Alice's Godmother

ded, after a whole second's pause, to the gentle tug she had given the iron pull that hung in the porch. It cried 'Ay, ay!' and fell silent. And Alice continued to look at the immense iron knocker which she hadn't the courage to use.

Without a sound the door opened at last, and there, as she had feared, stood, not a friendly parlour-maid with a neat laundered cap, but an old man in a black tail-coat who looked at her out of his pale grey eyes as if she were a stuffed bird in a glass case. Either he had been shrinking for some little time, or he must surely have put on somebody else's clothes, they hung so loosely on his shoulders.

'I am Miss Alice Cheyney--Miss Alice Cheyney,' she said. 'I think my great-great ... Miss Cheyney is expecting me--that is, of course, if she is quite well.' These few words had used up the whole of one breath, and her godmother's old butler continued to gaze at her, while they sank into his mind.

'Will you please to walk in,' he said at last. 'Miss Cheyney bade