I managed the place for a meeting, at last; though, after all, it was but a very tiresome place, but, under the circumstances, better than nothing. There was no going out of a night now, even if we had felt so inclined; and, really and truly, after what we had gone through, I felt very little disposed to attempt such a thing again; for Miss Furness used to collect regularly every night all the downstairs keys in a basket, and then take them up to Mrs Blunt's room; and I feel convinced that those four old tabbies used to have something hot in one of the bedrooms. Clara used to say that she could smell it; and yet they would all make a fuss at dinner about never touching ale or porter. All I know is, that Miss Furness's nose never would have looked so red if she only drank water always. They used to think that we did not know of their sitting up of a night; but Clara and I soon found that out, for we began to lie and listen, and could tell well enough that the Fraulein was not in her own room; while every now and then, from some other part, we could hear her blowing her nose with a noise loud enough to alarm the whole house. There never was such a woman before for blowing noses, I'm sure. Why, she could blow her nose as loud as a churchwarden, or a Poor Law guardian, who, as it is well known, can, after county magistrates on the bench, make more noise than any one upon that particular organ. It was quite dreadful to hear the Fraulein trumpeting about, like one of those horrid brass things the soldiers play in the bands--stretching out, and pulling in, and working about, and looking so dangerous. And now I am going to tell you about my plan for an interview; though I might have spared my poor brains all the trouble, for it never did either of us a bit of good, in spite of all my scheming and management I told you that the downstairs doors were always locked now of a night, and that Miss Furness collected all the keys, so that it was quite out of the question to think of trying to get into either of the lower rooms to talk out of the window; so I thought, and thought, and thought, and puzzled, and puzzled, and puzzled, and bored my poor brains, till at last I remembered the empty room at the end of the passage. "Well, but how ever could he get up there to talk to you?" said Clara; "it's a second floor window." "Why, come up a ladder, of course," I said. "But how is he to get one there?" said Clara. "Bring some bricklayers and scaffold poles, and have a scaffold made on purpose?" "Why, a rope ladder, goosey," I said. "Don't you see?"