From the corner of an upstairs window, the housekeeper peered out in frightened astonishment.  She moved quickly back, pretending not to have heard.

She resumed her dusting, wiping each of the objects on Paulina's dressing table carefully with a soft cloth.  As always, she took special care with the photograph in the silver frame.  It was of a willowy girl of about eighteen, with pale, luxuriantly flowing hair and rapturously liquid eyes.

Being from a small, poor country, the housekeeper did not recognize the girl's clothing as belonging to an earlier period.  And since Paulina had told her nothing about the picture—as, indeed, she had told no one—the housekeeper simply assumed it was of some favorite niece.

She put down the picture and went on with her work.