide awake, silent and still, while intently listening for a repetition of it.

She hardly knew whence the sound had come, or what it was; but when repeated, as it was in a moment or two, she was satisfied that it issued from the room where Lulu and Grace were, and her conjectures in regard to its origin coincided with Lulu's.
She, too, was greatly alarmed, but did not lose her presence of mind.
Hoping the little girls were still asleep, and judging from the silence that they were, she lay for a few minutes without moving, indeed scarcely breathing, while she tried to decide upon the wisest course to pursue, asking guidance and help from on high, as she always did in every emergency.
Her resolution was quickly taken; slipping softly out of bed, she stole noiselessly from the room and into another, on the opposite side of the hall, occupied by Edward and Zoe.
"Edward," she said, speaking in a whisper close to his ear, "wake, my son; I am in need of help." "What is it, mother ?" he asked, starting up.
"Softly," she whispered; "make no noise, but come with me.

Somebody or something is in the room where Lulu and Gracie sleep.

I distinctly heard the clanking of a chain." "Mother!" he cried, but hardly above his breath, "an escaped lunatic, probably! Stay here and let me encounter him alone.

I have loaded pistols--" "Oh, don't use them if you can help it!" she cried.
"I shall not," he assured her, "unless it is absolutely necessary." He snatched the weapons from beneath his pillow as he spoke, and went from the room, she closely following.
At the instant that they entered hers a low growl came from the inner room, and simultaneously they exclaimed, "A dog!" "Somewhat less to be feared than a lunatic, unless he should be mad, which is not likely," added Edward, striking a light.
Lulu sprang up with a low cry of intense relief.