Of all the grisly horrors produced to make the travellerʼs hair creep, one of the most repulsive and glaring was in Amyʼs delicate hand. A hideous ape, with an open razor, was about to cut a young ladyʼs throat. Chuckling, he drew her fair neck to the blade by her dishevelled hair. At her feet lay an elderly woman, dead; while a man with a red cap was gazing complacently in at the window. The back of the volume was relieved by a ghost, a deathʼs head, and a pair of cross–bones. “Well”! said Miss Eudoxia. Her breath was gone for a long while, and she could say nothing more. “I know the cover is ugly, aunt, but the inside is so beautiful. Oh, and so very wonderful! I canʼt think how any one ever could imagine such splendid horrible things. Oh, so clever, Aunt Doxy; and full of things that make me tingle, as if my brain were gone to sleep. And I want to ask papa particularly about galvanizing the mummy”. “Indeed; yes, galvanizing! and pray does your father know of your having this horrible book”? “No; but I mean to tell him, the moment I have got to the end of it”. “Good child, and most dutiful! When you have swallowed the poison, youʼll tell us”. “Poison indeed, Aunt Eudoxia! How dare you talk to me like that? Do you dare to suppose that I would read a thing that was unfit for me”? “No, I donʼt think you would, knowingly. But you are not the proper judge. Why did you not ask your father or me, before you began this book”? “Because I thought you wouldnʼt let me read it”. “Well, that does beat everything. Candid impudence, I call that, perfectly candid insolence”! Aunt Doxyʼs throat began to swell; there was weak gorge in the family. Meanwhile, Miss Amy, who all the time had been jerking her shoulders and standing upright, in a manner peculiarly her own—Amy felt that her last words required some explanation. She had her fatherʼs strong sense of justice, though often pulled crooked by womanhood. “You know well enough what I mean, aunt, though you love to misrepresent me so. I mean that you would not let me read it, not because it was wrong (which it isnʼt), but for fear of making me nervous. And upon that subject, at least, I think I have a right to judge for myself”. “Oh, I dare say; you, indeed! And pray who lent you that book? Unless, indeed, in your self–assertion, you went to a railway and bought it”. “That is just the sort of thing I would rather die than tell, after all the fuss you have made about it”. “Thank you; I quite perceive. A young gentleman—not to be betrayed—_scamp_, whoever he is”. It was Clayton Nowell who had lent the book. “Is he indeed? I wish you were only half as upright and honourable”.