"It is here!" chanted The Seraph. "Evwy bit of evwy fing is shinin'! Oh, Angel an' John, please look!"

We flew to the window and leaned across the sill.

It was a happy world that morning, glowing in the sweetest dawn that ever broke over roofs and chimney pots. The earth sang as she danced her dewy way among the paling stars. The little grey clouds blushed pink against the azure sky. Blossoming boughs of peach and apricot hung over the gates of heaven, and rosy spirals curled upward from two chimneys. Pink-footed pigeons strutted, rooketty-cooing along the roofs. They nodded their heads as though to affirm the consummation of a miracle. "It is so—" they seemed to say—"It is indeed so—" One of them hopped upon the cobbler's chimney, peering earnestly into its depths. "It sees the star!" shouted The Seraph. "It sees the star and nods to it. 'I am higher now than you'—it says!"

Something—was it a breath? a sigh?—made me look back into the attic where Lucy's clothes clung to the high-backed chair, like flower petals blown against a wall. The pier-glass had caught all the glory of the morning and was releasing it in quivering spears of light that dazzled me for a moment; I rubbed my eyes, and stared, and shook a little, for in the midst of all this splendour I saw Lucy! No pallid, rigid ghost, but something warm, eager with life, spreading the folds of the lilac gown like a butterfly warming its new wings in the strength of the sun.

Her bosom rose and fell quickly, her eyes were fixed on me with a beseeching look, it seemed. I drew nearer—near enough to smell the faint perfume of her, and I saw then that she was not looking at me, but at the fat little book of "The Mysteries of Udolpho" which I still held in my hands. The book that Charles had given her! "Bide the time!" he had written, but she could bide the time no longer.

Proud as any knight before his lady, I strode forward, and pressed the book into her hands—saw her slender fingers curl around it—heard her little gasp of joy. I should not have been at all surprised had the door opened and Charles walked in.

As a matter of fact, the door did open and—Mrs. Handsomebody walked in.

IV

She gave a sort of gurgling cry, as though she were being strangled. Angel and The Seraph faced about to look at her in consternation, their hair wild in the wind, and the rising sun making an aureole about them. The four of us stared at each other in silence for a space, while the attic-room, with its cobwebs reeled—the sun rose, and sank, like a floundering ship, and Mrs. Handsomebody resembling, in my fancy, a hungry spider, in curl papers, considered which victim was ripest for slaughter.

"You—and you—and you—" she gobbled. "Oh, to think of it! No place safe! What you need is a strong man. We shall see! The very windows—burst from their bolts!" She slammed the casement and secured it, Angel and The Seraph darting from her path.

"Even a dead woman's clothes—to make a scarecrow of!" She pounced—I hid my face while she did it, but I heard a sinister rustling and the snap of a trunk lid. It was over. "Bide the time."

Ignominiously she herded us down the stairs; The Seraph making only one step at a time, led the way. Far down the drab vista of the back stairs that ended in the scullery, Mary Ellen's red, round face was seen for a moment, like a second rising sun, but vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, at a shout from Mrs. Handsomebody.

We were in the schoolroom now, placed before her in a row, as was her wont in times of retribution. Seated behind her desk she wore her purple dressing gown with magisterial dignity; the wart upon her chin quivered as she prepared to speak.

"Now, David," she said, rapping Angel smartly on the head, "can you say anything in explanation of this outrage upon my property? Hold your head up and toe out, please."

Angel looked at his hands. "Nuffin' to explain," he said sulkily. "Just went an' did it."

"Oh I thought so," said our governess. "It was just one of these seemingly irresistible impulses that have so often proved disastrous for all concerned. If your father knew—" she bit off the words as though they had a pleasant, if acrid taste—"if your poor father knew of your criminal proclivities, he would be a crushed man. A crushed man."

The Seraph was staring at her chin.

Then—"I have one too," he said gently.

"One what?" Her tone should have warned him. "One wart," he went on, with easy modesty. "It's just a little one. It can't wiggle—like yours—but it's gwowing nicely. Would you care to see it?"

Mrs. Handsomebody affected not to hear him. She stared sombrely at Angel and me, but I believe The Seraph sealed our fate, for, after a moment's deliberation, she said curtly; "I shall have to beat you for this."

She gave us six apiece, and I could not help noticing that, though The Seraph was the youngest and tenderest, his six were the most stinging.

When we had been sent to our bedroom to say our prayers, and change our pitifully inadequate night clothes for day things, I put the question that was burning in my mind.

"Did either of you see her?"

"Who?"

"Lucy, sitting there in the chair."

Angel's brown eyes were blank.

"I saw her clothes. What sickens me is that the dragon took that spy-glass. You see if I don't get it yet." (Mrs. Handsomebody was "the dragon" in our vernacular.)

"Did you see her, Seraph?"

The Seraph was sitting on the floor, his head on his knees. He raised a tear-flushed face.

"I'm 'most too cwushed to wemember," he said, huskily. "But I fink Lucy was fat. It's a vewy bad fing to be fat, 'cos the cane hurts worser."

I turned from such infantile imbecility to the exhilarating reflection that I was the only one to whom Lucy had shown herself—her chosen knight!

I was burning to do her service, yet the passage that led to the attic stronghold was well guarded. Two days had passed before I made the attempt. I had been sent upstairs from the tea-table to wash my hands—though they were only comfortably soiled—and after I had dipped them in a basin of water that had done service for both Angel and The Seraph, I gave them a good rub on my trouser legs, as I tip-toed to the foot of the attic stairs. Cautiously, with fast-beating heart, I mounted, and tried the door. It was locked fast. I pressed my eye against the keyhole, and made out in the gloom the dark shape of the trunk, sinister, forbidding, inaccessible. No rustle of lilac silk, no faintest perfume, no appealing sigh from the gentle Lucy greeted me. All was dark and quiet. "Bide the time!" Who knew but that some day I might set her free?

Yet my throat ached as I slowly made my way back to the table, presented my hands for a rather sceptical inspection by Mrs. Handsomebody, and dropped languidly into my seat.

The Seraph gave me a look of sympathy—even understanding—perhaps he had heard me mount the distant attic stairs; his hearing was wonderfully acute. He chewed in silence for a moment and then he made one of those seemingly irrelevant remarks of his that, somehow, always set our little world a-rocking.

"One fing about Lucy," he said, "she was always sweet-tempud."

"Who?" snapped Mrs. Handsomebody.

"Lucy—" repeated The Seraph. "Such a sweet-tempud gell."

Mrs. Handsomebody leaned over him, and gobbled and threatened. The Seraph preserved a remarkable calm, considering that he was the storm centre. He even raised his small forefinger before his face and looked at it thoughtfully. His speculative gaze travelled from it to Mrs. Handsomebody's chin. I perceived then that he was comparing warts!



Chapter IV: A Merry Interlude

I

My brothers and I were hanging over the gate that barred our way to the outer world, and singing, as loudly as we could, considering the pressure of the top bar on our young stomachs. We sang to keep warm, for Mrs. Handsomebody had decreed that no reefers were to be worn till the first of December. So, though November was raw, she maintained her discipline and refused to mollycoddle us.

It was the fifth, and Angel chanted in that flute-like treble of his, that made passersby turn and smile at him:

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot—"

Then The Seraph added his little pipe:

"I see no weason why gunpowder tweason Should ever be forgot."

Then we shouted it all together.

Our neighbour, Mr. Mortimer Pegg, who had never forgiven us for our share in the treasure hunt, came out of his house at that moment, and drew up before us.

"This noise, you know," he said, in his precise way, "is affecting my wife's health deleteriously. She has gone to bed with a migraine."

"Why don't you put him out," suggested The Seraph.

Mr. Pegg eyed him severely, yet I thought I perceived a twinkle in his eye.

"It's Guy Fawkes day," I explained. "You see, it must never be forgot."

"It is a mistake in these enlightened days to keep up such old animosities," replied our neighbour. "For all you know I might be his direct descendant. If you must celebrate his undoing, better take these three sixpences and make yourselves ill on lemon fizz, or pink marshmallows, or vile licorice cigars."

He placed a coin in each outstretched hand, and, without waiting for thanks, strode briskly down the street. We gazed after him, knocked speechless by this great beaker of bounty that had rolled in upon the flat expanse of our afternoon. Mr. Pegg, in his shiny top hat and neat Prince Albert moved away in the ruddy November sunlight as in a halo of opulence. Never before had we appreciated the princely turn of his toes beneath their drab spats, the flash of his twirled walking-stick. We resolved to keep him in mind. He was a neighbour worth having. Angel even suggested certain time-honoured ditties of boyhood, which, shouted in chorus, would be almost certain to have a disastrous effect on a female addicted to migraine.

A deputation, consisting of The Seraph, then waited on Mrs. Handsomebody, to explain that our neighbour, Mr. Pegg, having been charmed by our singing, had presented us each with a sixpence, with the earnest injunction that the coin be expended on currant buns at the grocer's. The Seraph came back triumphant with the necessary consent.

"We can go," he said, "but we're not to take a bite till we're back home. It's suppwising she'd let us do it."

"Not a bit," said Angel cynically, "she knows they'll spoil our appetite for tea."

The grocer was a fierce, red-bearded man who kept his wife in a little wooden stall, where she took in the constant flow of wealth extorted from his customers.

