said H.O., "and only pretended to want
lodgings so as to get in and bone all the valuables."

"There aren't any valuables," said Noel, and this was quite true, for
Miss Sandal had no silver or jewellery except a brooch of pewter, and
the very teaspoons were of wood--very hard to keep clean and having to
be scraped.

"Perhaps he sleeps without snoring," said Oswald, "some people do."

"Not old gentlemen," said Noel; "think of our Indian uncle--H.O. used to
think it was bears at first."

"Perhaps he rises with the lark," said Alice, "and is wondering why
brekker isn't ready."

So then we listened at the sitting-room doors, and through the keyhole
of the parlour we heard a noise of some one moving, and then in a soft
whistle the tune of the "Would I were a bird" song.

So then we went into the dining-room to sit down. But when we opened the
door we almost fell in a heap on the matting, and no one had breath for
a word--not even for "Krikey," which was what we all thought.

I have read of people who could not believe their eyes; and I have
always thought it such rot of them, but now, as the author gazed on the
scene, he really could not be quite sure that he was not in a dream, and
that the gentleman and the night in the Mill weren't dreams too.

"Pull back the curtains," Alice said, and we did. I wish I could make
the reader feel as astonished as we did.

The last time we had seen the room the walls had been bare and white.
Now they were covered with the most splendid drawings you can think of,
all done in coloured chalk--I don't mean mixed up, like we do with our
chalks--but one picture was done in green, and another in brown, and
another in red, and so on. And the chalk must have been of some fat
radiant kind quite unknown to us, for some of the lines were over an
inch thick.

"How perfectly _lovely_!" Alice said; "he must have sat up all night to
do it. He _is_ good. I expect he's trying to live the higher life,
too--just going about doing secretly, and spending his time making other
people's houses pretty."

"I wonder what he'd have done if the room had had a large pattern of
brown roses on it, like Mrs. Beale's," said Noel. "I say, _look_ at that
angel! Isn't it poetical? It makes me feel I must write something about
it."

It _was_ a good angel--all drawn in grey, that was--with very wide wings
going right across the room, and a whole bundle of lilies in his arms.
Then there were seagulls and ravens, a