SEVEN.

SECRET PREPARATIONS.

Waller's appetite was gone. The girl seemed to have taken it out of the
room with her, and the boy thrust his hands into his pockets and sat
thinking for some time about his plans, and ended by rising from his
hardly touched meal to cross to the bell. But a fresh idea occurred to
him, and, going back to the table, he took his untouched cup, carried it
carefully to the open window, and emptied it upon a flower-bed; then,
returning the cup, he rang the bell, waited till he heard Bella's step
in the hall, and then began to parade in a sort of "sentry go" up and
down in front of the partly open bookcase, while the maid, after a
glance at the boy's averted countenance and frowning face, not daring to
catch his eye for fear of bursting out into a fresh fit of laughter,
began to clear the table.

Neither spoke till the task was pretty well finished, and then the girl
looked up at Waller, next at the table, and lastly about the room.

"Well," she exclaimed, "if I couldn't declare that I brought two more
plates!"

Waller paid no apparent heed to the remark, but continued his "sentry
go," breathing rather hard the while, till Bella left the room, when he
uttered a low sigh of relief.

But the boy's thoughts had not been idle during this time, and as soon
as he was free to carry out his plans he opened the door, listened to
the murmur of voices in the kitchen, and then ran to the bookcase, took
out his supply of provender, had another listen, and then ran with the
two plates upstairs, past the main set of bedrooms, and then up the next
flight to a room in the front which was devoted to his pursuits.

Here he had books, tools, stuffed birds, fishing-tackle, a wonderfully
untidy lot of specimen birds' nests and their eggs arranged on shelves;
in short, in addition to a pallet bedstead and bed that were very rarely
used, a most glorious muddle of the odds and ends and collections dear
to the heart of a country lad, all of which were under an interdict not
to be touched by the brush, broom, or duster of the maids.

Waller's actions gave the key to his thoughts.

The cereal and carnal cakes were thrust into a closet, and the boy
proceeded then to turn down and feel the bed, over which he frowned and
seemed in doubt; but the next minute he had rushed out of the room and
downstairs to his own chamber, to strip a couple of blankets from the
bed, smooth it over again, and make it rougher than it w