Explore "The Black Forge Mills" by William P. Chipman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
About ten o'clock the next evening the door bell of the First Church parsonage rang with a sharp and prolonged peal, as though pulled by a vigorous hand. The servant had gone to her room long before; so Mr. Carleton, who sat in the cozy parlor, reading to his wife, arose and went to the door. Mrs. Carleton heard him, with surprise manifest in his tones, say "Good-evening! " The caller, whoever he was, replied at some length, but in a voice too low for her to understand his words; then he and Mr. Carleton went up to the study.
It was nearly an hour later when they came down, the visitor going directly out, while Mr. Carleton, closing and locking the door, came to the parlor. He seemed surprised to find his wife still waiting for him, and said: