ats or Blake?" he ventured timidly.

"It's _me_, you goose! But it's only an imitation--why, Stevenson, of
course, and pretty punk as you ought to know. Gracious!"

She jumped down from the wall, on the side toward the bungalow, and
stared up at the tree she had embellished with her moon.

"The moon's gone out, and I've got to go _in_!"

"Please, before you go, when can I see you again?"

"Who knows!" she exclaimed unsympathetically; but she waited as though
pondering the matter.

"But I must see you again!" he persisted.

"Oh, I shouldn't say that it was wholly essential to your happiness--or
mine! I can't meet burglars--socially!"

"Burglars! But I'm not--" he cried protestingly.

She bent toward him with one hand extended pleadingly.

"Don't say it! Don't _say_ it! If you say you're _not_, you won't be any
fun any more!"

"Well, then we'll say I am--a terrible freebooter--a bold, bad pirate,"
he growled. "Now, may I come?"

She mused a moment, then struck her hands together.

"Come to the bungalow breakfast; that's a fine idea!"

"And may I bring Hood?" he asked, leaning half-way across the wall in his
anxiety to conclude the matter before she escaped. "He's my boss, you
understand, and I'm afraid I can't shake him."

"Certainly; bring Mr. Hood. Breakfast at eight."

"And your home--your address--is there in the bungalow?"

"I've told you where my home is, in a verse I made up specially; and my
address is care of the Little Dipper--there it is, up there in the sky,
all nice and silvery."

His gaze followed the pointing of her finger. The Little Dipper, as an
address for the use of mortals, struck him as rather remote. To his
surprise she advanced to the wall, rested her hands upon it, and peered
into his face.

"Isn't this perfectly killing?" she asked in a tone wholly different from
that in which she had carried on her share of the colloquy.

He experienced an agreeable thrill as it flashed upon him that this was
no child, but a young woman who, knowing the large world, had suddenly
awakened to a consciousness that encounters with strange young men by
starlight were not to be prolonged forever. In the luminous dusk he noted
anew the delicate perfectness of her face, the fine brow about which her
hair had tumbled from her late exertions. Her eyes searched his face with
honest curiosity--for an instant only.

Then she stepped back, as though to mark a return to her original
character, and ans