entered the front drawing-room a young man-servant and maid were there
rekindling the lights.

'Now let's have a game of cat-and-mice,' said the maid-servant cheerily.
'There's plenty of time before they come up.'

'Agreed,' said Menlove promptly. 'You will play, will you not, Miss
Chickerel?'

'No, indeed,' said Picotee, aghast.

'Never mind, then; you look on.'

Away then ran the housemaid and Menlove, and the young footman started at
their heels. Round the room, over the furniture, under the furniture,
through the furniture, out of one window, along the balcony, in at
another window, again round the room--so they glided with the swiftness
of swallows and the noiselessness of ghosts.

Then the housemaid drew a jew's-harp from her pocket, and struck up a
lively waltz sotto voce. The footman seized Menlove, who appeared
nothing loth, and began spinning gently round the room with her, to the
time of the fascinating measure

'Which fashion hails, from countesses to queens,
And maids and valets dance behind the scenes.'

Picotee, who had been accustomed to unceiled country cottages all her
life, wherein the scamper of a mouse is heard distinctly from floor to
floor, exclaimed in a terrified whisper, at viewing all this, 'They'll