We had told The Seraph that she was thus confined by her gloomy spouse, in order that she might be fattened for slaughter, and his eyes were large with pity as he stood on tiptoe to hand our three sixpences through the little wicket. The grocer's wife leaned forward to look at him, her plump underlip, after two futile attempts to form a chin, subsiding into a large white neck.

The Seraph's look of pity deepened to horror. "You must be almost weady," he gasped.

"Ready? Ready for what, my little love?"

"Stickin'—oo, will it hurt vewy much?"

"Bless the child. What does he mean?"

"He's not very well," I explained. "I think he's delirious."

"That's why we brought him here to get a cool drink," added Angel, hurriedly, and between us we led the recreant to the little table in the rear of the shop where the grocer had set out three glasses of ginger beer and a plate of mixed cakes. Five minutes of unalloyed bliss followed and we were just draining off the last dregs and cleaning up the crumbs, when a bullet-headed boy stuck his head in at the door.

"Dorg's 'ere again," he said, laconically. "Nosin' abaht in the gabbage 'eap."

"Tie a can on 'is tile," said the grocer.

The boy disappeared, and the three of us pushed back our chairs and followed in his wake, scenting adventure in the littered yard behind the shop with its strange odours of bygone fruit and greens.

The dog, a small, black, Scottish terrier, was dragging an end of Boulogna sausage from the garbage heap. The bullet-headed boy winked at us, selected an empty can from the heap, produced a piece of string from his pocket, and grasped the terrier by the collar. But only for a moment. With a rush of concentrated fury it flew at his legs, gave him a sharp snap, and darted back to its sausage, with a warning glean of its eyes in our direction.

"Ow," yelled the boy, doubling up, "'e's bit me sumpfin' cruel! You see if I daon't brain 'im for that!"

He snatched up an axe and brandished it. The terrier dropped its sausage and showed its little pointed teeth.

We three, with one impulse, flung ourselves between it and the boy.

"You dare touch that dog," shouted Angel.

"Oo's goin' to stop me, Mister Nosey Parker?" sneered the boy, with a flourish of his axe.

"I am," said Angel, "'cos it's my dog, see?" He coolly turned his back on the boy and bent over the terrier, who came to him cautiously, sniffing his legs.

"Your dorg!" scoffed the boy, "w'y daon't yer feed 'im then? 'E's arf starved, 'e is. Yer ought to be 'ad up fer perwention of cruelty to hanimals. It's a disgrice."

"We've only owned him a little while," explained Angel, "and he strayed away. He'll be jolly glad to get home again—won't you, Rover? Give us that bit of string and I'll lead him."

The boy, suddenly friendly, in one of those swiftly changing moods of boyhood, assisted in the tying of the string to the little dog's collar, though he cast a longing look at its stout fringed tail that was so admirably built to further the riotous bouncings of an empty tin can.

We led him triumphantly through the shop into the street, and we trotted in silence for a space, staring in rapt admiration of the little black paws that padded along in such a business-like fashion beside us, the knowingly-pointed ears, and valiant tail carried at a jaunty angle above the sturdy hind-quarters.

When we reached our own quiet street we stopped. The Seraph looked in the bag of buns.

"May I give him mine?" he asked.

"Good boy," said Angel, and The Seraph presented the little dog with the large currant bun. We were charmed indeed when he sat up for it in the most approved trained-animal posture, with short fore-legs crossed on his plump hairy breast. How often had we longed for the joyous companionship of our old four-footed friends, the comfort of a soft warm tongue on one's cheek, the sensitive muzzle pressed into one's palm, the look of loving confidence in the deep brown eyes.

But our governess hated dogs, and we were expressly forbidden to so much as pat the head of any stray canine that thrust an inquiring nose between the bars of her gate. Therefore, it was with sad foreboding that we watched the bun disappear. The Scotty held it between his forepaws and bit off decent mouthfuls, without sign of greed or haste. By his bearing and by his shining silver collar we knew that he was, or had been some one's cherished pet.

The bun had cheered him wonderfully, for, as we moved homeward, he leaped playfully at his leash, and catching it in his teeth, worried it in an abandon of glee.

We made no plans. We had no hopes. We merely were drawn by habit and necessity to the place where, we knew, desperate trouble awaited us. At the gate we halted.

"We might take him into the yard to play for a little while," I said. "P'raps we could carry him upstairs wrapped in my coat, and hide him under the bed. Maybe he'd get so awful good he'd live under the bed, and we could save our food for him, and get up nights to play with him."

As if to show his appreciation of the plan, the Scotty raised himself on his hind quarters, paddling the air with his forepaws in excited appeal, and giving vent to sharp, staccato barks.

The next instant the front door was thrown open, and Mary Ellen, her cap askew, dashed down the steps to meet us.

"Wheriver have ye been so long?" she ejaculated. "An' have ye been tould the news? 'Tis hersilf has taken a tumble, an' put her knee out so the doctor says. I'd jist been clanin' up the panthry shelves, an' she got up on a chair to see whether I'd maybe missed the top one, an' I must have left a knob of soap on the chair, for the next thing I knew she was stretched on the flure, an' I had to fetch the doctor, an' he says she'll have to kape to her room for a fortnight or more, an' the lord only knows how I'm to wait on her an' manage the three av ye, wid yer pranks an' all!"

The Seraph turned a somersault; then I turned a somersault; then Angel turned two; then the Scotty sat up, paddled the air with his forepaws, and sneezed twice.

Mary Ellen was genuinely shocked.

"I do belave," she said, solemnly, "that you've stones in your breasts instid av hearts—but you're jist like all men folk—if they think there's a good time in sthore for them, the women can suffer all they like, more shame to them." She was so worked up that she did not notice that the little dog had followed us into the house, until he was sitting up in the kitchen, his forepaws paddling the air, his tail thudding on the floor. Then she said, brimming over with admiration, though she tried to look severe;

"And if you think I'll have sthray dawgs in my kitchen you're very much mistook.... Aw, it's a darlin' wee thing, isn't it?" For the Scotty, seeing that she had seated herself, had jumped to her lap and now sat there, nose in air, looking superbly at home.

We closed about her, telling, in chorus, the story of the bullet-headed boy, and the garbage heap, and enlarging dramatically on the episode of the tin can.

"And may we please keep him?" we entreated, "just for a few days till we find the owner of it! Mrs. Handsomebody will never know, for he can live in the coal cellar 'cept when we take him little walks on a string!"

"If you don't let me do this I'll never marry you, so there!" This from Angel.

"Have it your own way, thin," moaned Mary Ellen, capitulating, as usual, under the fire of Angel's pleading, "but moind, if she iver finds us out, it's mesilf will be walkin' the streets widout a character."

II

So began a merry interlude in the drabness of the Handsomebody regime. Mrs. Handsomebody kept to her room for nearly three weeks, unable to put her foot to the floor. On the first evening, she called us to her bedside; and, while we stood in a row, bewildered before the phenomenon of seeing her prostrate, she lectured us solemnly on the duties and responsibilities of our position, and implored us not to make the period of her enforced retirement a nightmare, because of our pranks. We promised, marvelling that bed-clothes could be kept so tidy, and fervently wishing she would display the knee that had been so severely "put out." It was a commonplace for Mrs. Handsomebody's temper to be thus afflicted, but her knee, never.

When we returned to the kitchen, we found Mary Ellen sitting in a pensive attitude. Her forefinger pressed against her knit brow, her stout ankles crossed.

"The little dawg has been tellin' me a secret," she volunteered in explanation, "a deep, dark secret. She's been tellin' me in a way of spakin' that she's a lady-dawg, God help her."

"But how did she tell you, Mary Ellen? Did she speak out loud?" We were breathless with excitement.

"She did not. I ast her, for I had me suspicion, if she was a lady-dawg an' I sez—'If yez are wag yer tail three times,' an' the words was scarce off me tongue, whin she wagged her tail three times."

It was a marvel. Oh, these were going to be great days!

"If you're a lady-dog, wag your tail three times," I ordered, squatting to peer into the sagacious brown eyes.

Three times the stocky tail thumped the floor.

Then Angel put the question, and was answered with equal promptitude.

It was The Seraph's turn. With an insinuating smile he said: "If you are a gennelman dog wag your tail fwee times."

But before there was time for so much as one wag, Mary Ellen caught the too-eager tail in a restraining grasp.

"Now have done wid your nonsinse," she commanded. "Ye'll have the pore crature that worried it'll set up barkin', an' if the misthress did know, there be's a dawg in the house, she'd likely just throw a fit an' die."

"Is it a vewy barkable dog?" queried The Seraph.

"All dogs is barkable," said Mary Ellen, "and what we'll have to do is to kape her as quate as possible and pray that her owner'll come along this way, for turn her out I will not. It's easy seein' she's a pet be the ways of her."

"It says 'Giftie' on her collar," Angel announced, separating the short, shaggy coat to read. "That must be her name. Hello, Giftie! Sit up, Giftie!"

So Giftie she was, and, for a long three weeks, our joy and our delight.

Was ever little body so full of spirit and the pride of life? The kitchen became her own domain where the three of us fought for the position of her most abject slave. Even Mary Ellen could scarcely work for watching her antics with an old stocking, which she pretended was a rat. Once she caught a live mouse and set us all shouting. Mary Ellen, in her excitement, upset a gravy-boat of hot gravy, and The Seraph slipped and sat down in it, and Giftie gambolling, mouse in mouth, ran through it and tracked it over the freshly scrubbed boards. If she had been a tigress with her prey she could not have been more ferocious with the mouse. She snarled at it: she worried it: she threw it up in the air and caught it: she laid it on the scullery floor and rolled on it: and when, finally, it ceased to squirm beneath her, she lay quite still, gazing pensively up at us with liquid eyes, and only now and then twitching her hind-quarters to remind her victim that she was still on the job.

