“Why, because he sleeps here, to be sure,” answered Clara, with a slight _hauteur_, as if unwilling to discuss family matters with her guests. She was a very dignified child, this idol of mine—“proud” was the term girls generally applied to her. “But does not your mamma sleep here too?” asked Abbie, bold enough to pursue the subject. “Certainly not,” replied Clara. “Papa and mamma do not think it proper to sleep together.” This piece of information surprised us greatly, but we all accepted the fact as showing the immeasurable aristocratic superiority of the Dr. and Mrs. Forest over all the married people we knew. I remember we all approved the system, agreeing that it was quite proper for girls to sleep together, and for no others. How wise we were then! Some of us have slightly modified our views on the subject since we played that game of cards in the doctor’s room; but we had very fixed and positive opinions then—all except Clara, who listened silently. We decided that if we ever married, which, of course, we never would, we should have two bedrooms, and never, never allow our husbands to enter ours, unless he were a physician and we happened to be ill! When the Dr. Buzby cards ceased to amuse us, Clara produced her _piece de resistence_, which was her play-house in the garret, somewhat neglected now, for she was approaching the outposts of young ladyhood. This garret was the one place where the sacrilegious twins had not penetrated. It was the sanctuary in which she had been in the habit of taking refuge when hard pressed by the merciless tyrants, to whom she had always been a patient nurse and victim, for her mother was in delicate health, and Dinah was almost exclusively occupied with the housekeeping. To this sanctuary Clara had removed her broken-nosed dolls, smeared and torn books, and the wrecks generally that she had snatched from time to time from the grip of the vandals. We approached this large old garret, under the gable roof, by a rickety flight of stairs, and on reaching the landing a hideous spectacle curdled my young blood and riveted my scared, fascinated eyes. It was a grinning skeleton, suspended to the rafter by a cord and a ring attached to the top of the skull. The other girls being already initiated, laughed my terrors to scorn, while one bold miss of ten, Clara’s most intimate friend, Louise Kendrick, went straight up to the horror, made faces at it, and then deliberately set it spinning! I shall never forget the sinking, sickening sensation at my heart as the eyeless sockets and hideous teeth glared through the dim light at me with every revolution. Clara, seeing how frightened I was, hastened to reassure me by saying, as she placed her arm around me—