dealt with
as my lady's only son."

My lady's only son went straight to a door down the corridor, quite at
the other extremity, and opened it.

It was a lady's dressing-room evidently. Laid out, all ready for wear,
was a lady's morning toilet complete, and without more ado Sir Everard
confiscated the whole concern. At the white cashmere robe alone he
caviled.

"This is too gay; I must find a more sober garment. All the
maid-servants in the house would recognize this immediately."

He went to one of the closets, searched there, and presently reappeared
with a black silk dress. Rolling all up in a heap, he started at once
with his prize, laughing inwardly at the figure he cut.

"If Lady Louise saw me now, or my lady mother, either, for that matter!
What will Mildred and her maid say, I wonder, when they find burglars
have been at work, and her matutinal toilet stolen?"

He bore the bundle straight to the chamber of his pretty runaway, and
tapped at the door. It was discreetly opened an inch or two.

"Here are some clothes. When you are dressed, come out. I will wait
in the passage."

"Thank yon," Miss Silver's soft voice said.

The young person whose adventures were so highly sensational doffed her
velveteens and donned the dainty garments of Miss Mildred Kingsland.

All the things were beautifully made and embroidered, marked with the
initials "M. K.," and adorned with the Kingsland crest.

"Miss Mildred Kingsland must be tall and slender, since her dress fits
me so well. Ah, what a change even a black silk dress makes in one's
appearance! He admired me--I saw he did, in jacket and
pantiloons--what will be do, then, in this? Will he fall in love with
me, I wonder?"

One parting peep in the glass, and she opened the door and stepped out
before Sir Everard Kingsland, a dazzling vision of beauty.

He stood and gazed. Could he believe his eyes? Was this
superb-looking woman with the flowing curls, the dark, bright beauty
and imperial mien, the lad in velveteen who had shot the poacher last
night? Why, Cleopatra might have looked like that, in the height of
her regal splendor, or Queen Semiramis, in the glorious days that were
gone.

"This is indeed a transformation," he said, coming forward. "Your
disguise was perfect. I should never have known you for the youth I
parted from ten minutes ago."

"I can never thank you sufficiently, Sir Everard. Ah, if you knew how
I abhorred myself in that