One never-to-be-forgotten day she rollicked into the kitchen proudly carrying Mrs. Handsomebody's solemn black shoe, which had been standing with its mate beneath Mrs. Handsomebody's bed. Before our horrified eyes, she worried it till the shoe-laces cracked about her head; threw it up and caught it, as she had the mouse; then taking it to her own bed in the scullery, she laid it there and rolled on it.

When Mary Ellen had wrested the shoe from Giftie, she crept upstairs, her heart in her mouth, and restored it to its place beneath the bed.

"It was a marvel," she said afterwards, "how the scallywag did what she did widout wakenin' her, for there was the mistress sleepin' on the broad of her back, and her two shoes, and her bed-socks scattered over the flure, and the pot of cold crame knocked off the chair at the head of her bed, and the half of it et. It's mesilf will dance for joy whin that little tormint gets took away."

Inquiries were made of all the errand boys, but not one had heard of a lost dog. We came to dread the sound of the door-bell lest it should herald some determined grown-up come to snatch our treasure from us. Mr. Watlin, the butcher's young man, and Mary Ellen's favoured "follower" of the moment, took a lively interest in the affair. He was of the opinion that if Mrs. Handsomebody once saw the dog nothing would induce her to send it away. And he brought offerings of raw meat in his pocket to make her plump and glossy. Giftie grew plumper and glossier every day.

Then, when two weeks had passed, she achieved the crowning triumph of her stay with us. It was a heavy morning of dense November fog, and the gas was still burning in the dining-room when we came down to breakfast. Mary Ellen did not bring us our porridge, as usual, neither did Giftie run in to greet us; so, after a moment's impatient wriggling in our chairs, we went to the kitchen to investigate. Giftie was nowhere in sight. Mary Ellen sat in an attitude of complete abandon, by the dresser, her apron over her head, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. Was Giftie dead? Had her owner come to fetch her? What horror had overcast the sun? We deluged her with questions, pulling the apron off her head, and dragging her from the chair.

"Och, it's a terror she is," Mary Ellen said, at last. "Come wid me to the scullery an' ye'll see what she's got in the bed wid her."

There was not much light in the scullery so we could not at first distinguish what lay on the mat beside Giftie. It moved; it snuffled; no—they moved; they snuffled. There were three of them. All at once it burst upon us that they were puppies—her puppies—our puppies—one apiece! We flopped on the floor beside her. She darted from her bed—licked our hands—snapped at our ankles—ran back to them—and, finally tremulous with excitement, allowed us to take them in our arms (The Seraph wrapped his in the skirt of his fresh holland smock) and sit blissfully in a row.

We stroked the soft licked fur of their glossy coats; we examined their tiny sharp black nails; their blindness only endeared them the more to us.

There we were found by Mr. Watlin.

"'Ere's a picnic," he said. "'Ere's a bloomin' picnic." He caught up the nearest puppy, and turned it over in an experienced hand. "Tiles must be cut," he added.

"Tails cut! Oh, no," I expostulated, "Giftie's tail isn't cut. Please don't."

"All terriers should 'ave their tiles cut," said Mr. Watlin, firmly. "If the mother dog's tile isn't cut, is that any reason w'y 'er hoffspring should be disfigured in a like manner? Now's the time."

"But it'll hurt," pleaded The Seraph. Do you do it wif a knife?"

"I bites 'em orf," replied Mr. Watlin, laconically, "an' it don't 'urt a bit."

"In this world," he went on, "a lot depends on the way you does a thing. F'rinstance, when I kill a lamb or a steer, do I kill 'im brutally? Not at all. I runs 'im up an' down the slaughter yard to get 'is circulation up—I strokes 'im on the neck, an' tells 'im wot a fine feller 'e is, till 'e's in such good spirits that 'e tikes the killin' as a joke. Just a part of the gime, as it were. Sime with these 'ere pups. They'd like 'aving their tiles bit orf by me."

We looked at the puppies doubtfully. It was hard to believe that they would really like it, and we were relieved when Mary Ellen broke in—

"They will not be cut, nor bit, nor interfered wid in anny way. If Giftie's owner likes a long tail on her, he'd want a long tail on her puppies wouldn't he? That stands to reason, Mr. Watlin, don't it? and the owner may walk in here anny day."

How we hated that nebulous owner! And now another cloud loomed on our horizon. Mrs. Handsomebody was getting better. She had sat up on a chair by the bedside; she had, with Mary Ellen's help, walked across the room; she had, all alone, walked down the hallway; she had come to the head of the stairs. She was like the man in the ghost story, who, fresh from his grave, called to his wife—snugly sleeping above—"Mary, I'm at the foot of the stairs.... Mary, I'm half way up." We, too, shuddered in anticipation. And Mary Ellen was almost as nervous as we, for hers was the responsibility.

The puppies were more entrancing every day. Tiny slips of dewy blue showed between their furry eyelids. They learned to walk, and roll over, and to right themselves after being turned over by their mother's playful paws. We were squatting on the floor very busy with them, when Mary Ellen entered, round-eyed with fear.

"'Tis herself is in the dining-room," she gasped.

"Not Mrs. Handsomebody?"

"Sorra a thing else. Put them pups in their basket and come out and shut the dure. Ye'd better go into the yard and be at some quate game. Oh, Lord—" and she hurried back to her mistress.

This time we were safe, but there was tomorrow ahead, with certain discovery.

Mr. Watlin, propped in the open doorway, brought his ingenious mind to bear upon the problem.

"Now if Mrs. 'Andsomebody could be put under an obligation to that little dog, she'd probably tike it right into 'er 'eart and 'ome. If that little dog, f'rinstance, should save Mrs. 'Andsomebody from drowning—does she ever go in bathing?"

"Likely, at her age, in December!" sneered Mary Ellen. "Try again."

"We might hold her under water in the bath-tub till Giftie would fish her out," suggested Angel.

It was a colourful spectacle to visualize, and we dallied with it a space before abandoning it as impracticable. It seemed too much to hope that Mrs. Handsomebody, the bath-tub and Giftie could all be assembled at the critical moment.

But Mr. Watlin was not to be rebuffed. "Then there's burglars," he went on. "Suppose Mrs. 'Andsomebody's valuables was to be rescued from a burglar for 'er. She wouldn't be able to do enough for a little dog that 'ad chased 'im out of this very scullery, f'rinstance."

We were thrilled by hope. "But where is the burglar?"

"Well, I could produce the burglar in a pinch. He's reformed but he'd undertake a little job like this if he know'd it was for partic'lar friends of mine, and not a bit of 'arm in it. Is it a go?"

Mystery brooded over the house of Handsomebody all that afternoon and evening. We were allowed to have no finger in this portentous pie.

Mr. Watlin, with some small assistance from Mary Ellen, engineered the thing himself. We were sent to bed at the usual hour, and played at burglars on, and under, the bed, to while away the intervening hours.

III

It must have been almost midnight when our hearts were made to beat in our throats by such an uproar in the scullery, as seemed to cleave the darkness like a thunderbolt. Giftie appeared to be choking in her effort to unloose, all at once, a torrent of ferocious barks. A window shook, glass broke, a shutter slammed. Then followed a moment of awful silence before she settled down to a methodical yapping. We heard Mary Ellen run down the back stairs.

We clambered out of bed, and tumbled into the hall. Mrs. Handsomebody was there before us, a gigantic shadow of her thrown on the walls by a candle she held unsteadily in her hand.

"Merciful Heaven!" she was saying under her breath. "What can have happened!" She motioned us to fall in behind her, and it was plain that, crippled as she was, she intended to interpose her body, in its flannel nightgown, between us and whatever danger lurked below. She made the descent clinging to the bannister, the three of us jostling each other in the rear, and, once, nearly precipitated on her back by a caper of Angel's on the edge of a step.

Mary Ellen met us in the dining-room, her face pale with excitement.

"It was a burglar in the scullery, ma'am," she burst out, never looking at us. "It's a mercy we wasn't all murthered in our beds this night—the windy's broke, an' the shutter's pried loose, and a bag full av all the things off the sideboard is settin' on the flure. Sure, I heard the steps av him runnin' full lick down the lane—"

Mrs. Handsomebody looked at her bereft sideboard, and dropped into a chair with a gasp.

"Are you sure he's gone?"

"Yes'm. I stuck me head out the windy and seen him."

"You're a brave girl. Get me the bitters. Yes, and lock the door into the scullery—stay, what dog was it that barked?"

Mary Ellen hung her head. "The dawg the little boys have been keepin' this bit while. It does no harm at all."

Mrs. Handsomebody's face was a mask. She said composedly: "Well, get the bitters and then bring in the dog."

Mary Ellen did as she was bid.

Enter now Giftie, tail up, ears pricked, the picture of conscious well-doing. She went straight to Mrs. Handsomebody, sniffed her ankles; wagged her tail in appreciation of the odour of the liniment that emanated from the injured lady; and finally sat up before her with an ingratiating paddling of the forepaws.

Mrs. Handsomebody regarded her sombrely. "May I ask how long you have harboured this stray?"

"Just since the day ye fell, ma'am, and I was that upset that I was scarce in me right moind, and indade, it's hersilf has saved us from robbery and mebbe murther this night wid her barkin'."

Giftie, tired of sitting up without reward or encouragement, had trotted quietly out of the room. She now came back waddling with importance, a pup in her mouth. She laid it at the feet of our governess as though to say—"There now, what do you make of that?"

"Horrors!" cried Mrs. Handsomebody, drawing back, as though the puppy were a serpent.

With a joyful kick of the heels, Giftie was off again. In breathless silence we waited. The second puppy, sleepy and squirming, was laid beside its brother.

"I presume you have another?" said Mrs. Handsomebody in a controlled voice but gripping the arms of her chair.

Giftie brought the other.

"Oh, Mrs. Handsomebody!" I implored, "please, please, let us keep them! They're as good as gold, and they'd guard the house and everything—and maybe save you from drowning some time. Don't take them from us, pl-ease!" The Seraph, in sympathy, began to cry. Angel picked up his pup and held it against his breast.

"Silence!" rapped out Mrs. Handsomebody. "Mary Ellen, fetch The Times. And just look in the scullery to see that all is quiet there. Fetch the bag left by the robber."

Mrs. Handsomebody sipped her bitters while Mary Ellen did her behests. Each of us cuddled his own puppy, and Giftie began an energetic search for a flea.

Had our hearts not been in the grip of apprehension we should have laughed at the figure cut by Mary Ellen, panting under the sack of plate. Mr. Watlin's burglar had done his job well, and Mrs. Handsomebody groaned when she saw her most cherished possessions tumbled in such a reckless fashion. But not a thing was missing, and when they had been replaced on the sideboard, she turned briskly to The Times. She ran a long white finger down the Lost column.

"Ah, here we are—" she announced, complacently—"Pay attention, boys," and she read:

"Reward for information leading to the recovery of Scottish terrier, female, wearing silver collar engraved, Giftie, stolen or strayed from 5 Argyle Road, on November third. Anyone detaining after this notice will be prosecuted."

"You see," exclaimed Mrs. Handsomebody, triumphantly, "you have made yourselves liable to a heavy fine, or even imprisonment, by detaining what is, I presume, a very valuable beast. Argyle Road—a very good locality—is not too great a distance for you to walk. In the morning, we shall return that dog and her—er—young, and I see nothing amiss in your accepting a suitable reward. Not a word now! No insubordination, mind. I won't have it. David, John, Alexander, listen—I am in no mood to be trifled with. Put down those squirming creatures and march to your bed!"

Giftie's hour had struck. It was no use rebelling. With bitter composure, we carried our beloved to the scullery, and laid them on the mat beside their mother. It was not until we were safe in bed that our pent up fury broke loose; and we pounded the pillows, and cursed the name of womankind.

Women! Tyrants! Mischievous busybodies!

"When I'm a man," said Angel, suddenly, "I'll marry a woman, and I'll beat her every day."

"Me too!" cried The Seraph, stoutly, "I'll mawy two—fat ones—an' beat 'em bofe."

For myself, I was inclined for an unhampered bachelorhood, but it soothed my wounded spirit to picture these three hapless females in the grip of Angel and The Seraph, and the music of their outcries lulled me fast asleep.

IV

We found next morning that Mrs. Handsomebody and Mary Ellen had never gone back to bed all night, but had kept watch in the dining-room till daylight, when Mary Ellen had been dispatched to find a policeman. He was in the kitchen now, a commanding figure, making notes in a little book; and seeming to derive great benefit from his conversation with Mary Ellen.

A new arrival was a wheeled-chair to convey Mrs. Handsomebody to 5 Argyle Road. Therefore, about ten o'clock, after the most exhausting preparations, we set out, a singular party; Mrs. Handsomebody enthroned in the chair, mistress of herself (and every one else) her black-gloved hands crossed on her lap; Mary Ellen, hot, straining over the wheeled-chair, lest her mistress get an unseemly bump at the crossing; Angel and I, bearing between us a covered hamper containing the three pups; while Giftie and The Seraph in the abandon of youth and ignorance, sported on the outskirts of the group.

The way was long, and our arms ached with the weight of the hamper, when we stopped before the gate of Number 5 Argyle Road. It was an imposing house in its own grounds; large clipped trees stood about; and a bent old gardener was doing something to one of those, while a tall grey-haired woman in mannish tweeds superintended the work. A Scottish terrier, fit mate for Giftie, was digging furiously at the root of the tree. He discovered our presence first, and, before we had time to introduce ourselves, he and Giftie, with bristling backs, were jumping about one another in a sort of friendly hostility, and filling the air with barks of greeting. Giftie, then, darted for the hamper, sniffed it, ran back to the other Scotty, and bit him so that he yelped. All was confusion.

The tall lady came toward us smiling broadly. She exclaimed above the din: "How can I thank you? I see you have brought home our little wanderer—Giftie, how can you treat Colin so? Poor Colin—lift him up, Giles, she's going to bite him again—I suppose there are pups in the hamper. Let's see, boys."

We uncovered the hamper proudly. The three puppies lay curled like little sea anemones. Giftie tried to get in the hamper with them, but her mistress restrained her gently, while she lifted them out, one by one, and examined each, critically, Mrs. Handsomebody watching her all the while with an expression of disapproval, that bordered on disgust.

The tall lady, quite oblivious to all this, seated herself on the ground with the puppies on her lap, muttering ecstatically-"Perfect beauties—what luck! Giftie, you're a wonder!" Whereupon Giftie tried to kiss her on the ear. The bent old gardener, brought Colin to us and made him shake hands, and we thought him very long-faced and dour after roguish Giftie.

Presently Mrs. Handsomebody spoke in her most decisive tones:

"I fear I shall take a chill if I remain in this damp place. Come boys. Mary Ellen, kindly reverse the chair!"

The tall lady rose to her feet.

"Oh, please, come in and have something hot, and tell me all about it. And there's the reward."

"I thank you," replied Mrs. Handsomebody, "I shall not venture to leave my chair. As for the dog, it came to us several weeks ago, when I was ill; hence the delay in returning it—and its young."

"Your grandchildren?" questioned the tall lady abruptly.

"My pupils, and, for the present, my wards," replied Mrs. Handsomebody frigidly.

"Wish I could steal them," said the lady. "If I'd dogs and boys too, I'd be happy. These are darlings." She turned to us then. "Boys, do you like Giftie very much?"

"Oh, we love her," we chorused.

"Would you like one of her puppies for your very own to keep?"

Would we? We couldn't speak for longing.

Mrs. Handsomebody spoke for us.

"I allow no pets, canine or otherwise."

The tall lady scowled. "But these are valuable dogs."

"All dogs are alike to me. Canines."

The tall lady gave something between a snort and a sigh.

"Would you allow them to accept a sovereign apiece then?"

"That would be permissible."

"I shall be back directly," and with astonishing speed she ran to the house with Colin and Giftie barking on either side of her. It was but a moment till she returned and pressed a golden sovereign into each languid hand. The sight of so much bullion all at once braced us for the moment, and we forgot to be miserable. She came with us to the gate, asking a dozen questions about ourselves, and our father, and Giftie's stay with us. Giftie had to be restrained from following us, and with sinking hearts we kissed her little black nose and said good-bye.

"Good-bye!" called the tall lady, "come again any time! Come and spend the day with us!"

Our governess called us peremptorily. She was half a block in advance.

When we reached the chair, she said, in a conciliatory tone: "I shall arrange for you to have some unusual treat from your reward, some concerts and lantern lectures suited to your years, and maybe, as the Christmas Season approaches, even a pantomime. What do you say?"

I looked at the woman. Was she mad to imagine that such paltry, sickly treats could make up for the loss of three pups whose eyes were beginning to open? My own eyes smarted with tears. I looked at Mary Ellen. Two bright drops hung on her cheeks as she laboured behind the chair. I looked at Angel. He was balancing himself on the curb with an air of desperate indifference. I could hear The Seraph weeping as he brought up the rear.

I lingered behind to offer him a suck of a piece of licorice I had. Then I saw that he had stopped and was hunched above the grating of a sewer. I could but think that his spirits had reached such an ebb that nothing save the contemplation of the foulest depths might salve his misery. But I was mistaken! His hand moved above the grating. Something flashed. Then I swelled my chest with pride in him. Truly, The Seraph was a brother to be proud of—a fellow of sturdy passions, not to be trifled with!

He had chucked his sovereign down the sewer!



Chapter V: Freedom

I

Life became dull indeed after Giftie was taken from us. November drew on to December; beating rains kept us indoors for days at a time. Mrs. Handsomebody had a horror of wet feet. With faces pressed against streaming window panes, we watched for the blurred progress of the lamplighter down the street, as the one excitement of the day. Even our friend the Bishop deserted us and went for a long stay in the south of France. Angel developed a sore throat just before Christmas so we had no part in the Christmas music in the Cathedral. The toy pistols sent by our father did not arrive till a fortnight after Christmas, and when they did arrive, the joy of possessing them was short-lived, for after Angel had cracked a pane of glass with his, and I had hit Mary Ellen on the ear, so that it was swollen and red for days, Mrs. Handsomebody confiscated them all as dangerous weapons to be kept till we were beyond her control.

She gave us each a new prayer book illustrated by pictures from the Gospel. I coloured the pictures in mine with crayons, and got my hands rulered for it; Angel traded his with one of the choir boys for a catapult which he successfully kept in concealment, with occasional forays on back alley cats. The Seraph was immensely pleased with his. He carried it about in his blouse, producing it, now and again, for reference, with pretended solemnity. His manner became unbearably clerical. I think he felt himself, at least, a Canon.

The winter wore on, and we became pale and peevish from lack of air, when all our little world was quickened by the coming of the telegram.

It had come while we were at lessons. Angel and I were standing before our governess with our hands behind our backs, when Mary Ellen burst in at the door. I had been stumbling over the names of the Channel Islands, and I stopped with my mouth open, relieved to see Mrs. Handsomebody's look of indignation raised from my face to that of Mary Ellen.

"Is that the way I have instructed you to enter the room where I sit?" asked Mrs. Handsomebody sternly.

"Lord, no, ma'am," gasped Mary Ellen, "but it's a telegram I've brung for ye, an' I thought as it was likely bad news, ye wouldn't want to be kept waitin' while I'd rap at the dure!" She presented the bit of paper between a wet thumb and forefinger.

"You may take your seats," said Mrs. Handsomebody coldly, to us.

Angel and I slipped into our places at the long book-littered table, on either side of The Seraph. We were thus placed, in order that his small plump person should prove an obstacle to familiar intercourse between Angel and myself during school hours; and, as our intercourse usually took the form of punches in the short ribs, or wet paper pellets aimed at an unoffending nose, The Seraph was frequently the recipient of such pleasantries. He bore them with good humour and stoicism.

"I'll bet anything," whispered Angel, over The Seraph's curls, "that it's a telegram from father saying that he's coming to fetch us! Wouldn't that be jolly? And she's waxy about it too—see how white she's gone!"

Mrs. Handsomebody rose.

"Boys," she said, in her most frigid manner, "owing to news of a sudden bereavement, I shall not be able to continue your lessons today—nor tomorrow. You will, I hope, make the most of the time intervening. You were in a shocking state of unpreparedness both in History and Geography this morning. Keep your little brother out of mischief, and remember," raising her long forefinger, "you are not, under any consideration, to leave the premises during my absence. As I have a great responsibility on your account, I wish to be certain that you are not endangering yourselves in the street. When I return we shall undertake some long walks."

Picking up the telegram from the floor where it had fallen, Mrs. Handsomebody slowly left the room, and closed the door behind her.

"She's always jawing about her responsibility," muttered Angel resentfully. "Why don't she let us run about like other boys 'stead of mewing us up like a parcel of girls? I'll be shot if I stand it!"

"What are the Channel Islands anyhow?" I asked to change the subject. "I'd just got to Jersey, Guernsey, when I got stuck."

"Jersey, Guernsey, Sweater, Sock and Darn," replied my elder, emphasizing the last named.

"Was the telegram from father?" interrupted The Seraph. "Is he comin' home?"

"No, silly," replied Angel. "Some one belonging to Mrs. Handsomebody is dead. She's goin' to the funeral, I s'pose. Whoever can it be, John? Didn't know she had any people."

"A whole day away," I mused, "it has never happened before."

I looked at Angel, and Angel looked at me—such looks as might be exchanged by lion cubs in captivity. We remembered our old home with its stretch of green lawn, the dogs, the stable with the sharp sweet smell of hay, and the pigeons, sliding and "rooketty-cooing" on the roof. Here, the windows of our schoolroom looked out on a planked back yard, and our daily walks with Mrs. Handsomebody were dreary outings indeed.

Of a sudden Angel threw his Geography into the air. His brown eyes were sparkling.

"We'll make a day of it, Lieutenant," he cried, slapping me on the shoulder. He always called me Lieutenant where mischief was a-foot. "Such a day as never was! We'll do every blessed thing we're s'posed not to! Most of all—we'll run the streets!"

At that instant, Mary Ellen opened the door and put her rosy face in.

"She do be packin' her bag, byes," she whispered, "she's takin' the eliven o'clock train, an' she won't be back till tomorrow at noon. Now what d'ye think o' that? She's awful quate, but she's niver spilt a tear fer him that I could spot."

"For who?"

"Why, her brother to be sure. It's him that's dead. It's a attack of brownkitis that's carried him off so suddint. Her only brother an'—yes, ma'a'm, I'm comin'," her broad face disappeared, "I was on'y tellin' the young gintlemen to be nice an' quate while I git their dinner ready. Will they be havin' the cold mutten from yisterday ma'a'm?" Her voice trailed down the hall.

Presently we heard the front door close. We raced to the top of the stairs.

"Is she gone?" we whispered, peering over the bannister into the hall below. But, of course, she was gone, else Mary Ellen would never dare to stand thus in the open doorway, gaping up and down the street! We slid recklessly down the hand-rail. It was the first infringement of rules—the wig was on the green! We crowded about Mary Ellen in the doorway, sniffing the air.

"Och, it's a bad lot ye are!" said she, taking The Seraph under the arms and swinging him out over the steps, "shure it's small wonder the missus is strict wid ye, else ye'd be ridin' rough-shod over her as ye do over me! It's jist man-nature, mind ye—ye can't help it!"

"Well, it's not man-nature to be mewed up as she does us," said Angel, swaggering, "and, I don't know what you mean to do, Mary Ellen, but we mean to take a day off, so there!" He nodded his curly head defiantly at her.

"Now, listen here, byes," said Mary Ellen, turning sober all of a sudden, and shutting the door, "you come right out to the kitchen wid me, an' we'll talk this thing over. I've got a word to say to ye."

She led the way down the hall and through the dining-room with its atmosphere of haircloth, into the more friendly kitchen, where even the oppressions of Mrs. Handsomebody could not quite subdue the bounding spirits of Mary Ellen.

Angel sallied to the cupboard. "Bother!" he said, discontentedly, investigating the cake-box, "that same old seedy-cake! Won't you please make us a treat today, Mary Ellen? Jam tarts or some sticky sort of cake like you see in the pastry shop window."

"That's the very thing I was goin' to speak about, my dear," Mary Ellen replied, "if ye'll jist howld yer horses." Before proceeding, she cut us each, herself included, a slice of the seed cake, and, when we were all munching (save Angel, who was busy picking the seeds out of his cake) she went on—

"Now, as well ye know, I've worked here manny a long month, and I've had followers a-plinty, yit there's noan o' thim I like the same as Mr. Watlin, the butcher's young man, an' it makes me blush wid shame, whin I think that after all the pippermints, an' gum drops, an' jawbone breakers he's give me, not to speak of minsthral shows an' rides on the tram-cars, an' I've niver given him so much as a cup o' tay in this kitchen. Not wan cup o' tay, mind ye!"

We shook our heads commiseratingly. Angel flicked his last caraway seed at her—

"Well," he said, with a wink, "you gave him something better than tea—I saw you!"

"Aw, well, my dear," replied Mary Ellen, without smiling, "a man that do be boardin' all the time likes a little attintion sometimes—an' a taste o' home cookin'. Now hark to my plan. I mane to have a little feast of oyster stew, an' cake, an' coffee, an' the like this very night, fer Mr. Watlin an' me, an' yersilves. You kin have yours in the dining-room like little gintlemen, an' him an' me'll ate in the kitchen here. Thin, after the supper, ye kin come out an' hear Mr. Watlin play on the fiddle. He plays somethin' grand, havin' larned off the best masters. It'll be a rale treat fer ye! The missus 'll niver be the wiser, an' we'll all git a taste o' freedom, d'ye see?"

We were unanimous in our approval, The Seraph expressing his by a somersault.

"But," said Angel, "there's just one thing, Mary Ellen; if there's going to be a party you and Mr. Watlin have got to have yours in the dining-room the same as us. It'll be ever so much jollier, and more like a real party."

"Thrue fer ye, Master Angel!" cried Mary Ellen heartily, "sure, there's noan o' the stiff-neck about ye, an' ye'll git yer fill av oysters an' cake fer that, mark my words! As fer my Mr. Watlin, there ain't a claner, smarter feller to be found annywheres. But, oh, if the mistress was to find it out—" she turned pale with apprehension.

"How could she?" we assured her. Every curtain would be drawn, and, besides, Mrs. Handsomebody was not intimate with her neighbours.

Mary Ellen gave us our cold mutton and rice pudding that day in free and easy fashion. She did not place the dishes and cutlery with that mathematical precision demanded of her by Mrs. Handsomebody, but scattered them over the cloth in a promiscuous way that we found very exhilarating. And, instead of Mrs. Handsomebody's austere figure dominating our repast, there was Mary Ellen, resting her red knuckles on the table-cloth, and fairly bubbling over with plans for the prospective entertainment of her lover! Our hearts went out to the good girl and her Mr. Watlin. We began to think of him as a dear friend.

"Now, my dears," said she, when the meal was over, "take yourselves off while I clane up and do my shoppin', but fer pity's sake, don't lave the front garden, fer if annything was to happen to ye—"

Angel cut her short with—"None of that Mary Ellen! This is our day too, and we shall do what we jolly well please!" He completed his protest by throwing himself bodily on the stout domestic, and The Seraph and I, though we had eaten to repletion, followed his example. Mary Ellen, howbeit, was a match for the three of us, and bundled us out of the side entrance into the laneway, triumphantly locking the door upon us.

Without a look behind, we scampered to the street, and then stood still, staring at each other, dazzled by the vista that opened up before us—what to do with these glorious hours of freedom!

