ish to quarrel with the Peggs.

Mrs. Pegg moved closer to her.

"Mrs. Handsomebody," she said, winking her white eyelashes very fast, "I
really do not think that you should allow your pupils to accept
this--er--treasure. My father-in-law has become very eccentric of late, and
I am positive that he himself buried these things very recently. Only day
before yesterday, I saw that set of ivory chessmen on his writing table."

"Hold your tongue, Sophia!" shouted Captain Pegg loudly.

Mr. Mortimer Pegg looked warningly at his wife.

"All right, Governor! Don't you worry," he said taking his father's arm.
"It shall be just as you say; but one thing is certain, you'll take your
death of cold if you stay out in this night air." As he spoke, he turned up
the collar of his coat.

Captain Pegg shook hands grandly with Angel and me, then he lifted The
Seraph in his arms and kissed him.

"Good-night, bantling," he said, softly. "Sleep tight!"

He turned then to his son. "Mort," said he, "I haven't kissed a little boy
like that since you were just so high."

Mr. Pegg laughed and shivered, and they went off quite amiably, arm in arm,
Mrs. Pegg following, muttering to herself.

Mrs. Handsomebody looked disparagingly at the treasure. "Mary Ellen," she
ordered, "help the children to gather up that rubbish, and come in at once.
Such an hour it is!"

Mary Ellen, with many exclamations, assisted in the removal of the treasure
to our bedroom. Mrs. Handsomebody, after seeing it deposited there, and us
safely under the bed-clothes, herself extinguished the gas.

"I shall write to your father," she said, severely, "and tell him the whole
circumstance. _Then_ we shall see what is to be done with _you_, and with
the _treasure_."

With this veiled threat she left us. We snuggled our little bodies
together. We were cold.

"I'll write to father myself, tomorrow, an' 'splain everything," I
announced.

"D' you know," mused Angel, "I b'lieve I'll be a pirate, 'stead of a civil
engineer like father. I b'lieve there's more in it."

"I'll be an engineer just the same," said I.

"I fink," murmured The Seraph, sleepily, "I fink I'll jus' be a bishop, an'
go to bed at pwoper times an' have poached eggs for tea."

_Chapter II: The Jilt_

I

The day after the finding of the Treasure, Mary Ellen told us that she had
seen Captain Pegg drive away from his son's house in a closed cab, before
we had emerged from the four-poster. Ther