, in scanty, ghostly apparel, on the floor.

"What ye want? What ye here for?" sternly demanded Mr. Ducklow,
snatching him up by one arm, and shaking him.

"Don't know," faltered the luckless youngster, speaking the truth for
once in his life. "Fell."

"Fell! How did you come to fall? What are you out o' bed for?"

"Don't know,"--snivelling and rubbing his eyes. "Didn't know I was."

"Got up without knowing it! That's a likely story! How could that
happen, you Sir?" said Mrs. Ducklow.

"Don't know, 'thout 't was I got up in my sleep," said Taddy, who had on
rare occasions been known to indulge in moderate somnambulism.

"In your sleep!" said Mr. Ducklow, incredulously.

"I guess so. I was dreamin' you brought me home a new drum,--tucked down
yer--boot-leg," faltered Taddy.

"Strange!" said Mr. Ducklow, with a glance at his wife. "But how could I
bring a drum in my boot-leg?"

"Don't know, 'thout it's a new kind, one that'll shet up."

Taddy looked eagerly round, but saw nothing new or interesting, except
some curious-looking papers which Mrs. Ducklow was hastily tucking into
an envelope.

"Say, did ye, pa?"

"Did I? Of course I didn't! What nonsense! But how came ye down here?
Speak the truth!"

"I dreamt you was blowin' it up, and I sprung to ketch it, when, fust I
knowed, I was on the floor, like a thousan' o' brick! 'Mos' broke my
knee-pans!" whimpered Taddy. "Say, didn't ye bring me home nothin'?
What's them things?"

"Nothin' little boys know anything about. Now run back to bed again. I
forgot to buy you a drum to-day, but I'll git ye somethin' next time I
go to town,--if I think on 't."

"So ye always say, but ye never think on't!" complained Taddy.

"There, there! Somebody's comin'! What a lookin' object you are, to be
seen by visitors!"

There was a knock. Taddy disappeared. Mr. Ducklow turned anxiously to
his wife, who was hastily hiding the bonds in her palpitating bosom.

"Who can it be this time o' night?"

"Sakes alive!" said Mrs. Ducklow, in whose mind burglars were uppermost,
"I wish, whoever 't is, they'd keep away! Go to the door," she
whispered, resuming her work.

Mr. Ducklow complied; and, as the visitor entered, there she sat plying
her needle as industriously and demurely as though neither bonds nor
burglars had ever been heard of in that remote rural district.

"Ah, Miss Beswick, walk in!" said Mr. Ducklow.

A tall, spare, somewhat prim-looking female of middle age, wi