At this discovery she became more alarmed than ever, and was about to give utterance to those cries of 'Thieves!' and 'Murder!' which she had hitherto restrained, when it occurred to her to look softly out, and see that her fears had some good palpable foundation.
Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the handrail, she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappertit completely dressed, stealing downstairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in one hand and a lamp in the other.

Following him with her eyes, and going down a little way herself to get the better of an intervening angle, she beheld him thrust his head in at the parlour-door, draw it back again with great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat upstairs with all possible expedition.
'Here's mysteries!' said the damsel, when she was safe in her own room again, quite out of breath.

'Oh, gracious, here's mysteries!' The prospect of finding anybody out in anything, would have kept Miss Miggs awake under the influence of henbane.

Presently, she heard the step again, as she would have done if it had been that of a feather endowed with motion and walking down on tiptoe.

Then gliding out as before, she again beheld the retreating figure of the 'prentice; again he looked cautiously in at the parlour-door, but this time instead of retreating, he passed in and disappeared.
Miggs was back in her room, and had her head out of the window, before an elderly gentleman could have winked and recovered from it.