Why he should come near midnight--who ever asked such a question? Has not that hour always been the natural locality and resort for the supernatural? What things merry or sorry could ever have come to pass but for the stroke of midnight? How could Shakespeare have written certain dramas without the mere aid of twelve o'clock? What considerable part of English literature would drop out of existence but for the fact that Big Ben struck twelve! The children stood at the head of the stairs; and the Great Night which was to climb so high began for them low down--with the furniture. Standing there, they listened for the sound of any movement in the house: there was none, and they began to descend. Stairways in homesteads built as solid as that did not give way with any creaking of timbers under the pressure of feet; and they were thickly carpeted. Half way down the children leaned over the banisters and listened again. Here at the turning of the stairway, directly below, there lived in his pointed weather-house the old Time-Sentinel of the family, who with his one remaining arm saluted evermore backward and forward in front of his stiff form; and at every swing of this limb you could hear his muscle crack in his ancient shoulder-joint. A metallic salute which the children had been accustomed to all their lives was one of the only two sounds that now reached them. The other sound came from near him: sitting on the hall carpet on a square rug of tin especially provided for her was the winter companion of the time-piece--a large round mica-plated anthracite stove--middle-aged, designing, and corpulent. This seeming stove, whose puffed flushed cheeks now reflected an unusual excitement, gave out little comfortable wooing sounds, all confidential and travelling in a soft volley toward the sentinel, backed gaunt and taciturn against the wall. The children of the house had long ago named this pair the Cornered Soldier and the Marrying Stove; and they explained the positions of the two as indicating that the stove had backed the veteran into the corner and had sat largely down before him with the determination to remain there until she had warmed him up to the proper response. The veteran however devoted his existence to moving his arm back and forth to ward off her infatuation, and meanwhile he persisted in muttering in his loudest possible monotone: _Go away--keep off! Go away--keep off! Go away--keep off!_ There were seasons of course when the stove became less ardent, for even with the fibre of iron such pursuits must relax sometimes; but the veteran never permitted his arm to stop waving, trusting her least when she was cold--rightly enough!