, if any more
houses was robbed."

"They are going to wait for him to make up his half dozen."

"Well, to tell the truth," said Harris, "it seems like he only went for
you city folks, and I guess the boys thought you could better afford to
lose a few things than they could to lose their sleep. That's about the
size of it."

Geoffrey could not but laugh. "That's a fine spirited way to look at it,
I must say."

"Well," returned Harris, who appeared to have need of the monosyllable
in order to collect and arrange his ideas. "'Tain't lack of sand
exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here thinks it is a
woman."

"A woman?" cried Geoffrey, remembering the lady in Boston.

"Yes, _sir_," said Harris, "a young woman. Look at the things took. What
burglar would want sheets and a lady's coat? Besides just before the
first one happened, Will Brown, he was driving along up your way and a
young woman, pretty as a picter, Will said, slips out of the wood and
asks for a lift. Well, Will takes her some two miles, and when they got
to that piece of woods at the back of your place she says of a sudden
that she guesses she wants exercise, and will walk the rest of the way,
and out she gets, and no one has seen her since. Seems kinder strange,
no house but yours within six miles, and you away."

"It would have seemed quite as strange if I had been at home," returned
Geoffrey, amused at his imputation.

"Well," Harris went on imperturbably, "you can't tell the rights of them
stories. Will Brown, he's a liar, just like all the Browns; still this
time he seemed to think he was telling the truth. Looks like we were
going to have a blizzard, don't it?"

When they reached the McFarlane cottage, Mrs. McFarlane appeared bobbing
on the threshold. She was an old Scotch woman and covered all occasions
with courtesy. It appeared that Holland's telegram had been duly
telephoned from the office, but that her husband was down with
rheumatism, the second gardener dismissed, and the "boy" allowed to go
home to spend Christmas, so that there had been no one to send. Geoffrey
suggested that she might have telephoned to the local livery-stable, and
she was at once so overcome at her own stupidity that she could do
nothing but bob and murmur, until Geoffrey sent her away to get him
something to eat.

It was about ten o'clock, when he determined to take a turn about his
house. The next day he intended removing all valuables to the vaults o