s got strings."

"Yes. I was playing when you came in. I saw you enter the window.
Really, David, are you in the habit of walking into people's houses
like this? It is most disconcerting--to their owners."

"Yes--no--well, sometimes." David's eyes were still on the harp. "Lady
of the Roses, won't you please play again--on that?"

"David, you are incorrigible! Why did you come into my house like this?"

"The music said 'come'; and the towers, too. You see, I KNOW the
towers."

"You KNOW them!"

"Yes. I can see them from so many places, and I always watch for them.
They show best of anywhere, though, from Jack and Jill's. And now won't
you play?"

Miss Holbrook had almost risen to her feet when she turned abruptly.

"From--where?" she asked.

"From Jack and Jill's--the House that Jack Built, you know."

"You mean--Mr. John Gurnsey's house?" A deeper color had come into Miss
Holbrook's cheeks.

"Yes. Over there at the top of the little hill across the brook, you
know. You can't see THEIR house from here, but from over there we can
see the towers finely, and the little window--Oh, Lady of the Roses,"
he broke off excitedly, at the new thought that had come to him, "if
we, now, were in that little window, we COULD see their house. Let's go
up. Can't we?"

Explicit as this was, Miss Holbrook evidently did not hear, or at least
did not understand, this request. She settled back on the divan,
indeed, almost determinedly. Her cheeks were very red now.

"And do you know--this Mr. Jack?" she asked lightly.

"Yes, and Jill, too. Don't you? I like them, too. DO you know them?"

Again Miss Holbrook ignored the question put to her. "And did you walk
into their house, unannounced and uninvited, like this?" she queried.

"No. He asked me. You see he wanted to get off some of the dirt and
blood before other folks saw me."

"The dirt and--and--why, David, what do you mean? What was
it--an accident?"

David frowned and reflected a moment.

"No. I did it on purpose. I HAD to, you see," he finally elucidated.
"But there were six of them, and I got the worst of it."

"David!" Miss Holbrook's voice was horrified. "You don't mean--a fight!"

"Yes'm. I wanted the cat--and I got it, but I wouldn't have if Mr. Jack
hadn't come to help me."

"Oh! So Mr. Jack--fought, too?"

"Well, he pulled the others off, and of course that helped me,"
explained David truthfully. "And then he took me home--he and Jill."

"Jill! Was