My polite offer was cut short as my brother's had been. We heard
more drumming at the door of the third story. There were two
rooms here also--one perfectly empty, the other stocked with odds
and ends of dismal, old-fashioned furniture for which we had no
use, and grimly ornamented by a life-size basket figure
supporting a complete suit of armor in a sadly rusty condition.
When Owen and I got to the third-floor landing, the door was
open; Miss Jessie had taken possession of the rooms; and we found
her on a chair, dusting the man in armor with her cambric
pocket-handkerchief.

"I shall live here," she said, looking round at us briskly over
her shoulder.

We both remonstrated, but it was quite in vain. She told us that
she had an impulse to live with the man in armor, and that she
would have her way, or go back immediately in the post-chaise,
which we pleased. Finding it impossible to move her, we bargained
that she should, at least, allow the new bed and the rest of the
comfortable furniture in the lean-to to be moved up into the
empty room for her sleeping accommodation. She consented to this
condition, protesting, however, to the last against being
compelled to sleep in a bed, because it was a modern
conventionality, out of all harmony with her place of residence
and her friend in armor.

Fortunately for the repose of Morgan, who, under other
circumstances, would have discovered on the very first day that
his airy retreat was by no means high enough to place him out of
Jessie's reach, the idea of settling herself instantly in her new