CHAPTER IX.
THE JUDGE LEAVES HIS HOUSE.
Mrs. Flora Carwell was going up the great staircase with a posset for the Judge in a china bowl, on a little silver tray.
Across the top of the well-staircase there runs a massive oak rail; and, raising her eyes accidentally, she saw an extremely odd-looking stranger, slim and long, leaning carelessly over with a pipe between his finger and thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all to droop downward into extraordinary length, as he leant his odd peering face over the banister. In his other hand he held a coil of rope, one end of which escaped from under his elbow and hung over the rail.
Mrs. Carwell, who had no suspicion at the moment, that he was not a real person, and fancied that he was some one employed in cording the Judge’s luggage, called to
