ion, and Miss Calista, who was
nothing if not prudent, had gone to the bank that very morning and
withdrawn her deposit. She intended to go over to Kerrytown the very
next day and deposit it in the Savings Bank there. Not another day
would she keep it in the house, and, indeed, it worried her to think
she must keep it even for the night, as she had told Mrs. Galloway
that afternoon during a neighbourly back-yard chat.

"Not but what it's safe enough," she said, "for not a soul but you
knows I've got it. But I'm not used to have so much by me, and there
are always tramps going round. It worries me somehow. I wouldn't give
it a thought if Caleb was here. I s'pose being all alone makes me
nervous."

Miss Calista was still rather nervous when she went to bed that night,
but she was a woman of sound sense and was determined not to give way
to foolish fears. She locked doors and windows carefully, as was her
habit, and saw that the fastenings were good and secure. The one on
the dining-room window, looking out on the back yard, wasn't; in fact,
it was broken altogether; but, as Miss Calista told herself, it had
been broken just so for the last six years, and nobody had ever tried
to get in at it yet, and it wasn't likely anyone would begin tonight.

Miss Calista went to bed and, despite her worry, slept soon and
soundly. It was well on past midnight when she suddenly wakened and
sat bolt upright in bed. She was not accustomed to waken in the night,
and she had the impression of having been awakened by some noise. She
listened breathlessly. Her room was directly over the dining-room, and
an empty stovepipe hole opened up through the ceiling of the latter at
the head of her bed.

There was no mistake about it. Something or some person was moving
about stealthily in the room below. It wasn't the cat--Miss Calista
had shut him in the woodshed before she went to bed, and he couldn't
possibly get out. It must certainly be a beggar or tramp of some
description.

Miss Calista might be given over to nervousness in regard to imaginary
thieves, but in the presence of real danger she was cool and
self-reliant. As noiselessly and swiftly as any burglar himself, Miss
Calista slipped out of bed and into her clothes. Then she tip-toed out
into the hall. The late moonlight, streaming in through the hall
windows, was quite enough illumination for her purpose, and she got
downstairs and was fairly in the open doorway of the dining-room
b