II

It was one of those late February days, when Nature, after months of frozen disregard for man, of a sudden smiles, and you see that her face has grown quite young, and that she is filled with gracious intent towards you. The bare limbs of the chestnut trees before the house looked shiny against the dim blue of the sky; they seemed to strain upward toward the light and warmth. A score of sparrows were busy on the roadway.

After all, it was The Seraph who made the first dash, who took the bit in his milk-teeth, as it were; and, without a by-your-leave, strutted across the strip of sod to the road, and so set forth. He carried his head very high, and he would now and then shake it in that manner peculiar to the equine race. Angel and I followed closely with occasional caracoles, and cavortings, and scornful blowings through the nostrils. All three shied at a lamp-post. It needed no second glance to perceive that we were mettlesome steeds out for exercise, and feeling our oats.

A very old gentleman with an umbrella and top hat saw us. He rushed to the curb waving his umbrella and crying, "Whoa, whoa," but we only arched our proud necks and broke into a gallop. How the pavement echoed under our flying hoofs! How warmly the sun glistened on our sleek coats! How pleasant the jingling sound of the harness and the smell of the harness oil!

We left the decorous street we knew so well, and turned into narrow and untidy Henwood street. Shabby houses and shops were jumbled promiscuously together, and the pavement was full of holes. From the far end of it came the joyous tones of a hand-organ, vibrating on the early afternoon air. The eaves on the sunny side of the street were dripping. A fishmonger's shop sent forth its robust odour. The scarlet of a lobster caught our eyes as we flew past.

Could it be possible that the player of the organ was our old friend Tony, to whose monkey we had often handed our coppers through the palings?

We were horses no longer. Who had time for such pretence when Tony was grinding out "White Wings" with all his might? Angel and I took to the side-walk and ran with all speed, leaving the poor little Seraph pumping away in the rear, not quite certain whether he was horse or boy, but determined not to be outdistanced.

It was indeed Tony, and his white teeth gleamed when he saw us coming, and his eyebrows went up to his hat brim at sight of us bareheaded and alone, who always handed our coppers through the palings. And Anita, the monkey, was there, looking rather pale and sickly after the long Winter, but full of pluck, grinning, as she doffed her gold-braided hat.

Angel and The Seraph rarely had any money. The little allowance father gave us through Mrs. Handsomebody, burnt a hole in their pockets till it was expended on toffee or marshmallows. But I was made of different stuff, and by the end of the week, I was the financial strength of the trio. It was I, who now fished out a penny which Angel snatched from me. He craved the joy of the giver, and chuckled when Anita's small pink palm closed over the coin. But I was too happy to quarrel with him. Every one seemed in good-humour that day. Windows were pushed up and small change tossed out, or dropped in Anita's cup as she perched, chattering, on the sill. A stout grocer in his white apron gave her a little pink biscuit to nibble. Half-grown girls lolled on the handles of perambulators to listen, while their charges pulled faces of fear at the supple Anita.

We three sat on the curb close to the organ, our small heads reeling with the melodies that thundered from it. When Tony moved on, we rose and followed him. At the next corner he rested his organ on its one leg and looked down at us.

"You betta go home," he admonished, "your mamma not like."

"We're going to run the streets today," I said, manfully, "Mrs. Handsomebody is away at a funeral."

"A funer-al," repeated Tony, "she know—about dis?"

"No—" I replied, "but Mary Ellen does."

"She a beeg lady—dis Marie Ellen?"

"Oh, yes. She's awfully big. Bigger than you, and strong—"

"Oh, all right," said Tony, "but don' you get los'." We helped him to carry the organ. It was a new one he said, and very expensive to hire. We asked him endless questions we had always been wanting to ask—about Italy, and his parents, and sisters, and we told him about father in South America, and about the party that night for Mr. Watlin.

From street to street we wandered till we were gloriously and irrevocably lost. Angel and I helped to grind the organ and The Seraph even presented himself at doors with Anita's little tin cup in his hand. And either because he was so little or his eyelashes were so long, he never came back empty-handed. Tony seemed well content with our company.

So the afternoon sped on. Narrow alleys we played in, and wide streets, and once we passed through a crowded thoroughfare where we had to hug close to the organ, and once we met Tony's brother Salvator, who gave us each a long red banana.

At last Tony, looking down at us with a smile, said:

"Jus' one more tune here, then I tak' you home. See? De sun's gettin' low and dat little one's gettin' tired. I tak' you home in a minute."

We, remembering the party, were nothing loath. Poor Mary Ellen would be in a state by now, and our legs had almost given out.

This street was a quiet one. At the corner some untidy little girls danced on the pavement, while a group of boys stood by, loafing against the window of a small liquor shop, and occasionally scattering the girls by some threat of hair-pulling or kissing.

The western sky was saffron. The eaves, that had been dripping all day, now wore silent rows of icicles. Possibly the little girls danced to keep warm. The Seraph began to whimper.

"This air stwikes cold on my legs," he murmured.

I sat down beside him on the curb, and we snuggled together for warmth.

"Never mind, old sport," I whispered cheerily. "Just think of the goodies Mary Ellen's making for us! Pretty soon we'll be home."

While I strove to revive The Seraph's flagging spirits, Angel had strolled along the street to watch the little girls. He had an eye for the gentle sex even when their fairness was disguised by dirty pinafores and stiff pigtails. I did not see what happened, but above the noise of the organ I heard first, shouts of derision and anger, and then my brother's voice crying out in pain.

I pushed aside the clinging Seraph and ran to where I saw the two groups melted into one about a pair of combatants. The little girls parted to let me through. I saw then that the contending parties were Angel and a boy whose tousled head was fully six inches above my brother's. He had gripped Angel by the back of the neck with one hand, while with the other he struck blows that sounded horrible to me. Angel was hitting out wildly. When the boy saw me, he hooked his leg behind Angel's and threw him on his back with deadly ease, at the same time administering a kick in the stomach. He turned then to me with a leer.

"Well, pretty," he simpered, "does yer want some too? I s'y fellers, 'ere's another Hangel comin' fer 'is dose. Put up yer little 'ooks then; an' I'll give yer two black 'osses an' a red driver! Aw, come on, sissy!"

I tried to remember what father had said about fighting. "Don't clutch and don't paw. Strike out from the shoulder like a gentleman." So, while the boy was talking, I struck out from the shoulder right on the end of his nose with my shut fist.

Whatever things I may achieve, never, ah, never shall I experience a thrill of triumph equal to that which made my blood dance when I saw a trickle—a goodly, rich red trickle!—of blood spurt from the bully's nose.

"Ow! Ow! Wesley! Oo's got a red driver on 'is own?" shouted his comrades. "Plug aw'y little 'un!"

He snarled horribly, showing his big front teeth. I could feel his breath hot on my face as he clutched me round the neck. I could see some boys holding Angel back, I could hear The Seraph's wail of "John! John!" Then, simultaneously there came a blow on my own nose, and a grasping of my collar, and a shaking that freed us of each other, for I was clutching him with fury equal to his own.

A minute passed before I could regain possession of myself. The street reeled, the organ seemed to be grinding in my own head, and yet I found that it was not playing at all, for there was Tony with it on his back, looking anxiously into my face, and firing a volley of invective after the big boy, who was retreating with his mates.

I looked up at the owner of the hand which still held my collar. He was a very thin young man with a pale face and quiet grey eyes.

Tony began to offer incoherent explanations.

"But who are they?" demanded the young man, "they don't seem to belong to this street."

"No, no, no," reiterated Tony, "dey are little fr-riends of mine—dey come for a walk with me. Oh, I shall get into some trouble for dis, I tink! It was all dose damn boys dat bully heem, an' when I would run to help, dere was my Anita lef' on da organ, an' I mus' not lose her!"

"It's all right," I explained to the young man, "we were just spending the afternoon with Tony, and it wasn't his fault we got to fighting, and—and did I do very badly please? Did you notice whether I pawed or not?"

"By George!" said the young man, "you made the claret flow!"

"It took two of them to hold me or I'd have got back at him," said Angel.

"It took fwee o' them to hold me," piped The Seraph, "or I'd have punched evwybody!"

"How did it start?" enquired the young man.

"That biggest one asked me my name," replied Angel, "and before I thought I'd said, 'Angel,' and that started them. Of course my real name is David, but I forgot for the moment."

"Pet names are a nuisance sometimes," said the young man, smiling, "I had one once. It was John Peel. But no one calls me that now."

"I will tak' dem home now," interrupted Tony. "Come," taking The Seraph's hand, "dere will be no more running da street for you little boys!"

"I'll walk along, too," said the young man, "I've nothing else to do."

I strode along at his side greatly elated. I was as hot as fire, and some of the gamin's blood was still on my hand. I cherished it secretly.

Although the young man had quiet, even sad, eyes, it turned out that he was wonderfully interesting. He had travelled considerably, and had even visited South America, yet he could not have been an engineer like father, building railroads, for he looked very poor.

I was sorry when we reached Mrs. Handsomebody's front door.

"Good-bye," he said, holding out his hand.

But a happy thought struck me. I told him about Mary Ellen's party. "And," I hurried on, "there'll be oysters and coffee and all sorts of good things to eat, and we'd like most awfully to have you join us if you will. Mary Ellen would be proud to entertain a friend of ours. Wouldn't she Angel?"

