spered to Oswald on the stairs, as we went up to
bed:

"Meet me outside your door when the others are asleep. Hist! Not a
word."

Oswald said, "No kid?"

And she replied in the affirmation.

So he kept awake by biting his tongue and pulling his hair--for he
shrinks from no pain if it is needful and right.

And when the others all slept the sleep of innocent youth, he got up and
went out, and there was Alice dressed.

She said, "I've found some broken things that look ever so much more
Roman--they were on top of the cupboard in the library. If you'll come
with me, we'll bury them--just to see how surprised the others will be."

It was a wild and daring act, but Oswald did not mind.

He said:

"Wait half a shake." And he put on his knickerbockers and jacket, and
slipped a few peppermints into his pocket in case of catching cold. It
is these thoughtful expedients which mark the born explorer and
adventurer.

It _was_ a little cold; but the white moonlight was very fair to see,
and we decided we'd do some other daring moonlight act some other day.
We got out of the front door, which is never locked till Albert's uncle
goes to bed at twelve or one, and we ran swiftly and silently across the
bridge and through the fields to the Roman ruin.

Alice told me afterwards she should have been afraid if it had been
dark. But the moonlight made it as bright as day is in your dreams.

Oswald had taken the spade and a sheet of newspaper.

We did not take all the pots Alice had found--but just the two that
weren't broken--two crooked jugs, made of stuff like flower-pots are
made of. We made two long cuts with the spade and lifted the turf up and
scratched the earth under, and took it out very carefully in handfuls on
to the newspaper, till the hole was deepish. Then we put in the jugs,
and filled it up with earth and flattened the turf over. Turf stretches
like elastic. This we did a couple of yards from the place where the
mound was dug into by the men, and we had been so careful with the
newspaper that there was no loose earth about.

Then we went home in the wet moonlight--at least, the grass was very
wet--chuckling through the peppermint, and got up to bed without any one
knowing a single thing about it.

[Illustration: "THEN WE PUT IN THE JUGS AND FILLED IT UP WITH EARTH"]

The next day the Antiquities came. It was a jolly hot day, and the
tables were spread under the trees on the lawn, like a large and very
gra