"No, I don't," persisted the boy. "I believe that years, and years, and years ago, some nice, poor lady come cree-ee-eepin' through the little white door, and left Momsey--in the basket!" Nine small countenances beamed with delight. "You're right!" the choir clamored. "You're right! You're dead right!" White sleeves were waved joyously aloft. Now the heavy door to the library began to swing against the backs of two or three. The choir did not wait to see who was entering. Smiles vanished. Eyes grew frightened. Like one, the boys wheeled and fled. The door into the passage stood wide. They crowded through it, and halted only when the last cotta was across the sill. Then, like a flock of scared quail, they faced about, panting, and ready for further flight. One look, and ten musical throats emitted as many unmusical shouts of laughter. While the tousle-headed boy, swinging the photograph which he had failed to restore to its place, again set foot upon the Brussels of the drawing-room. "Oh! Oh!" he laughed. "Oh, golly, Dora, you scared me!" With all the dignity of her sixteen years, and with all the authority of one who has graduated from the ranks of an Orphanage to the higher, if rarer, air of a Rector's residence, Dora surveyed with shocked countenance the saucy visages of the ten. On occasions she could assume a manner most impressive--a manner borrowed in part from a butler who had been installed, at one time, by a wealthy and high-living incumbent of St. Giles, and in part from ministers who had reigned there by turns and whose delivery and outward manifestations of inward sanctity she had carefully studied during the period of her own labor in the house. Now with finger-tips together, and with the spirit of those half-dozen ecclesiastics sounding in her nasal sing-song, she voiced her stern reproof: "My dear brothers!" "Aw," scoffed a boy, "we ain't neither your brothers." "I am speaking in the broad sense," explained Dora, with the loftiness of one who addresses a throng from a pulpit. Then shaking a finger, "'The wicked flee when no man pursueth'--Proverbs, twenty-eighth chapter, and first verse." "We're not wicked," denied the boy. "Mr. Farvel told us to come." "We're goin' to rehearse for the weddin'," chimed in the tow-headed one. Dora let her look travel from face to face, the while she shook her head solemnly. "But," she reminded, "if Mrs. Milo finds you here, only a miracle can save you!" "Aw, I'm not afraid of her,"--the uncombed chorister advanced bravely. "She's only a boarder. And after this, I'm goin' to mind just Mr. Farvel." Something like horrified pity lengthened the pale face of Dora. "Little boys," she advised, "in these brief years since I left the Orphanage, I've seen ministers come and ministers go. But Mrs. Milo"--she turned away--"like the poor----" Her ministerial gesture was eloquent of hopelessness.