The very next day the colonel applied for another hundred dollars, ingenuously informing her that he had experienced heavy losses at the village nine-pin alley. Aunt Adeline at first peremptorily refused to give him the amount, but she was finally so worked upon by his taunts and menaces that she acceded to his exorbitant demands. The same scene was repeated the next day, and the next, and the next, until the colonel was her debtor to the amount of five hundred dollars, when she unequivocally declared that she would advance him no more money. The colonel left her presence, muttering mysterious threats. Late that night, as Aunt Adeline, with a mind torn by unavailing regrets and painful conjectures as to the probabilities of her ever getting back her loan, was vainly trying to compose herself to sleep, she heard a slight noise at the handle of her chamber door, and, turning her eyes in the direction, saw to her horror the colonel enter with a dark lanthorn in his hand and two enormous pistols under his arms. Gently closing the door, he locked it, and stealthily advanced toward the toilet table, where he deposited one of the murderous weapons, and then cocking the other, approached the bed-side. Although Aunt Adeline was shaking with fright, she had sense enough to feign slumber, and the colonel, after examining her features and muttering, “it is lucky for the old girl she is asleep,” proceeded to search the various drawers and trunks in the room for plunder, having first abstracted a formidable bunch of keys from under the venerable spinster’s pillow. The most valuable articles he found were a bag filled with golden half eagles and a little casket of jewels. Thrusting these into the pockets of his dressing-gown, he replaced the keys where he had found them, took another look at Aunt Adeline, to assure himself that she was asleep, and glided quietly out of the room. At the breakfast-table the next morning, when Aunt Adeline made her appearance, both her niece and the colonel professed to be very much shocked at her pale and altered features; and the latter pressed upon her some patent pills, in regard to the efficacy of which he told some wonderful stories. Had not Aunt Adeline been thoroughly convinced of his wish to poison her, she might have taken some. The poor woman’s troubles were by no means lessened on the reception of the following letter from her brother, which was handed to her while her coffee was cooling: