"Wilkie Collins - I Say No" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

talking nonsense! And--alas! alas!--how vainly they tried, in after life, to
renew the once unalloyed enjoyment of tarts and lemonade!
In the unintelligible scheme of creation, there appears to be no human
happiness--not even the happiness of schoolgirls--which is ever complete. Just
as it was drawing to a close, the enjoyment of the feast was interrupted by an
alarm from the sentinel at the door.
Put out the candle!" Priscilla whispered "Somebody on the stairs."



CHAPTER II.
BIOGRAPHY IN THE BEDROOM.
The candle was instantly extinguished. In discreet silence the girls stole back
to their beds, and listened.
As an aid to the vigilance of the sentinel, the door had been left ajar. Through
the narrow opening, a creaking of the broad wooden stairs of the old house
became audible. In another moment there was silence. An interval passed, and the
creaking was heard again. This time, the sound was distant and diminishing. On a
sudden it stopped. The midnight silence was disturbed no more.
What did this mean?
Had one among the many persons in authority under Miss Ladd's roof heard the
girls talking, and ascended the stairs to surprise them in the act of violating
one of the rules of the house? So far, such a proceeding was by no means
uncommon. But was it within the limits of probability that a teacher should
alter her opinion of her own duty half-way up the stairs, and deliberately go
back to her own room again? The bare idea of such a thing was absurd on the face
of it. What more rational explanation could ingenuity discover on the spur of
the moment?
Francine was the first to offer a suggestion. She shook and shivered in her bed,
and said, "For heaven's sake, light the candle again! It's a Ghost."
"Clear away the supper, you fools, before the ghost can report us to Miss Ladd."

With this excellent advice Emily checked the rising panic. The door was closed,
the candle was lit; all traces of the supper disappeared. For five minutes more
they listened again. No sound came from the stairs; no teacher, or ghost of a
teacher, appeared at the door.
Having eaten her supper, Cecilia's immediate anxieties were at an end; she was
at leisure to exert her intelligence for the benefit of her schoolfellows. In
her gentle ingratiating way, she offered a composing suggestion. "When we heard
the creaking, I don't believe there was anybody on the stairs. In these old
houses there are always strange noises at night--and they say the stairs here
were made more than two hundred years since."
The girls looked at each other with a sense of relief--but they waited to hear
the opinion of the queen. Emily, as usual, justified the confidence placed in
her. She discovered an ingenious method of putting Cecilia's suggestion to the
test.
"Let's go on talking," she said. "If Cecilia is right, the teachers are all
asleep, and we have nothing to fear from them. If she's wrong, we shall sooner
or later see one of them at the door. Don't be alarmed, Miss de Sor. Catching us
talking at night, in this school, only means a reprimand. Catching us with a