From the door leading to the basement, to that opening into the parlor from the hall, she probably stepped lighter than she had ever before done since playing blind-man's buff in early girlhood; and it is doubtful whether that parlor door had ever before opened and shut with so little noise, since the skilful hanger first oiled the plated hinges. From the door to the back part of the room she went on tip-toe--the fact cannot be denied,--little noise as her light shoes would have made on the heavy velvet. We all have something of the cat about us--man and the other animals; though the quality developes itself under different circumstances. Pussy treads even softer than usual, when after the coveted cream; that larger pussy, the tiger, steals lightly towards the ambushed hunter who is to furnish him the next delicious meal; and "Tarquin's ravishing strides" are undoubtedly a misnomer, for the Roman must have been something more or less than man if he did not tip-toe his sandals or cast them off altogether, when he stole towards the midnight bed of Lucrece. The cream for which Pussy Harris--shame upon her for that same!--was just then making an adventurous foray,--was _a hearing of the conversation which might take place between Richard Crawford and his cousin_! That conversation she had determined to hear, at all hazards; for what, she scarcely knew herself, but with an undefinable impression that she must hear it--that (Jesuitically, and of course most horrible doctrine!) the end might justify the otherwise indefensible means--and that--that--in short, that she was going to do it, and this settled the matter as well as finished up the reason!