Mrs. Dodd sat up in bed, keenly relishing the situation. When he opened a bureau drawer, she screamed out: "What are you looking for?" Uncle Israel started violently. "Money," he answered, in a shrill whisper, taken altogether by surprise. "Then," said Mrs. Dodd, kindly, "I'll get right up and help you!" "Don't, Belinda," pleaded the old man. "You'll wake up everybody. I am a-walkin' in my sleep, I guess. I was a-dreamin' of money that I was to find and give to you, and I suppose that's why I've come to your room. You lay still, Belinda, and don't tell nobody. I am a-goin' right away." Before she could answer in a way that seemed suitable, he was gone, and the next day he renewed his explanations. "I dunno, Belinda, how I ever come to be a-walkin' in my sleep. I ain't never done such a thing since I was a child, and then only wunst. How dretful it would have been if I had gone into any other room and mebbe have been shot or have scared some young and unprotected female into fits. To think of me, with my untarnished reputation, and at my age, a-doin' such a thing! You don't reckon it was my new pain-killer, do you?" "I don't misdoubt it had sunthin' to do with payin'," returned Mrs. Dodd, greatly pleased with her own poor joke, "an', as you say, it might have been dretful. But I am a friend to you, Israel, an' I don't 'low to make your misfortune public, but, by workin' private, help you overcome it." "What air you a-layin' out to do?" demanded Uncle Israel, fearfully. "I ain't rightly made up my mind as yet, Israel," she answered, pleasantly enough, "but I don't intend to have it happen to you again. Sunthin' can surely be done that'll cure you of it." "Don't, Belinda," wheezed her victim; "I don't think I'll ever have it again." "Don't you fret about it, Israel, 'cause you ain't goin' to have it no more. I'll attend to it. It 's a most distressin' disease an' must be took early, but I think I know how to fix it." During her various investigations, she had found a huge bunch of keys beneath a pile of rubbish on the floor of a closet in an unoccupied room. It was altogether possible, as she told herself, that one of these keys should fit the somnambulist's door. While Uncle Israel was brewing a fresh supply of medicine on the kitchen stove, she found, as she had suspected that one of them did fit, and thereafter, every night, when Uncle Israel had retired, she locked him in, letting him out shortly after seven each morning. When he remonstrated with her, she replied, triumphantly, that it was necessary--otherwise he would never have known that the door was locked. On her first visit to "town" she made it her business to call upon Lawyer Bradford and inquire as to Mr. Judson's last will and testament. She learned that it did not concern her at all, and was to be probated, in accordance with the dead man's instructions, at the Fall term of court.