This suggestion much relieved Ralph, and they walked rapidly to the porch, but when they reached it they found an empty steamer chair and no Miriam anywhere.  They looked at each other in much surprise, and entering the house they looked in several of the rooms on the lower floor.  Ralph was about to call out for his sister, but Dora quickly touched him on the arm.

“Hush,” she said, smiling, “do not call her.  Do you see that lap robe on the table?  I will tell you exactly what has happened; while we were down at the road she awoke, at least enough to know that she ought to go to bed, and I really believe that she was not sufficiently awake to remember that I am here, and that she simply got up, brought the robe in with her, and went to her room.  Isn’t it funny?”

Ralph was quite sure that Dora’s deductions were correct, for when Miriam happened to drop asleep in a chair in the evening, it was her habit, when aroused, to get up and go to bed, too sleepy to think about anything else; but he did not think it was funny now.  He was mortified that Miss Bannister should have been treated with such apparent disrespect, and he began to apologize for his sister.

“Now, please stop, Mr. Haverley,” interrupted Dora.  “I am so glad to have her act so freely and unconventionally with me, as if we had always been friends.  It makes me feel almost as if we had known each other always, and it does not make the slightest difference to me.  Miriam wanted to give me another room, but I implored her to let me sleep with her in that splendid high-posted bedstead, and so all that I have to do is to slip up to her room, and, if I can possibly help it, I shall not waken her.  In the morning I do not believe she will remember a thing about having gone to bed without me.  So good-night, Mr. Haverley.  I am going to be up very early, and you shall see what a breakfast the new cook will give you.  I will light this candle, for no doubt poor Miriam has put out her lamp, if she did not depend entirely on the moonlight.  By the way, Mr. Haverley,” she said, turning toward him, “is there anything I can do to help you in shutting up the house?  You know I am maid of all work as well as cook.  Perhaps I should go down and see if the kitchen fire is safe.”

“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Ralph; “I attend to all those things,—­at least, when we have no servant.”

“But doesn’t Miriam help you?” asked Dora, taking up the candle which she had lighted.

“No,” said he; “Miriam generally bids me good-night and goes upstairs an hour before I do.”

“Very well,” said Dora; “I will say only one more thing, and that is that if I were the lord of the manor, who had been working in the hay-field all day, I would not sit up very long, waiting for a wandering doctor.”

Ralph laughed, and as she approached the door of the stairway, he opened it for her.

“Suppose,” she said, stopping for a moment in the doorway, and shielding the flame of the candle from a current of air with a little hand that was so beautifully lighted that for a moment it attracted Ralph’s eyes from its owner’s face, “you wait here for a minute, and I will go up and see if she is really safe in her own room.  I am sure you will be better satisfied if you know that.”