nd presently Captain
Caldwell got up, lit a lamp at the sideboard, and set it on the
dining-table. When he had done so, he took Beth, and set her on the
table too. Beth stood up on it, laughing, and put her arm round his
neck.

"Look at us, papa!" she exclaimed, pointing at the window opposite.
The blinds were up, and it was dark enough outside for them to see
themselves reflected in the glass.

"I think we make a pretty picture, Beth," her father said, putting his
arm round her.

He had scarcely spoken, when there came a terrific report and a crash;
something whizzed close to Beth's head; and a shower of glass fell on
the floor. In a moment Beth had wriggled out of her father's arm, slid
from the table, and scrambled up on to the window-seat, scattering the
flower-pots, and slapping at her father's hand in her excitement, when
he tried to stop her.

"It's Bap-faced Flanagan--or Tony-kill-the-cow," she cried. "I can
see--O papa! why did you pull me back? Now I shall never know!"

The servants had rushed in from the kitchen, and Mrs. Caldwell came
flying downstairs.

"What is it, Henry?" she cried.

"The d----d scoundrels shot at me with the child in my arms," he
answered, looking in his indignation singularly like Beth herself in a
stormy mood. As he spoke he turned to the hall door, and walked out
into the street bareheaded.

"For the love of the Lord, sir," Riley remonstrated, keeping well out
of the way himself.

But Captain Caldwell walked off down the middle of the road alone
deliberately to the police station, his wife standing meanwhile on the
doorstep, with the light behind her, coolly awaiting his return.

"Pull down the blind in the sitting-room, Riley, and keep Miss Beth
there," was all she said.

Presently Captain Caldwell returned with a police-officer and two men.
They immediately began to search the room. The glass of a picture had
been shattered at the far end. Riley pulled the picture to one side,
and discovered something imbedded in the wall behind, which he picked
out with his pocket-knife and brought to the light. It looked like a
disc all bent out of shape. He turned it every way, examining it, then
tried it with his teeth.

"I thought so," he said significantly. "It wouldn't be yer honour
they'd be afther wid a silver bullet. I heard her tell 'em herself to
try one."

"And I said if they missed they'd be damned," Beth exclaimed
triumphantly.

"Beth!" cried her mother, seizing h