contrary. . . !

[Illustration]

THE BURGLARS

IT was much too fine a night to think of going to bed at once, and so,
although the witching hour of nine P.M. had struck, Edward and I were
still leaning out of the open window in our nightshirts, watching the
play of the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning
schemes of fresh devilry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of
the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in
their listless impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to
dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all
the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless
started a train of thought in Edward's mind, for he presently remarked,
_a propos_ of nothing whatever that had been said before, 'I believe the
new curate's rather gone on Aunt Maria.'

I scouted the notion; 'Why, she's quite old,' I said. (She must have
seen some five-and-twenty summers.)

'Of course she is,' replied Edward scornfully. 'It's not her, it's her
money he's after, you bet!'

'Didn't know she had any money,' I observed timidly.

'Sure to have,' said my brother with confidence. 'Heaps and heaps.'

Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the new situation thus
presented: mine, in wonderment at this flaw that so often declared
itself in enviable natures of fullest endowment,--in a grown-up man and
a good cricketer, for instance, even as this curate; Edward's
(apparently) in the consideration of how such a state of things,
supposing it existed, could be best turned to his own advantage.

'Bobby Ferris told me,' began Edward in due course, 'that there was a
fellow spooning his sister once----'

'What's spooning?' I asked meekly.

'O _I_ dunno,' said Edward indifferently.

'It's--it's--it's just a thing they do, you know. And he used to carry
notes and messages and things between 'em, and he got a shilling almost
every time.'

'What, from each of 'em?' I innocently inquired.

Edward looked at me with scornful pity. 'Girls never have any money,' he
briefly explained. 'But she did his exercises, and got him out of rows,
and told stories for him when he needed it--and much better ones than he
could have made up for himself. Girls are useful in some ways. So he was
living in clover, when unfortunately they went and quarrelled about
something.'

'Don't see what that's got to do with it,' I said.

'Nor don't I,'