rator. She looked straight down at him, but did not move or
answer, and he knew that there was someone, an enemy, in the room with
her. The kidnappers still disputed vehemently; and he stole up to the
wall, and began to climb the vine which covered the side of the house.
He disturbed a number of roosting small birds; but Dorothy's suitors
were putting forward their pretensions to her hand with a clamour which
drowned the flutter of wings. He climbed up and up, and Dorothy never
stirred; and at last he looked under her arm into the room. Elsie,
with her elbows on the table, was staring miserably at the grim,
forbidding face of an elderly woman who sat on a chair backed up
against the door.

Tinker looked at the woman and could scarcely believe his eyes, then he
laughed gently, slipped over the window-sill, and said cheerfully,
"Hullo, Selina, how are you?"

The grim woman started up with a little cry, stared at him, ran across
the room, and began to hug him furiously, crying, "Oh, Master Tinker!
Master Tinker! What a turn you did give me!"

"Drop it, Selina! Drop it!" said Tinker, struggling out of her
embrace. "You know how I hate being slobbered over!"

Then he dodged Dorothy and Elsie, who advanced upon him with one accord
and one purpose of kissing him, and cried, "No, no! This is no time
for foolery!"

"But I don't understand," said Dorothy.

"Oh! Selina's my old nurse. What are you doing here, Selina? I never
expected you to turn kidnapper at your age!"

"Nothing of the kind, Master Tinker! I'm paid to help save these poor
lambs from them Popish Jesuits, and I'm going to do it!"

"Let's hear about this," said Tinker, sitting down on the table.

"It's my poor husband's cousin, Mr. Alexander McNeill. He engaged me
to come here to act as maid to a young lady he was helping get away
from those Jesuits who were trying to force her into a convent to get
her money," said Selina.

"You've been humbugged, then. What you are doing is helping to kidnap
my adopted sister Elsie, and Miss Dorothy Rainer, the daughter of an
American millionaire," said Tinker joyfully.

Dorothy started and flushed. "How did you learn that?" she said
quickly.

"Your father's come from America, and he and my father are looking for
you, though where they are there's no saying. I left them at
Ventimiglia arrested as spies," said Tinker.

"Arrested as spies?" cried Dorothy.

But Selina, whose face had undergone a slow