r been worn, Santa Claus will fill one with
good things, and Monsieur Pambe will place in the other payment
for all the words you have spoken--good or bad--on the day before
Christmas. That's why I've been unusually nice and polite to
everyone to-day. Monsieur Pambe, you know, is a witch gentleman;
he--"

The words of the young girl were interrupted by a startling thing.

Like the wraith of some burned-out shooting star, a black streak
came crashing through the window-pane and upon the table, where it
shivered into fragments a dozen pieces of crystal and china ware,
and then glanced between the heads of the guests to the wall,
imprinting therein a deep, round indentation, at which, to-day, the
visitor to Bellemeade marvels as he gazes upon it and listens to
this tale as it is told.

The women screamed in many keys, and the men sprang to their feet,
and would have laid their hands upon their swords had not the
verities of chronology forbidden.

The planter was the first to act; he sprang to the intruding
missile, and held it up to view.

"By Jupiter!" he cried. "A meteoric shower of hosiery! Has
communication at last been established with Mars?"

"I should say--ahem--Venus," ventured a young-gentleman visitor,
looking hopefully for approbation toward the unresponsive young-lady
visitors.

The planter held at arm's length the unceremonious visitor--a long
dangling black stocking. "It's loaded," he announced.

As he spoke, he reversed the stocking, holding it by the toe, and
down from it dropped a roundish stone, wrapped about by a piece of
yellowish paper. "Now for the first interstellar message of the
century!" he cried; and nodding to the company, who had crowded
about him, he adjusted his glasses with provoking deliberation, and
examined it closely. When he finished, he had changed from the jolly
host to the practical, decisive man of business. He immediately
struck a bell, and said to the silent-footed mulatto man who
responded: "Go and tell Mr. Wesley to get Reeves and Maurice and
about ten stout hands they can rely upon, and come to the hall door
at once. Tell him to have the men arm themselves, and bring plenty
of ropes and plough lines. Tell him to hurry." And then he read
aloud from the paper these words:

TO THE GENT OF DE HOUS:

Dere is five tuff hoboes xcept meself in the vaken lot near
de road war de old brick piles is. Dey got me stuck up wid
a gun see and I taken dis means of co