I s ` pose being all alone makes me nervous . '' Miss Calista was still rather nervous when she went to bed that night , but she was a woman of sound sense and was determined not to give way to foolish fears . She locked doors and windows carefully , as was her habit , and saw that the fastenings were good and secure . The one on the dining-room window , looking out on the back yard , was n't ; in fact , it was broken altogether ; but , as Miss Calista told herself , it had been broken just so for the last six years , and nobody had ever tried to get in at it yet , and it was n't likely anyone would begin tonight . Miss Calista went to bed and , despite her worry , slept soon and soundly . It was well on past midnight when she suddenly wakened and sat bolt upright in bed . She was not accustomed to waken in the night , and she had the impression of having been awakened by some noise . She listened breathlessly . Her room was directly over the dining-room , and an empty stovepipe hole opened up through the ceiling of the latter at the head of her bed . There was no mistake about it . Something or some person was moving about stealthily in the room below . It was n't the cat -- Miss Calista had shut him in the woodshed before she went to bed , and he could n't possibly get out . It must certainly be a beggar or tramp of some description . Miss Calista might be given over to nervousness in regard to imaginary thieves , but in the presence of real danger she was cool and self-reliant . As noiselessly and swiftly as any burglar himself , Miss Calista slipped out of bed and into her clothes . Then she tip-toed out into the hall . The late moonlight , streaming in through the hall windows , was quite enough illumination for her purpose , and she got downstairs and was fairly in the open doorway of the dining-room before a sound betrayed her presence . Standing at the sideboard , hastily ransacking the neat contents of an open drawer , stood a man 's figure , dimly visible in the moonlight gloom . As Miss Calista 's grim form appeared in the doorway , the midnight marauder turned with a start and then , with an inarticulate cry , sprang , not at the courageous lady , but at the open window behind him . Miss Calista , realizing with a flash of comprehension that he was escaping her , had a woman-like impulse to get a blow in anyhow ; she grasped and hurled at her unceremonious caller the first thing that came to hand -- a bottle of peppermint essence that was standing on the sideboard .
The missile hit the escaping thief squarely on the shoulder XXXXX he sprang out of the window , and the fragments of glass came clattering down on the sill .
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