It occurred to Isabel that the last analogy was unfortunate, since a "cracked tin trumpet" was a not inadequate description of the screech in which Nannie herself was even then indulging. The old lady presented a peculiar spectacle--in a huge, ancient nightcap, tied in a big bow beneath her chin; a vivid tartan shawl about her shoulders. The visitor replied to the whole of the inquiries with an unhesitating lie. "Nannie, do you know that a dreadful man's been begging, and trying to force his way into the house. If I hadn't turned the key just in time I don't know what would have happened." She did not, but the happenings would have run on different lines to those which she suggested. "As it was he broke the front-door window, and I had to pour a couple of buckets of water over him before he'd go." "A man been begging, and trying to force his way into the house! Such a thing's never happened in all the days I've known the place." "I daresay I expect it was some one who's heard that you were confined to your bed, and thought that I might be easily tackled. He's found out his mistake." "Where's them two girls?" "I've sent them on an errand. Perhaps he knew that too, and that made him bolder." "I thought I heard a voice I knew." "That must have been mine." "Yours! I haven't heard a sound of you. Who was it screeching?" "That was me. I was imitating your voice, Nannie. You see I thought it might frighten him more than mine--and it did." "My voice! Do you mean to tell me that that rasping, creaking screech was meant to be an imitation of my voice? I'd like to know whoever heard me talk in that way." "Why, Nannie, I'm hearing you talk that way now. Don't you know your own musical accents when you hear them?--and me giving you a taste of them to your face!" Laughingly, Isabel treated Nannie to another imitation of her curious nasal utterance then and there, and was out of the room before the old lady had recovered sufficiently from her astonishment to pronounce a candid criticism of the impertinent performance. From Nannie Isabel descended to the master of the house, to be greeted by some very similar inquiries. "What's been the meaning of all this uproar?" Isabel repeated the lie she had told Nannie. "That was no man's voice I heard. It was a woman's, and I could have sworn one I knew." "I expect the voice you thought you knew was Nannie. I was favouring the ruffian with as close an imitation of her genial tongue as I could manage." "That's not what I mean. I heard you imitating Nannie. Will you swear it was a man at the door?" "Of course I'll swear it. Whatever do you mean?" "What was he like?" She seemed to consider.