here's Peggy?" says Jerry.

"Inside with chattering teeth for fear of the men hid between the
walls."

"How, when, what!" exclaimed the bewildered man.

"Stop talking, man, and come to your scared wife."

"I'm not scared now that I know who's there," piped a weak voice. "Come
in right away out of the cold."

"And is it by the door or by the window ye'll have me enter, Missis
Myer?" asked Jerry. And with that he took out the two tenpenny nails
with his fingers just as easy as if they had been put in by women.

[Illustration: "A STURDY LEG EMERGING FROM HIS FRONT WINDOW."]

"Wait till I unlock," said Mrs. Outcast, as she climbed back, and
presently the key turned, and Jerry was allowed to enter.

"And now, perhaps," said he, after he had kissed his wife, "ye'll be
kind enough to tell me what it all means, for I'll be switched if I
understand a word of it!"

Mrs. Outcast explained: "When Mimy came home with her story I felt in my
bones that something was wrong, so I came as fast as I could to help. I
found this little body scared to death, and you gone for no knowing how
long. When she told her story I felt real uneasy myself, and wanted to
take her home with me where she'd be safe. But she was faint-like, and
besides she said she did not want you to come back and find her gone.
Heaven knows where."

Jerry pretended to cough behind his hand.

"But two women alone," continued Mrs. Outcast, "are not apt to be
exactly quiet in their minds when burglars are about, so I suggested
that we shut up the house as if no one were living here, and to make it
seem more natural like, I put two nails in the door, and climbed in by
the window."

"Wasn't it a smart trick?" asked Peggy, admiringly.

"The smartest I ever knew," answered Jerry, promptly. "But how was I to
get in?"

"Oh, we were listening," said Peggy. "Don't you fear. We thought you
would try the door and call, when we would know your voice and let you
in."

"Instead of which, you hid, and made us think them burglars had come
back sure enough," said Mrs. Outcast.

"And you screamed and whispered, and made me think them burglars were
hurting Peggy."

And at this all three laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks.

Peggy was the first to quiet down. "But tell us, love, what Mr. Morton
said?"

And Jerry unfolded all the plan--not without first going out-doors,
and looking carefully all around his little cottage to see if any
eavesdroppers were in