and still less was
mischief. For the latter, whatever his grandmother might think, he had
no capacity. The world was already too serious, and was soon to be
too beautiful for mischief. After that, it would be too sad, and then,
finally, until death, too solemn glad. The moment he heard of his
grandmother's intended visit, one wild hope and desire and intent had
arisen within him.

When Betty came to the parlour door to lay the cloth for their dinner,
she found it locked.

'Open the door!' she cried, but cried in vain. From impatience she
passed to passion; but it was of no avail: there came no more response
than from the shrine of the deaf Baal. For to the boys it was an
opportunity not at any risk to be lost. Dull Betty never suspected what
they were about. They were ranging the place like two tiger-cats whose
whelps had been carried off in their absence--questing, with nose to
earth and tail in air, for the scent of their enemy. My simile has
carried me too far: it was only a dead old gentleman's violin that a
couple of boys was after--but with what eagerness, and, on the part of
Robert, what alternations of hope and fear! And Shargar was always the
reflex of Robert, so far as Shargar could reflect Robert. Sometimes
Robert would stop, stand still in the middle of the room, cast a
mathematical glance of survey over its cubic contents, and then dart off
in another inwardly suggested direction of search. Shargar, on the
other hand, appeared to rummage blindly without a notion of casting the
illumination of thought upon the field of search. Yet to him fell the
success. When hope was growing dim, after an hour and a half of vain
endeavour, a scream of utter discordance heralded the resurrection
of the lady of harmony. Taught by his experience of his wild mother's
habits to guess at those of douce Mrs. Falconer, Shargar had found
the instrument in her bed at the foot, between the feathers and the
mattress. For one happy moment Shargar was the benefactor, and Robert
the grateful recipient of favour. Nor, I do believe, was this thread
of the still thickening cable that bound them ever forgotten: broken it
could not be.

Robert drew the recovered treasure from its concealment, opened the case
with trembling eagerness, and was stooping, with one hand on the neck of
the violin, and the other on the bow, to lift them from it, when Shargar
stopped him.

His success had given him such dignity, that for once he dared to act
f