when our hearts were made to beat in our
throats by such an uproar in the scullery, as seemed to cleave the darkness
like a thunderbolt. Giftie appeared to be choking in her effort to unloose,
all at once, a torrent of ferocious barks. A window shook, glass broke, a
shutter slammed. Then followed a moment of awful silence before she settled
down to a methodical yapping. We heard Mary Ellen run down the back stairs.

We clambered out of bed, and tumbled into the hall. Mrs. Handsomebody was
there before us, a gigantic shadow of her thrown on the walls by a candle
she held unsteadily in her hand.

"Merciful Heaven!" she was saying under her breath. "What can have
happened!" She motioned us to fall in behind her, and it was plain that,
crippled as she was, she intended to interpose her body, in its flannel
nightgown, between us and whatever danger lurked below. She made the
descent clinging to the bannister, the three of us jostling each other in
the rear, and, once, nearly precipitated on her back by a caper of Angel's
on the edge of a step.

Mary Ellen met us in the dining-room, her face pale with excitement.

"It was a burglar in the scullery, ma'am," she burst out, never looking at
us. "It's a mercy we wasn't all murthered in our beds this night--the
windy's broke, an' the shutter's pried loose, and a bag full av all the
things off the sideboard is settin' on the flure. Sure, I heard the steps
av him runnin' full lick down the lane--"

Mrs. Handsomebody looked at her bereft sideboard, and dropped into a chair
with a gasp.

"Are you _sure_ he's gone?"

"Yes'm. I stuck me head out the windy and seen him."

"You're a brave girl. Get me the bitters. Yes, and lock the door into the
scullery--stay, what dog was it that barked?"

Mary Ellen hung her head. "The dawg the little boys have been keepin' this
bit while. It does no harm at all."

Mrs. Handsomebody's face was a mask. She said composedly: "Well, get the
bitters and then bring in the dog."

Mary Ellen did as she was bid.

Enter now Giftie, tail up, ears pricked, the picture of conscious
well-doing. She went straight to Mrs. Handsomebody, sniffed her ankles;
wagged her tail in appreciation of the odour of the liniment that emanated
from the injured lady; and finally sat up before her with an ingratiating
paddling of the forepaws.

Mrs. Handsomebody regarded her sombrely. "May I ask how long you have
harboured this stray?"

"Just since the day ye fell, m