and trembling, searched the house, which, of
course, was blamelessly free of burglars.

When he came back he sank wearily into his chair.

'Aren't you going to let us go?' asked Robert, with furious indignation,
for there is something in being held by a strong lady that sets the
blood of a boy boiling in his veins with anger and despair. 'We've never
done anything to you. It's all the carpet. It dropped us on the leads.
WE couldn't help it. You know how it carried you over to the island, and
you had to marry the burglar to the cook.'

'Oh, my head!' said the curate.

'Never mind your head just now,' said Robert; 'try to be honest and
honourable, and do your duty in that state of life!'

'This is a judgement on me for something, I suppose,' said the Reverend
Septimus, wearily, 'but I really cannot at the moment remember what.'

'Send for the police,' said Miss Selina.

'Send for a doctor,' said the curate.

'Do you think they ARE mad, then,' said Miss Amelia.

'I think I am,' said the curate.

Jane had been crying ever since her capture. Now she said-- 'You aren't
now, but perhaps you will be, if--And it would serve you jolly well
right, too.'

'Aunt Selina,' said the curate, 'and Aunt Amelia, believe me, this is
only an insane dream. You will realize it soon. It has happened to me
before. But do not let us be unjust, even in a dream. Do not hold the
children; they have done no harm. As I said before, it was I who opened
the box.'

The strong, bony hands unwillingly loosened their grasp. Robert shook
himself and stood in sulky resentment. But Jane ran to the curate and
embraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself.

'You're a dear,' she said. 'It IS like a dream just at first, but you
get used to it. Now DO let us go. There's a good, kind, honourable
clergyman.'

'I don't know,' said the Reverend Septimus; 'it's a difficult problem.
It is such a very unusual dream. Perhaps it's only a sort of other
life--quite real enough for you to be mad in. And if you're mad, there
might be a dream-asylum where you'd be kindly treated, and in time
restored, cured, to your sorrowing relatives. It is very hard to see
your duty plainly, even in ordinary life, and these dream-circumstances
are so complicated--'

'If it's a dream,' said Robert, 'you will wake up directly, and then
you'd be sorry if you'd sent us into a dream-asylum, because you might
never get into the same dream again and let us out,