The young man's manner was perfectly assured.

He had not taken his hands from his pockets, and he carried himself with an ease and composure that set Dan's conjectures at naught.

In the absence of the family, a servant might thus conduct himself; and yet, if Thatcher was not at home, why should he be thus ushered into the inner sanctities of the mansion by this singular young person, whose silk hose and bright pumps were so utterly out of harmony with the rest of his garb.

There might be a trick in it; perhaps he had intruded upon a burglarious invasion,--this invitation to the upper chambers might be for the purpose of shutting him in somewhere until the place had been looted.

It was, in any case, a novel adventure, and his curiosity was aroused by the languid pace with which, without pausing at the second floor, the young man continued on to the third.