The hands on the old English clock pointed to ten. The work was done, and Aunt Prudence drew the top of the bag together, and pinned upon the tape handle a sheet of paper, on which was written, “PETER FAYERWEATHER, a Present.” It was half-past ten before Aunt Prudence opened the door to go with the bag bountiful to the door of Peter’s room. As she did so she thought that she heard a noise in the hall. She stepped back and listened with a beating heart. She surely heard the hall window close, and a careful step in the hall. Her heart bounded, and she gasped for breath; she had long had a presentiment of this danger. She locked her door at once, withdrew the key, and kneeled down on the rug and looked through the key-hole very cautiously. There was only a faint moon and star light in the hall, but she saw the shadow of a tall man pass, and heard a dull step move in the direction of Peter’s room. Her house had been entered, surely; the expected event had really come. What should she do? She stepped into her bedroom, which opened out of her sitting-room, where she had been knitting, and sunk down upon the white bed, and drew the bed-curtains. She would have groaned, but she dared not. Here she lay and trembled till the old clock struck eleven, the strokes sounding like a warning through the hollow rooms. She must alarm Peter. How? Suppose she were to meet the robber in the hall? Her nervous system was so shaken that she felt that she could not be quiet any longer. She must do something, at any event. She arose, put aside the bed-curtains, drew from the bed the white counterpane, put it over her head like a great shawl, wrapped it around her, and going into the sitting-room, took the almost extinct candle, and unlocked the door and stepped cautiously into the hall. If ever a mortal looked like the traditional spectre, Aunt Prudence did then. [Illustration: CEYLON BUILDING.] The hall was empty; all was still. The grim old portraits were there—like shadow people they were all. She left the sitting-room door open, and moved silently and cautiously along toward Peter’s room. She tried Peter’s door. A great sense of relief came to her; it was unlocked. She opened it slowly, but a draught blew out the light. Terrified at this, she glided to Peter’s bed and seized the boy by the hair, gasping, “Peter, Peter, there’s a man in the house! Get up, get up! there’s a man in the house!” She shook him with a nervous energy, and repeated in stage-like whispers the words. She then vanished out of the room.