each time the breathing became easier, and he refrained.

"I don't mind," thought Tom. "I dare say he is very tired, and I don't
want to talk to him. He's company all the same, even if he is asleep.
Wonder whether this speculum will turn out all right."

David was breathing very hard now, but if Pete came he would make too
much noise in moving to notice the sound. Besides, he would not suspect
that any one was watching out there in the darkness.

But the breathing was very loud now, and how warm and cosy and
comfortable it was inside the rug! The hay, too, was very soft, and the
stick all ready for Master Pete when he came. It would be so easy to
hear him too, for David's heavy breathing, that was first cousin to a
snore, now ceased, and the slightest sound made by any one coming--and
then it was all blank.

How long?

Tom suddenly started up with but one thought that seemed to crush him.

"Why, I've been asleep!"

A feeling of rage against himself came over him, and then like a flash
his thoughts were off in another direction, for, just in front, he could
hear a rustling sound, as if some one was stirring leaves, and, stealing
forward, he could just faintly see what appeared like a shadow busy at
the Marie Louise pear-tree.

"Then he has come," thought Tom, as his hand closed upon the stick he
still held. Softly letting the horse-cloth glide from his shoulders, he
raised himself gently, feeling horribly stiff, but getting upon his legs
without a sound.

And all the time there was the rustling, plucking sound going on at the
tree upon the wall, as the shadow moved along it slowly.

All this was only a matter of moments, and included a thought which came
to Tom's busy brain--should he try to awaken David?

"If I do," he felt, "there will be noise enough to scare the thief, and
he'll escape."

There was no time to argue further with himself. He knew that he had
been asleep, for how long he could not tell; but his heart throbbed as
he felt that he had awakened just in the nick of time, and he was about
to act.

Keeping in a stooping position, he crept forward foot by foot without
making a sound, till he was on the edge of the walk which extended to
right and left; beyond it there was about six feet of border, and then
the wall with the tree, and almost within reach the figure, more plain
to see now, as it bent down evidently searching upon the ground for
fallen pears.

One stride--a stride taken q