t down here, you naughty little boy?' put in Aunt
Maria.

Harold was hard pressed--by his own flesh and blood, too!

At that moment Edward touched me on the shoulder and glided off through
the laurels. When some ten yards away he gave a low whistle. I replied
with another. The effect was magical. Aunt Maria started up with a
shriek. Harold gave one startled glance around, and then fled like a
hare, made straight for the back-door, burst in upon the servants at
supper, and buried himself in the broad bosom of the cook, his special
ally. The curate faced the laurels--hesitatingly. But Aunt Maria flung
herself on him. 'O Mr. Hodgitts!' I heard her cry, 'you are brave! for
my sake do not be rash!' He was not rash. When I peeped out a second
later, the coast was entirely clear.

By this time there were sounds of a household timidly emerging; and
Edward remarked to me that perhaps we had better be off. Retreat was an
easy matter. A stunted laurel gave a leg-up on to the garden wall, which
led in its turn to the roof of an out-house, up which, at a dubious
angle, we could crawl to the window of the box-room. This overland route
had been revealed to us one day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed
in the course of an otter-hunt, in which the cat--somewhat
unwillingly--was filling the title _role_; and it had proved distinctly
useful on occasions like the present. We were snug in bed--minus some
cuticle from knees and elbows--and Harold, sleepily chewing something
sticky, had been carried up in the arms of the friendly cook, ere the
clamour of the burglar-hunters had died away.

The curate's undaunted demeanour, as reported by Aunt Maria, was
generally supposed to have terrified the burglars into flight, and much
kudos accrued to him thereby. Some days later, however, when he had
dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild curatorial joke about
the moral courage required for taking the last piece of
bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark dreamily, and as it were
to the universe at large: 'Mr. Hodgitts! you are brave! for my sake, do
not be rash!'

Fortunately for me, the vicar also was a caller on that day; and it was
always a comparatively easy matter to dodge my long-coated friend in the
open.

A HARVESTING

THE year was in its yellowing time, and the face of Nature a study in
old gold. 'A field _or, semee_ with garbs of the same:' it may be false
Heraldry--Nature's generally is--but it correct