“Welcome to your own house, my wife,” he said with his fine florid smile and a manner replete with his conscious importance and his relish of it. At that moment there came a sound from the ghastly vacancy glimpsed within, a weird, shrill sound, full of sinister suggestion. The group, peering in from behind them, thrilled with horror, broke into sudden frightened exclamations, before its keen repetition enabled them to realize that it was only the hooting of an owl, roused, doubtless, from his diurnal slumbers by the tones of the echoing voice and the vibrations of the floor under an unaccustomed tread. Some sheepish laughter ensued, at themselves rather than at Floyd-Rosney, but at this moment any merriment was of invidious suggestion and he flushed deeply. “Here, you fellow,” he hailed one of the roustabouts, “get that owl out of here, and any other vermin you can find,” and he tossed the darkey a dollar. The roustabout showed all his teeth, and he had a great many of them, and with a deprecatory manner ran to pick up the silver coin. He was trained to a degree of courtesy, and he fain would have left it where it had fallen on the pavement until he had executed the commission. But he knew of old his companions of the lower deck, now busied in bringing up the luggage of the party. Therefore, he pocketed the gratuity before he went briskly and cheerfully down the long hall to one of the inner apartments whence proceeded the sound of ill-omen. While they were still making their way into the main hall they heard a great commotion of hootings and halloos, and all at once a tremendous crash of glass. It is a sound of destruction that rouses all the proprietor within a man. “Great heavens,” cried Floyd-Rosney, “is the fool driving the creature through the window without lifting the sash, little glass as there is left here.” It seemed that this was the case, for a large white owl, blinded by the light of day, floundering and fluttering, went winging its way clumsily scarcely six feet from the ground through the rain, still falling without, and after several drooping efforts contrived gropingly to perch himself on a broken stone vase on the terrace, whence the other roustabouts presently dislodged him, and with gay cries and great unanimity of spirit, proceeded to dispatch him, hooting and squawking in painful surprise and protesting to the last. Paula had caught little Ned within the doorway to spare his innocence and infancy the cruel spectacle. And suddenly here was the roustabout who had been sent into the recesses of the house, coming out again with a strange blank face, and a peculiar, hurried, dogged manner. “Did you find any more owls? And why did you break the glass to get him out?” Floyd-Rosney asked, sternly.