in such moments of excitement
to distinguish between what she saw and heard and what she wished to
see and hear, and at this ghost of table music she smiled with
pleasure.

"The house is empty," said her common-sense, but she pursed her lips
and whispered, "they're up here eating--they've come for the
silver!"

By fractions of inches she pushed the door on its well-oiled hinge
and slipped noiselessly into the dining-room.

A broad beam of light fell across the dark, wainscoted room, and in
the track of it sat a handsome well-dressed man, busily eating. In
front of him was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish of celery and a
ruby mound of jelly; a crusty loaf of new bread lay broken at his
right; at his left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter half
filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily poising a bit of jelly
on some bread, the mouthful was in the air, when his eyes fell on
Caroline, an amazed and cobwebbed statue in front of him.

The hand that held the bread grew rigid. As spilled milk spreads
over a table, the man's face was flooded with sudden grayish white;
against it his thin lips were marked in lavender. While the
grandfather clock ticked ten times they stared at each other, and
then a wave of deep red poured over his face and his mouth twitched.

"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly,
pointedly regarding her dusty rumpled figure.

Caroline gulped and dropped her eyes.

"I--I--nothing particular," she murmured guiltily.

The man laid the piece of bread down carefully and wiped his fingers
on the napkin spread across his knees.

"Some time," he said, in a leisurely drawl, "you'll burst into a
room like that, where a person with a weak heart may be sitting, and
that'll be the last of 'em."

[Illustration: "What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded
sternly.]

"The last of 'em?" Caroline repeated vaguely.

"Just so. They'll die on you," he explained briefly.

Caroline stepped nearer.

"Is--is your heart weak?" she inquired fearfully. "I'm so sorry. So
is my Uncle Lindsay's."

"What were you sneaking about so soft for?" he demanded.

She flushed.

"I--I was playing burglars," she confessed, "and I got to where they
were in here with the silver, and--and I was coming in to--to get
them, and I didn't expect anybody would be here, really, you know,
and I was surprised when I saw you. I didn't know about your heart."

"Burglars?" said the man, laughing loudly.