I exclaimed against this as a tempting of Providence, persuading her first to try some other house of entertainment; and at last she agreed. Now, whether our great distraction of mind gave us a haggard and sickly aspect, or whether 'twas merely the suspicion and hardness of heart bred in all people by terror, I cannot tell; but no one would take us in, some saying flatly they would receive no lodgers they did not know, and know to be sound. The day wearing fast away in these vain applications, Althea says to me,-- 'You see we must try my plan at last. I bid you think scorn, my Lucy, of yielding to such base fears as make folk turn us from their doors.' 'It is not that I fear infection as they do,' said I; 'but I shrink from dwelling in a house not our own, and lying open to any thief.' 'Baby fears, Lucy,' she said, smiling. 'We will do our cousins a better turn than they merit; we will keep their doors fast against thieves, and their household stuff from moth and mould and rust. For the infection, we run as little risk in that house as out of it.' So she bore me down with her will, the more easily since we had no choice but either to lodge in that house or in the open street. But Will said sturdily, 'Mistresses, you may do as you will; I will neither eat nor sleep in that evil house. There is a scent of death and sin breathing from it; I perceived it as we stood at the door.' 'And will you desert us then, Will?' said Althea. 'Have you come so far, to forsake us now?' 'Who spoke of forsaking?' growled Will. 'I can find some balk, some cobbler's stall, without the house, to sleep on, if you will lodge within. The watch-dog lies not in the house, I trow? But if you must lodge there, enter not openly, nor let it be known you are within; you may be suspected for thieves or worse.' 'Yours is no fool's advice,' said Althea shortly. So we lingered out the time till nightfall in buying some needful things,--bread and meat and candles,--having to walk far before we found shops open; then, as night thickened, we stole into the desolate house, and groped our way to a room at the back, where we lit our candles and looked about us. 'Twas a richly furnished withdrawing-room, with windows open on a garden. 'There will I sleep,' said Will. 'I had rather have the free sky over me than this roof; so give me but a hunch of bread to sup on, and let me go.' There was little use in crossing him, so we gave him some meat and bread; but we prayed his help first to make all the doors fast, which he willingly did; then he showed us how to secure the window after him, and so slipt out into the night.