I was on the third floor and I heard it plainly." His face twitched--a habit of his when under excitement, as I have since learned--as with a shrug of his old shoulders he curtly answered: "You were listening; I was not.

If any one laughed down here I didn't hear 'em." Confident that he was lying, I turned quietly away and proceeded down the hall toward Mayor Packard's study.
"I wish to speak to the mayor," I explained.
"He's not there." The man had eagerly followed me.

"He's not come home yet, Miss." "But the gas is burning brightly inside and the door ajar.

Some one is there." "It is Mr.Steele.He came in an hour ago.

He often works here till after midnight." I had heard what I wanted to know, but, being by this time at the very threshold, I could not forbear giving the door a slight push, so as to catch at least a momentary glimpse of the man he spoke of.
He was sitting at his post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at my intrusion, I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the clear-cut profile which had roused my admiration the day before.
Certainly, seen as I saw it now, in the concentrated glow of a lamp shaded from every other corner of the room, it was a face well worth looking at.