Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461, page 19 by Various Authors
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nding the place. It was a range of handsome buildings which had sprung up in the fashionable outskirt during my absence; and although it was far on in the evening, my accustomed eyes soon descried through the gloom the governor's old-fashioned door-plate. I was just about to knock, really agitated with delight and struggling memories, when a temptation came in my way. One of the area-windows was open, gaping as if for my reception. A quantity of plate lay upon a table close by. Why should I not enter, and appear unannounced in the drawing-room, a sunburnt phantom of five feet eleven? Why should I not present the precise and careful Laura with a handful of her own spoons and forks, left so conveniently at the service of any area-sneak who might chance to pass by? Why? That is only a figure of speech. I asked no question about the matter; the idea was hardly well across my brain when my legs were across the rails. In another moment, I had crept in by the window; and chuckling at my own cleverness, and the great moral lesson I was about to teach, I was stuffing my pockets with the plate.
While thus engaged, the opening of a door in the hall above alarmed me; and afraid of the failure of my plan, I stepped lightly up the stair, which was partially lighted by the hall-lamp. As I was about to emerge at the top, a serving-girl was coming out of a room on the opposite side. She instantly retreated, shut the door with a bang, and I could hear a half-suppressed hysterical cry. I bounded on, sprang up the drawing-room stair, and entered the first door at a venture. All was dark, and I stopped for a moment to listen. Lights were hurrying across the hall; and I heard the rough voice of a man as if scolding and taunting some person. The girl had doubtless given the alarm, although her information must have been very indistinct; for when she saw me I was in the shadow of the stair, and she could have had little more than a vague impression that she beheld a human figure. However this may be, the man's voice appeared to d