" Gloriana was forced to admit.

"But Tabitha will be back directly."

"Yes, she's a swift runner. I don't think she will be gone long."
Glory was beginning to enjoy the strange situation.

"Oh, Glory, don't keep us here, please! prayed Billiard desperately.

"We'll _never_ play burglar again!" promised repentant Toady.

"No, it will be something else the next time," said their jailer
heartlessly.

"If you'll just set us free this time, we'll be reg'lar sissy girls all
the rest of the summer," they cried.

"You have promised so many times--" Glory began wearily.

"Oh, I can hear her coming!" cried Toady, half frantic at thought of
the constable whom Tabitha had gone to summon.

Gloriana thought she could, also, and swiftly turning the key in the
lock, she let the quaking prisoners out, urging them on with a violent
push as they scurried past her, and hissing in their ears, "Scamper!
If you aren't in bed when she gets here, she'll know you did it."

But they needed no urging. Their feet scarcely touched the floor, it
seemed to Gloriana, as they made a mad rush for their room; and when
Tabitha returned a moment later, alone, they lay tense and breathless
under the coverlets of the cot.

"Glory!" they heard her ejaculate. "You let them get away from you!"

"I couldn't help it," replied the red-haired girl in excited tones.
"Couldn't you get anyone? Wasn't the constable at home?"

"No, but he'll investigate as soon as----"

The rest of the sentence was lost in the slamming of a door; but the
two culprits lay and quaked with fear long after the rest of the
household was fast asleep, little dreaming that as soon as the door was
tightly closed so they could no longer distinguish the voices, Glory
had wheeled on Tabitha and giggled accusingly, "You knew all the time!"

"Not until I ran past their door and saw their bed was empty,"
whispered the black-haired girl with her hand over her mouth to stifle
the laughter she could no longer suppress.

"What possessed you to keep on, then?'

"I surmised what would happen, and decided to scare _them_ a little,
too. So I crept around the house and listened to you talking with
them. When they thought they heard me coming back, I concluded it was
time I did put in appearance again; but I thought I'd die laughing to
hear them scuttling into bed. Now I reckon the score is even!"

"Then you won't tell their Uncle this time?"

"I ought to."

"They've had a big pu