She promised to be back to-night to tea at nine o'clock, and now it is nearly one in the morning, and she is not home yet.

If it was any other girl I should not feel uneasy, for I should make up my mind that there was extra work to be done in a hurry, and that they were keeping her late, and I should go to bed.

But Mary is so unfortunate in everything that happens to her, and her own melancholy talk about herself keeps hanging on my mind so, that I have fears on her account which would not distress me about any one else.

It seems inexcusably silly to think such a thing, much more to write it down; but I have a kind of nervous dread upon me that some accident-- What does that loud knocking at the street door mean?
And those voices and heavy footsteps outside?
Some lodger who has lost his key, I suppose.

And yet, my heart--What a coward I have become all of a sudden! More knocking and louder voices.