"Yes, and Tony can come too!" cried Angel. "We'll have a regular party!"

"Yes, yes, I will come to da party," said Tony, quickly, "I am vera hungry. You will egsplain to Mees Marie Ellen, yes?"

"John can 'splain anything," put in The Seraph.

"Oh, please come!" I pleaded, dragging the young man down the side passage. He suffered himself to be led as far as the back entrance, but, once there, he halted.

"Tony and I shall wait here," he said, "and you'll go in and send your Mary Ellen out to inspect us. We shall see what she thinks of such a surprise party before we venture in, eh, Tony?" He gave a queer little laugh.

"Yes, yes," said Tony, "I will leave da organ out sida, but Anita mus' come in. She is vera good monk in a party."

III

We three entered breathlessly. Who can describe the babble of our explanations and appeals to Mary Ellen's hospitality, and her reproaches for the fright we had given her? Howbeit, when the first clamour subsided, we perceived that Mary Ellen's Mr. Watlin was ensconced behind the stove, looking tremendously dressed up and embarrassed. He now came forward and shook each of us by the hand, quite enveloping our little paws in a great expanse of warm thick flesh, smelling of scented soap.

The greetings over, Mary Ellen and he conferred for a moment in the corner, then Mr. Watlin creaked across the kitchen on tiptoe (I fancy he could not yet bring himself to believe in Mrs. Handsomebody's entire absence from the house) and disappeared through the outer door into the yard where the young man and Tony and Anita waited.

"Now," said Mary Ellen, sternly, "ye've just got to abide by Mr. Watlin's decision. If he says they're passable, why, in they come, an' if he gives 'em their walkin' ticket, well an' good, an' not a squeak out o' ye. I've had about enough o' yer actions for wan day!"

"But he's a gentleman, Mary Ellen!" I insisted.

"Ay, an' the monkey's a lady, no doubt! I know the kind!" I had never seen Mary Ellen so sour.

But our fears for our friends were set at rest, for at that instant, the door opened and Mr. Watlin entered, followed by the young man and Tony, with Anita perching on his shoulder. Mary Ellen could not refrain from a broad smile at the spectacle. The kitchen was filled with delightful odours. The spirits of everyone seemed to rise at a bound.

"Good-evening to ye, Tony," said Mary Ellen, and then she turned to our new friend.

"I don't know how you call yourself, sir," she said, bluntly.

"You may call me Harry, if you will," he replied, after a slight hesitation.

Mary Ellen, with a keen look at him, said, "Won't you sit down, sir? The victuals will be on the table in the dining-room directly. Mr. Watlin, would ye mind givin' me a hand with them dish-covers?"

Mr. Watlin assisted Mary Ellen deftly, and with an air of proprietorship. He was a stout young man with a blond pompadour, and a smooth-shaven ruddy face. As soon as an opportunity offered, I asked him whether he had brought his fiddle. He smiled enigmatically.

"You shall see wot you shall see, and 'ear wot you shall 'ear," he replied.

In time the great tureen (Mrs. Handsomebody's silver plated one) was on the table and the guests were bidden to "sit in." Mary Ellen, full of dignity, seated herself in Mrs. Handsomebody's place behind the coffee urn, while Mr. Watlin drew forward the heavy armchair, which since the demise of Mr. Handsomebody, had been occupied by no one save the Unitarian minister when he took tea with us. Angel and The Seraph and I were ranged on one side of the table, and Tony and Harry on the other. Anita sat on the chair behind Tony, and every now and again she would push her head under his arm and peer shyly over the table, or reach with a thin little claw toward a morsel of food he was raising to his mouth.

It would be impossible to conceive of seven people with finer appetites, or of a hostess more determined that her guests should do themselves injury from over-eating. Although two of our company were unexpected, there was more than enough for every one. The oysters were followed by a Bedfordshire pudding, potatoes, cold ham, celery, several sorts of pastry, oranges and coffee. It was when we reached the lighter portion of the feast that tongues were unloosed, and conviviality bloomed like an exotic flower in Mrs. Handsomebody's dining-room.

Mary Ellen placed a plateful of scraps on the floor before Anita.

She said, "That ought to stand to her, pore thing! She do be awful ganted."

"These 'ere fancies is wot tikes me," said Mr. Watlin, helping himself to his third lemon turnover. "Sub-stantial food is all right. I shouldn't care to do without meat and the like, but it's the fancies that seems to tickle all the w'y down. Sub-stantial foods is like hugs, but fancies might come under the 'ead of kisses—you don't know when you get enough on 'em, hey Tony? You lika da kiss?"

Tony turned up his palms.

"Oh, no, no, dey are not for a poor fella lak me!"

"Watlin," said Harry, "did you say you were a Kent man?"

"Ay, from Kent, the garden of England."

"Are you related to Carrot Bill Watlin, then?"

"Carrot Bill!" shouted Mr. Watlin, "Carrot Bill! Am I related to 'im? W'y 'e's my uncle, 'e is! And do you know 'im then?"

"I've seen him hundreds of times," said Harry.

"There never was such a feller as Carrot Bill," said Mr. Watlin, turning to us, "there ain't nobody in Kent can bunch carrots like 'im. W'y, truck-men from all over the county brings their carrots to Bill to be bunched, afore they tikes 'em to Covent Garden Market! 'E trims 'em down just so, an' fits 'em together till you'd think they'd growed in bunches. An' they look that 'andsome that they bring a penny more a bunch. An' to fancy you know 'im—well I never! Wot nime was it you said?"

"Harry."

"Ow, I meant your surnime."

"Smith," said Harry, shortly.

"Smith," meditated Mr. Watlin, "I know several Smiths in Kent. You're likely one on 'em. Well, I must shake 'ands with you for the sake of Carrot Bill." He reached across the table and grasped Harry's hand in a hearty shake. Thereupon we drank a health to Carrot Bill in bottled beer; and this was followed by a toast to Mrs. Handsomebody, which somehow subdued us a little.

"'Er brother is dead you s'y," reflected Mr. Watlin, "and 'ow hold a man might 'e be?"

"Blessed if I know," replied Mary Ellen, "but he was years an' years younger than her. She brought him up, and from what I can find out, he turned out pretty bad."

"Tck, tck." Mr. Watlin was moved. "It was very sad for the lidy, but 'e's dead now, poor chap! We must speak no ill of the dead."

"It's a vewy bad fing to be dead," interposed The Seraph, sententiously, "you can't eat, you can't dwink, an' you just fly 'wound an' 'wound, lookin' for somefing to light on!"

"Right-o, young gentleman!" said Mr. Watlin, "and put as couldn't be better. And the moral is, mike the most of our time wot's left!"

"Well, fer my part," sighed Mary Ellen, "I've et so hearty, I feel like as though I'd a horse settin' on my stomick! Sure I don't know how to move."

"A little pinch of bi-carbonate of soder will hease that, my dear," said her lover.

"Please, did you bring your fiddle, Mr. Watlin?" pleaded Angel, "won't you play now?"

"Ah, I lof da fiddle!" said Tony, caressing Anita's little head.

Mr. Watlin, thus importuned, disappeared for a space into the back hall, whence he finally emerged in his shirt sleeves, carrying the violin under his arm. We drew our chairs together at one end of the room, and watched him as he tuned the instrument, frowning sternly the while.

"Lydies and gentleman," said he, "I 'ope you'll pardon me appearing before you in my waistcoat. I must not be 'ampered you see, wen I manipulate the bow. I must 'ave freedom. It's a grand thing freedom! Ah!"

"He's gone as far as he can go on the fiddle," explained Mary Ellen to the company. "Someday he'll give up the butchering business and take to music thorough."

Mr. Watlin now, with the violin tucked under his chin, began to play in a very spirited manner. Our pulses beat time to lively polka and schottische while Mr. Watlin tapped on the carpet with his large foot as he played. Mary Ellen was wild for a dance, she said.

"Get up and 'ave a gow, then," encouraged Mr. Watlin, "you and 'Arry there!" But she, for some reason, would not, and Harry was not urgent.

"I can play da fiddle a little," said Tony, as our artist paused for a rest.

Mr. Watlin clapped him good-humouredly on the shoulder. "Go to it then, my boy, give us your little tune! I'm out of form tonight, anyw'y." He pushed the violin patronizingly into Tony's brown hands.

The Italian took it, oh, so lovingly, and, with an apologetic glance at Mr. Watlin, he tuned the strings to a different pitch. Anita climbed to the back of his neck.

Then came music, flooding, trickling, laughing, from the bow of Tony! Italy you could see; and little, half-naked children, playing in the sleepy street! You could hear the tinkle of donkey bells, and the cooing of pigeons; you could see Tony's home as he was seeing it, and hear his sisters singing. It was Spring in Tuscany.

The theme grew sad. It sang of loneliness. A lost child was wandering through the forest, who could not find his mother. It was very dark beneath the fir trees, and the wind made the boy shiver. His cry of—Mother! Mother! echoed in my heart and would not be hushed. I hid my face in the hollow of my arm and sobbed bitterly.

The music ceased. Harry had me in his arms.

"What's wrong, old fellow, was it something in Tony's music that hurt?"

I nodded, clinging to him.

"It's 'igh time 'e was in bed," said Mr. Watlin, taking the fiddle brusquely from the Italian's hands, "'e don't fancy doleful ditties, an' no more do I, hey Johnnie?"

Tony only smiled at me. "I tink you like my music," he said.

