stract our
attention while their confederates robbed the house.'

'I am afraid you are right,' said Selina; 'and WHERE ARE THEY NOW?'

'Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and sugar-basin
and the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt Jerusha's teaspoons.
I shall go down.'

'Oh, don't be so rash and heroic,' said Selina. 'Amelia, we must call
the police from the window. Lock the door. I WILL--I will--'

The words ended in a yell as Selina, rushing to the window, came face to
face with the hidden children.

'Oh, don't!' said Jane; 'how can you be so unkind? We AREN'T burglars,
and we haven't any gang, and we didn't open your missionary-box.
We opened our own once, but we didn't have to use the money, so our
consciences made us put it back and--DON'T! Oh, I wish you wouldn't--'

Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert. The
children found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at the
wrists and white at the knuckles.

'We've got YOU, at any rate,' said Miss Amelia. 'Selina, your captive
is smaller than mine. You open the window at once and call "Murder!" as
loud as you can.

Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling
'Murder!' she called 'Septimus!' because at that very moment she saw her
nephew coming in at the gate.

In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and had
mounted the stairs. As he came into the room Jane and Robert each
uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leaped
with surprise, and nearly let them go.

'It's our own clergyman,' cried Jane.

'Don't you remember us?' asked Robert. 'You married our burglar for
us--don't you remember?'

'I KNEW it was a gang,' said Amelia. 'Septimus, these abandoned children
are members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house. They
have already forced the missionary-box and purloined its contents.'

The Reverend Septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow.

'I feel a little faint,' he said, 'running upstairs so quickly.'

'We never touched the beastly box,' said Robert.

'Then your confederates did,' said Miss Selina.

'No, no,' said the curate, hastily. '_I_ opened the box myself.
This morning I found I had not enough small change for the Mothers'
Independent Unity Measles and Croup Insurance payments. I suppose this
is NOT a dream, is it?'

'Dream? No, indeed. Search the house. I insist upon it.'

The curate, still pale