w could I explain my situation?'

"'You needn't say anything,' said my father. 'If he wakes up blow out
the light and scoot. If you happen to have the box in your hand drop it
out the back window and then slip down after it. He won't see us; but
if he does he cannot catch us before we get to the boat; but if he
should, however, I'll have to explain the matter to him, and the joke
will be against me; but I shall get my instruments, which is the main
point, after all.'

"I did not argue with my father, for he was a man who hated to be
differed with, and I agreed to help him carry out his little joke. We
took off our shoes and walked quietly to the back of the house. My
father stood below, and I climbed up the trellis under the back window,
which he pointed out. The window-sash was down all but a little crack to
let in air, and I raised it so slowly and gently that I made no noise.
Then without any trouble at all I got into the room.

"I found myself in a moderate-sized chamber, into which a faint light
came from a door opposite the window. Having been several hours out in
the night my eyes had become so accustomed to darkness that this light
was comparatively strong and I could see everything.

"Looking about me my eyes fell on a little bedstead, on which lay one of
the most beautiful infants I ever beheld in my life. Its golden hair
lay in ringlets upon the pillow. Its eyes were closed, but its soft
cheeks had in them a rosy tinge which almost equalled the colour of its
dainty little lips, slightly opened as it softly breathed and dreamed."
At this point I saw my wife look quickly at the bedroom key she had in
her hand. I knew she was thinking of George William.

"I stood entranced," continued the burglar, "gazing upon this babe, for
I was very fond of children; but I remembered that I must not waste
time, and stepped softly into the next room. There I beheld Mr. and Mrs.
Williamson Green in bed, both fast asleep, the gentleman breathing a
little hard. In a corner, just where my father told me I should find it,
stood the box upon the table.

"But I could not immediately pick it up and depart. The beautiful room
in which I found myself was a revelation to me. Until that moment I had
not known that I had tastes and sympathies of a higher order than might
have been expected of the youthful son of a boat-builder. Those artistic
furnishings aroused within a love of the beautiful which I did not know
I possessed. The car