Harry now announced rather hurriedly that he must be going, and after he had said good-night to every one, and thanked Mary Ellen in a very manly way, he still kept my hand in his, and, together, we passed out of doors.

It was frosty cold. The air came gratefully to my hot cheeks. Harry stared up at the stars in silence for a moment, then he said:

"I want to tell you something, John, before I go. I don't know just how to make you understand. But I—I'm not the loafer you think I am—"

"Oh, I don't—"

"No one but a loafer or a sponge would do what I've done tonight," he persisted, "but I came here because I like you little chaps so well—and—because—I was so infernally hungry. I hadn't eaten since last night, you know, and when I heard about the oysters and coffee, I just couldn't refuse, and—I came."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "I'm sorry, Harry! I like you awfully!"

I gave him my hand and, hearing the voices of Mr. Watlin and Tony, he hurried to the street.

I stumbled sleepily into the kitchen.

"Och, do go to bed, Masther John!" exclaimed Mary Ellen, "you're as white as a cloth! Well, if you're sick tomorrow, ye must jist grin an' bear it! An' sure we have had a day of it, haven't we? Thim oysters was the clane thing!"

IV

She followed us to the foot of the stairs with a lamp. The shadows of the bannisters raced up the wall ahead of us, as she moved away. The Seraph gripped the back of my blouse. We stopped at the door of Mrs. Handsomebody's bedroom. Like Mrs. Handsomebody, it towered above us, pale and forbidding.

"I dare you," said Angel, "to open it and stick your head in."

I was too drowsy to be timid. I turned the handle and opened the door far enough to insert my round tow head.

The room was unutterably still. A pale bluish light filtered through the long white curtains. The ghostly bed awaited its occupant. The door of a tall wardrobe stood open—did something stir inside? I withdrew my head and closed the door. Now I remembered that the room had smelled of black kid gloves. I shuddered.

"You were afraid!" jeered Angel.

"Not I. It was nothing to do."

But when we were safe in bed and Mary Ellen had come and put out our light, I lay a-thinking of the empty room. Strange, when people went away and left you, how Something stayed behind! A shadowy, wistful something, that smelled of kid gloves!

We slept till ten next morning. Mary Ellen superintended our baths. We were in a state to behold, she said, and she was apprehensive lest Mrs. Handsomebody should observe my swollen nose, for the big boy's fist had somewhat enlarged that unobtrusive feature.

"Jist say ye've a bit of feverish cold if she remarks it," she cautioned, "people often swells up wid colds."

We ate our bread and strawberry jam and milk from one end of the dining table. We heaped the bread with sugar, and stirred the jam into our milk. After breakfast, we played at knights and robbers in the schoolroom. It was a raw morning, and a Scotch mist dimmed the window pane.

Angel and I were in the midst of a terrific fight over a princess whom he was bearing off to his robber cave (The Seraph, draped in a chenille table-cover, impersonating the princess) when we were interrupted by the tinkle of the dinner bell.

How the morning had flown! Had she returned then? Was the funeral over? Had she heard our shouts? We descended the stairs with some misgivings and entered the dining-room in single file.

Yes, she was there, standing by the table, her black dress looking blacker than ever! After a dry little kiss on each of our foreheads, she motioned us to seat ourselves, and took her own accustomed place behind the tea things. There was a solemn click of knives and forks. Mary Ellen waited on us primly. It was not to be thought that this was the same room in which we had feasted so uproariously on the night previous.

Yet I stared at Mrs. Handsomebody and marvelled that she should suspect nothing. Did she get no whiff of the furry smell of Anita? Did no faint echo of Tony's music disturb her thoughts? What were her thoughts? Deep ones I was sure, for her brow was knit. Was she thinking of that brother on whom the Scotch mist was falling so remorselessly?

The Seraph was speaking.

"It's a vewy bad fing to be dead," he was saying reminiscently—, "you can't eat, you can't dwink, an' you jus' fly awound lookin' for somefing to light on!"

I trembled for him, but Mrs. Handsomebody, lost in thought, gave no heed to him.

At last she raised her eyes.

"I hope you behaved yourselves well, and made profitable use of your time during my absence?"

We made incoherent murmurs of assent.

"Name the Channel Islands, John."

"Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Herm," I replied glibly. So much had I saved from the wreck of things ordained.

"Correct. Are you through your dinners then? You may pass out. Ah, your nose, John; it looks quite red. What caused that?"

I said that I believed I had an inward burning fever. I had embellished Mary Ellen's suggestion.

"I hope you are not going to be ill," she sighed.

It was not until Angel and I were back in the schoolroom, that we discovered the absence of The Seraph. We turned surprised looks on each other. Our junior seldom left our heels.

"I remember now," reflected Angel, "that, as he passed her, she stopped him. I didn't think anything of it. What can she have found out? D'you s'pose she's pumping the kid?"

We were left to our conjectures for fully a quarter of an hour. Then we heard him plodding leisurely up the stairs. We greeted him impatiently.

"What's up? Did you blab? Whatever did she say?" We hurled the questions at him.

The Seraph maintained an air of calm superiority. He even hopped from one floral wreath on the carpet to another, with his hands behind his back, as was his custom when he wished to reflect undisturbed. He ignored our importunities.

Angel, in exasperation, took him by the collar.

"You tell us why she kept you down there so long!"

Thus cornered, The Seraph raised his large eyes to our inquiring faces with great solemnity.

"She kept me," he said, "to cuddle me, an' to give me this—" he showed a white peppermint lozenge between his little teeth.

To cuddle him. Was the world coming to an end?

"Yes," he persisted, "she kept me to cuddle me, an' she was cwyin'—so there!"

Mrs. Handsomebody crying!

"It's about her dead brother, of course," said Angel. "That's why she cried."

"No," said The Seraph, stoutly. "He was a man, an' she was cwyin' about a little wee boy like me, she used to cuddle long ago!"



Chapter VI: D'ye Ken John Peel?

I

Probably a little boy is never quite so happy as when he is worshipping and imitating a young man. From this time on my hero was Harry, about whom so fascinating an air of mystery hung that his lightest word was something to be treasured. I pictured him, hungry and alone, perhaps brooding over the Collect for next Sunday, or something of equal melancholy. I was always on the watch for his tall, slender figure, when we took our walks, but when we did meet again, it came as a surprise, and quite took me off my feet.

A month had passed since Mary Ellen's party. It was a windy, sunny day in March, and great white clouds billowed in a clear sky—like clean clothes in a tub of blueing, Mary Ellen had said. I was sitting alone on the steps of the Cathedral. Angel was in the schoolroom writing his weekly letter to father, and The Seraph was suffering a bath at the hands of Mary Ellen, following an excursion into the remoter depths of the coal cellar.

So I sat on the Cathedral steps alone. It was a fine morning for flights of the imagination. The soft thunder of the Cathedral organ became at my will the booming of the surf on a distant coral reef. The pigeons wheeling overhead became gulls, whimpering in the cordage. Little did the ancient caretaker reck, as he swept the stretch of flagging before the carved door, that he was washing off the deck of a frigate, whilst I, the rover of the seas, kept a stern eye on him. Louder boomed the surf—then soft again. The door behind me had opened and closed. The deck-washer touched his cap. Then the Bishop stood above me, smiling, the sun glinting in his blue eyes and on the buttons of his gaiters.

"Hal-lo, John," he said. "What's the game this morning. Seafaring as usual?"

I nodded, "She's as saucy a frigate," I answered happily, "as ever sailed the seas, and this here wild weather is just a frolic for her. But I don't like the look of yon black craft to the windward." And I pointed to a dustman's cart that had just hove into view.

"I entirely agree with you," replied the Bishop. "She looks as though she were out on dirty business. I'd like nothing better than to stay and see you make short work of her, but here it is Friday morning, and not a blessed word of my sermon written, so I must be getting on." And with that he strode down the street to his own house. I was alone again watching the approaching vessel with suspicion. Then, above the thrashing of the spray, I heard my name spoken by a voice I knew, and turning looked straight up into Harry's face.

"John!" he repeated. "What luck. I have been watching for you for days, you little hermit!"

"Watching for me, Harry?"

"Yes," he proceeded, "and the one time I saw you, that starched governess of yours had you gripped by the hand—"

—"just like any old baby girl," I broke in.

Harry laughed and shook my hand enthusiastically. I saw that he was even thinner than before. Was he, I wondered, "infernally hungry" at this very minute?

"John," he said, looking into my eyes: "You can help me if you will. We're friends, aren't we?"

I let him see that I was all on fire to help him, and it was then that he made his wonderful suggestion.

"Would it be possible to evade your governess long enough to come and have a bite with me?"

Dinner with Harry! In his own room! What an adventure to repeat to Angel and The Seraph! Without further parley I set off down Henwood street at a trot lest Mrs. Handsomebody should spy me from her bedroom window, in a fateful way she had. Harry hurried after me, catching my arm and drawing me close to him.

"What a plucky little shaver you are, John," he said. "I know she's a corker, but I think you and I are a match for her, eh?"

I strode beside him breathless. I felt taller, stronger, than ever before. By contrast with our masculinity Mrs. Handsomebody seemed a rather pitiful old woman.

We spoke little, but hurried through many streets, till, at last, we came to the narrow dingy one where I had first seen Harry. We turned down an alley beside a green grocer's shop and entered a narrow doorway into the strangest passage I had ever seen.