ound him sly or untrue in any way?" asked Miss Celia,
lowering her voice.

"No; he's as fair and square a fellow as I ever saw. Little bit low, now
and then, but he doesn't mean it, and wants to be a gentleman, only he
never lived with one before, and it's all new to him. I'll get him
polished up after a while."

"Oh, Thorny, there are three peacocks on the place, and you are the
finest!" laughed Miss Celia, as her brother spoke in his most
condescending way with a lift of the eyebrows very droll to see.

"And two donkeys, and Ben's the biggest, not to know when he is well off
and happy!" retorted the "gentleman," slapping a dried specimen on the
page as if he were pounding discontented Ben.

"Come here and let me tell you something which worries me. I would not
breathe it to another soul, but I feel rather helpless, and I dare say
you can manage the matter better than I."

Looking much mystified, Thorny went and sat on the stool at his sister's
feet, while she whispered confidentially in his ear: "I've lost some
money out of my drawer, and I'm so afraid Ben took it."

"But it's always locked up and you keep the keys of the drawer and the
little room?"

"It is gone, nevertheless, and I've had my keys safe all the time."

"But why think it is he any more than Randa, or Katy, or me?"

"Because I trust you three as I do myself. I've known the girls for
years, and you have no object in taking it since all I have is yours,
dear."

"And all mine is yours, of course. But, Celia, how could he do it? He
can't pick locks, I know, for we fussed over my desk together, and had
to break it after all."

"I never really thought it possible till to-day when you were playing
ball and it went in at the upper window, and Ben climbed up the porch
after it; you remember you said, 'If it had gone in at the garret gable
you couldn't have done that so well;' and he answered, 'Yes, I could,
there isn't a spout I can't shin up, or a bit of this roof I haven't
been over.'"

"So he did; but there is no spout near the little room window."

"There is a tree, and such an agile boy as Ben could swing in and out
easily. Now, Thorny, I hate to think this of him, but it has happened
twice, and for his own sake I must stop it. If he is planning to run
away, money is a good thing to have. And he may feel that it is his own;
for you know he asked me to put his wages in the bank, and I did. He may
not like to come to me for that, because he c