y've done it so often themselves to scare the
servants. Stop! I have it! Oh, I've thought of a most glorious idea!
Didn't you hear Edward reading out an account from the newspaper this
morning of a robbery at Thistleton Hall? Why shouldn't we have a sham
burglar, and rouse them all in the middle of the night? It would make a
splendid sensation."

Mr. and Mrs. Winstanley were away from home, spending a week in
Scotland, and Edward considered himself to be the head and safeguard of
the establishment during their absence, so the scheme really seemed very
feasible.

"We can dress up the figure of a burglar with some of Father's old
clothes stuffed with straw," said Cathy, "and let it down through the
trap-door in the end bedroom. But first of all we must pave the way.
Suppose we were to write a letter to Edward, as if it came from some
poor person, warning him that there's going to be an attack on the
house? It would make them ever so excited about it first, and then
they'd fall quite easily into the trap, and be ready to believe that
someone was really breaking in. Can you keep the secret, Phil,
absolutely tight and safe? We mustn't betray even by a look what we're
meditating."

"I think I can," I replied. "I'm rather clever at hiding my feelings. I
didn't let George guess last night that I knew where Dick had put his
cricket-cap, though I helped him to look for it everywhere except in the
right place."

We set to work at once so that we might have time to carry out our plans
before the squire and Mrs. Winstanley returned home. Cathy's letter was
a product of genius. It was written on the thinnest of village
note-paper, with the vilest and scratchiest of pens; the handwriting was
unformed and scrawling, and the tails of the letters were occasionally
smeared, as if a large and dirty finger had industriously and
laboriously pursued its way along the page. It ran thus, being guiltless
of stops--

"honered sir
"i take up my pen to tel you wot as bin on my mind and
i ope you wil not considder it a liburty but Honored Sir i feel
it is ony rite to warn you as your pa and ma is away and you the
squire as is to be and i dont like to split on my pals but there
is some as will ope to find your ouse not two well looked arfter
at nite and i can tel you no more at present for i dont want to
get into no trubble
"this is from
"one oo knows"