HIS ALARMS. 463 



one of his illnesses, Mrs Miller ascended to his room, 

 1 at the cost of an hour's severe pain,' to minister to his 

 wants. At other times, when his strength permitted, 

 and her limbs were powerless, he would carry her in his 

 arms to her sofa, ' in the kindest and tenderest manner/ 



One night Mrs Miller was startled by her husband 

 bursting into her room at midnight, with fire-arms, she 

 thinks, in his hand, and asking in a loud voice whether 

 she had heard unusual noises in the house. She answered 

 composedly that she had heard nothing. He went into 

 his eldest daughter's room, and made the same inquiry. 

 Soothed apparently by the result, he retired to his own 

 room. 



An incident occurred at this time, which had 

 the effect of partly setting his mind at rest. Lord 

 and Lady Kinnaird resided during the winter of 1856 

 in a villa by the sea-side at Portobello, and a cordial 

 intimacy had sprung up between them and Mr and 

 Mrs Miller. Lord Kinnaird, hearing of Miller's appre- 

 hensions for his collection, presented him with a man- 

 trap which some sagacious inventor had recently offered 

 to the public. The combination of gentlest philan- 

 thropy with chronic dread of burglars appears to have 

 struck this ingenious person as not infrequent, and the 

 man-trap which he devised had the engaging property of 

 holding the robber fast without hurting him. Lord 

 Kinnaird and Mr Miller set up this trap at the porch of 

 the Museum, and the fears of the latter were consider- 

 ably allayed. 



There were other matters, however, besides this 

 imaginative excitement on the subject of robbery, which, 

 as the months of autumn were succeeded by those of 

 winter, occasioned deep anxiety to Mrs Miller. The 

 time was approaching when the Testimony of the RocJcs 



