see why not,' H. O. said; 'it's a very nice Goat.'

'She's frightened of them,' said he. 'One ran at her when she was a
little girl. But if you will allow me, sir'--and he winked at my father,
which is not manners--'if you'll allow me, I'll call in for the Goat on
my way to the station.'

We got five pounds thirteen and fivepence by the bazaar and the raffle.
We should have had another ten shillings from father, but he had to
give it to Mr. Biggs, because we had put him to the trouble of coming
all the way from Scotland Yard, because he thought our circular was from
some hardened criminal wishing to cheat his trustful fellow-creatures.
We took the money to Augustus Victor Plunkett next morning, and I tell
you he _was_ pleased.

We waited till long after dark for the detective to return for his rich
prize. But he never came. I hope he was not set upon and stabbed in some
dark alley. If he is alive, and not imprisoned, I can't see why he
didn't come back. I often think anxiously of him. Because, of course,
detectives have many enemies among felons, who think nothing of stabbing
people in the back, so that being murdered in a dark alley is a thing
all detectives are constantly liable to.

THE RUNAWAYS

It was after we had had the measles, that fell and blighting disorder
which we got from Alice picking up five deeply infected shillings that a
bemeasled family had wrapped in a bit of paper to pay the doctor with
and then carelessly dropped in the street. Alice held the packet hotly
in her muff all through a charity concert. Hence these tears, as it says
in Virgil. And if you have ever had measles you will know that this is
not what is called figuring speech, because your eyes do run like mad
all the time.

When we were unmeasled again we were sent to stay at Lymchurch with a
Miss Sandal, and her motto was plain living and high thinking. She had a
brother, and his motto was the same, and it was his charity concert that
Alice held the fatal shillings in her muff throughout of. Later on he
was giving tracts to a bricklayer, and fell off a scaffold in his giddy
earnestness, and Miss Sandal had to go and nurse him. So the six of us
stayed in the plain living, high thinking house by ourselves, and old
Mrs. Beale from the village came in every day and did the housework. She
was of humble birth, but was a true lady in minding her own affairs,
which is what a great many ladies do not know how to do at all. We had
no l