es Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your
room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil--that is,
if they can see us."

"If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?" said Mr. Dale.

He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead, and gazed at the
children.

"There is the door," he said. "Go."

They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.

"Upon my word!" he said several times. "Upon--my--word! So Plato liked
things clean, and Virgil liked things orderly. Upon--my--word!"

He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was working, for his
glasses were sometimes removed and then put on again, and several times
he brushed his hand through his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and,
gazing at the frills of the white window-curtains, he opened the French
windows, and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open air. He went
for a walk--a long one. When he came back he entered his clean study, to
find the lamp burning brightly, his Plato restored to its place by his
left-hand side, and a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own
old pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled with fresh
ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and wrote on a sheet of
paper, "Plato likes things clean, and Virgil likes things orderly," and
then pinned the paper on the opposite wall.

For the rest of the evening the astonished household were much beguiled
and overcome by the most heavenly strains from Mr. Dale's violin. He
played it in the study until quite late at night; but none of the
household went to bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that
music.

About eleven o'clock Patty and Briar found themselves alone.

"Well," said Patty suddenly, "I have made up my mind."

"Yes," said Briar, "I thought you had."

"When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her everything."

Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her.

"I wonder what she will say," said Briar.

"Say!" echoed Patty. "She will be hurt. Perhaps she'll punish us; but
that doesn't matter, for in the end she is quite, quite certain to
forgive us. I am going to tell her. I couldn't go through another night
like last night again."

"Nor could I," said Briar. "I stayed awake and thought of Paulie, and I
seemed to see her face as it might look if she were really dead. I wish
they'd all come back, for Paulie is better. And then we'd have just a
dreadful ten