It was nearly dark: her mother and sisters were in the village;
Dora was gone on an errand, and she was alone. Half reluctantly,
she opened the stair door which led to Dora's room, the low room
in the attic. Up the steep staircase, and through the narrow hall
she went, treading softly, and holding her breath, as if she
feared lest the dead, from her far-off grave in the great city,
should hear her noiseless footfall, and come forth to prevent the
wrong she meditated. But no, Fanny Deane slept calmly in her
coffin, and Eugenia kept on her way unmolested, until the chamber
was reached. Then, indeed, she hesitated, for there was, to her,
something terrifying in the darkness which had gathered in the
corners of the room, and settled like a pall upon the old green
trunk. To reach that and secure the treasure it contained, would
have been the work of a moment; but, wholly powerless to advance,
Eugenia stood still, while the cold perspiration started from
every pore.
"I can do anything but _that,_" she said, at last, and, as if
the words had given her strength to move, she turned back, gliding
again through the narrow hall, and down the steep stairway, out
into the open air; and when, that night, as she often did, Dora
looked for her mother's beautiful _hair,_ it lay in its
accustomed place, unruffled and unharmed; and the orphan child, as
she pressed it to her lips, dreamed not of the danger which had
threatened it, or of the snare about to be laid for herself by
Eugenia, who could not yet give up the coveted dress.
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