"So I stood trembling there at the very top of the house, for we used to sleep up there, then, before Becky took to wanting to be downstairs, where she wasn't so likely to be seen; and though I listened and I listened, there wasn't a sound, and I give it to myself again. `Why,' I says, `a cat would scratch if you tried to take away its kitten to drown it'--as well I know, ma'am, for I've tried--`and you stand there doing nothing about your own poor girl.' That roused me, ma'am, and I went down, with the staircase all gloomy, with the light coming only from the sooty skylight in the roof; and there were the china cupboards and the statues in the dark corners all seeming to look down at something on the first floor. I was ready to drop a dozen times over, but I felt that I must go, even if I died for it; and down I went, step by step, peeping before me, and ready to shriek for help directly I saw what it was. "But there was nothing that I could see, and I stopped on the first floor, looking over the banisters and trying to make out whether the hall door was open; but no, I couldn't see anything, and I went along sideways, looking down still, till I saw that the dining-room door was open, and it seemed to me that the shrieking must have come from there. I was just opposite to the door leading into the two little lib'ries-- you know, ma'am, where the big curtain is--and I was taking another step sideways, meaning to look a little more over and then go and call up master, who didn't seem to have heard, when I caught my foot on something, and cried out and fell. And then I found it was poor Becky, who had just crawled out of the doorway on her hands and knees. "For just a minute I couldn't say a word, but when I did, and asked her what was the matter, she only knelt there, clinging to my gownd, and staring up at me with a face that was horrible to behold. "`What is it--what is it?' I kept on saying, but she couldn't speak, only kneel there, staring at me till I took her by the shoulders and shook her well. `Why don't you speak?' I says. `What is it?' "She only said `Oh'--a regular groan it was, and she turned her head slowly round to look back at the little lib'ry passage, and then she turned back and hid her face in my petticoats.