d. "Will you take me
there?"

For a moment the man did not move, but stood looking at the young and
beautiful girl, who, with a smile, hid the compassion in her eyes.

"Will you go?" he asked wistfully.

"Why not?" said the girl.

The young man laughed with pleasure.

"I am unpardonable," he said. "I live so much alone--that I forget."
Like one who, issuing from a close room, encounters the morning air, he
drew a deep, happy breath. "It has been three years since a woman has
been in this house," he said simply. "And I have not even thanked
you," he went on, "nor asked you if you are cold," he cried
remorsefully, "or hungry. How nice it would be if you would say you
are hungry."

The girl walked beside him, laughing lightly, and, as they disappeared
into the greater hall beyond, Winthrop heard her cry: "You never
robbed your own ice-chest? How have you kept from starving? Show me
it, and we'll rob it together."

The voice of their host rang through the empty house with a laugh like
that of an eager, happy child.

"Heavens!" said the owner of the car, "isn't she wonderful!" But
neither the prostrate burglars, nor the servants, intent on strapping
their wrists together, gave him any answer.

As they were finishing the supper filched from the ice-chest, Fred was
brought before them from the kitchen. The blow the burglar had given
him was covered with a piece of cold beef-steak, and the water thrown
on him to revive him was thawing from his leather breeches. Mr. Carey
expressed his gratitude, and rewarded him beyond the avaricious dreams
even of a chauffeur.

As the three trespassers left the house, accompanied by many pails of
water, the girl turned to the lonely figure in the doorway and waved
her hand.

"May we come again?" she called.

But young Mr. Carey did not trust his voice to answer. Standing erect,
with folded arms, in dark silhouette in the light of the hall, he bowed
his head.

Deaf to alarm bells, to pistol shots, to cries for help, they found her
brother and Ernest Peabody sleeping soundly.

"Sam is a charming chaperon," said the owner of the car.

With the girl beside him, with Fred crouched, shivering, on the step,
he threw in the clutch; the servants from the house waved the emptied
buckets in salute, and the great car sprang forward into the awakening
day toward the golden dome over the Boston Common. In the rear seat
Peabody shivered and yawned, and then sat erect.

"D