Surely it was my very witch herself again, only a little thinner and whiter, who spoke to me thus in the old sweet voice, and held out her hand with the half-frank, half-shy demureness of those bygone, painful-pleasant days when we were 'engaged,' and when the new and proud discovery that she was 'grown-up' had given a delicious piquancy to her manner of taking her lessons! I shook hands with her, and she pointed to her old chair; as she took it quite simply and thus had the full light of the windows on her face, I noticed with surprise and pleasure that, in spite of the excitement of the night before, the atmosphere of her old home was already taking effect upon her, the listless expression she had worn in London was disappearing from her face, and the old childlike look which blue eyes were meant to wear was coming back into them again. 'You are better,' said I gently, taking no notice of her remark upon my occupation. 'You have been lazy, madam. I am sure you might very well have come down to breakfast. You had a good night, I suppose?' Ta-ta, who had followed her into the room, pushed her nose lovingly into her old companion's hand, and Babiole hid a sensitively flushing face by bending low over the dog's sleek head. I think she must have found out that morning by the confusion in her room that something had happened the night before, the details of which she could not remember; perhaps also she had a vague remembrance of her expedition downstairs, and wanted to find out what I knew about it. But of course I knew nothing. 'Yes, I--I slept well--thank you. Only I had dreams.' 'Did you? Not bad ones, I hope?' She glanced at me penetratingly, but could discover nothing, as I was fighting with To-to over the fragments of the morocco ring case. 'No-o, not exactly bad, but very strange. Do you know--I found--my travelling hat and cloak--lying about--and I wondered whether--in my sleep--I had put them on--thinking I was--going back to London!' All this, uttered very slowly and with much hesitation, I listened to without interruption, and then, standing up with my back to the fire, nodded to her reassuringly. 'Well, so you did, Mrs. Scott, and a nice fright your sleep-walking propensities gave me, I can tell you. It was by the luckiest chance in the world that I didn't brain you with the poker for a burglar when I heard footsteps in the hall in the middle of the night!' 'You did!' cried she, pale to the lips with apprehension. 'Yes; and when I saw you, you muttered something I couldn't understand, and then you half woke up, and you went back quickly to your room again, leaving me considerably wider awake than before.' 'Is that all?' asked Babiole, the faint colour coming back to her face again. 'It was quite enough for me, I assure you. And I hope you will take your walking exercise for the future in the daytime, when my elderly nerves are at their best.'