close-cropped curly hair, he seemed like a merry boy who had just popped
over a wall in search of a cricket ball rather than an intruder who had
broke into the house of two lone women in so alarming a manner.

My fear yielded to indignation when I realized that it was a strange man
who had made his way into my room with so little ceremony, but his first
words--or rather the way in which he spoke them--disarmed me.

[Illustration: "IT'S ONLY MY BALLOON"]

"I beg ten thousand pardons. Pay for all the damage. It's only my
balloon!"

"Good gracious!" ejaculated Hagar.

My curiosity was aroused. I went forward to the shattered window.

"Your balloon! Did you come down in a balloon? Where is it?"

"All safe outside," replied the aeronaut consolingly. "Not a bad
descent, considering this confounded--I beg pardon--this confound-_ing_
fog. Thought I was half a mile up in the air. Opened the valve a little
to drop through the cloud and discover my location. Ran against your
house and anchored in your apple tree. Have you any men about the place
to help me get the gas out?"

We fetched one of our farm labourers, and managed things so well, in
spite of the darkness, that about midnight we had the great clumsy thing
lying upon the lawn in a state of collapse. Instead of leaving it there
with the car safely wedged into the apple-tree, until the morning light
would let him work more easily, Rutley must needs "finish the job right
off," as he said, and the result of this was that while he was standing
in the car a bough suddenly broke and he was thrown to the ground,
sustaining such injuries that we found him senseless when we ran to help
him.

We carried him into the drawing-room, by the window of which he had
fallen, and when we got the doctor to him, it was considered best that
he should remain with us that night How could we refuse him a shelter?
The nearest inn was a long way off; and how could he be moved there
among people who would not care for him, when the doctor said it was
probable that the poor fellow was seriously hurt internally?

We kept him with us that night; yes, and for weeks after. By Heaven's
mercy he will be with me all the rest of my life.

[Illustration: "I NURSED HIM WELL AND STRONG AGAIN."]

It was this unexpected visit of Phillip's, and the feeling that grew
between us as I nursed him well and strong again, that brought it about
that I told Kenneth Moore, who had become so repugnant to me that