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who wanted me--not Mrs. Reed surely, as she was still abed--but Bessie was already gone and had closed the nursery door upon me. I slowly descended. I stood in the empty hall. Before me was the drawing-room door, and I stopped, curious and a little intimidated.
    "Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff door handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. "Who could it be?"
    The handle turned, the door opened, and passing through and curtsying low, I looked up at--a black pillar! Such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug. The grim face at the top was like a carved mask. Surely not a vampyre, as he was out so early in the day, but I then startled at the sight of Aunt Reed, seated at the fireside behind him. Mrs. Reed interrupting her sleep to venture out about the house in daylight hours? This was an important meeting to be sure.
    "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you," Mrs. Reed said, gesturing for me to come forward.
    I swallowed hard. He turned his head slowly towards where I stood and, having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking black eyes, which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in the deepest bass voice that bounced like thunder off the walls, "Her size is small. What is her age?"
    "Ten years," I said, willing to speak for myself instead of waiting for Aunt Reed to speak for me.
    "So much?" was the doubtful answer that seemed to echo in the room, and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes. Presently he addressed me. "Your name, little girl?"
    "Jane Slayre, sir." In uttering these words I looked up. My courage
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    waned a little. He seemed to me a giant, but then I was very little.
    "Well, Jane Slayre, and are you a good child?"
    "I am." I narrowed my eyes at Mrs. Reed to judge her reaction.
    She cleared her throat. "Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Bokorhurst."
    "Sorry indeed to hear it! She and I must have some talk." He settled in the armchair opposite Mrs. Reed's. It groaned under his weight, which was not significant except for his height. He was not stout. "Come here."
    I stepped across the rug. He placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! What a great nose! And what a mouth! And what large, prominent teeth! Perhaps he was a vampyre who had found a way to tolerate the daylight? Or something worse? One of the demons from Bessie's fairy tales?
    "No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
    "They go to hell" was my ready answer. "With the unrepentant slain vampyres."
    He laughed as if he found this fantastical. It reassured me a bit. I didn't dare glance at Mrs. Reed. "And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
    "A pit full of fire."
    "And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?"
    "No, sir. Especially not with the vampyres." Mrs. Reed would catch my meaning, that my life hadn't been so far removed from hell as it was.
    "What must you do to avoid it?"
    I deliberated a moment. "I must keep in good health, not die. And most especially avoid sacrificing my soul for the false promise of eternal life."
    "Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of
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    five years old only a day or two since--a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you were you to be called hence."
    Not being in a condition to remove his doubt with Mrs. Reed standing by ready to discredit me, I only cast my eyes down on the two large feet planted on the rug and sighed, wishing myself far enough away.
    "I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress. Do you say your prayers night and morning?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Do you read your