"I'm sure he won't do it any harm," she went on, making the elementary mistake of applying superficial salves to a wound whose depths she was incapable of estimating. "He's very good about machinery--maybe it's only round to the front door he took it." As Miss Bennett offered these consolations I saw two small figures creep from the shadows of the house. Their white collars shone in the moonlight, and, recognising them as the youngest members of the inveterate clan of McRory, I hailed them in a roar that revealed very effectively the extent of my indignation. It did not surprise me that the pair, in response to this, darted out of the yard gate with the speed of a pair of minnows in a stream. I pursued, not with any hope of overtaking them, but because they were the only clue available, and in my wake, over the frosty ground, in her satin shoes, followed that sound sportswoman, Miss Bennett. The route from the stable-yard to the front of Temple Braney House is a long and circuitous one, that skirts a plantation of evergreens. At the first bend the moonlight displayed the track of a tyre in the grass; at the next bend, where the edge was higher, a similar economy of curve had been effected, and that the incident had been of a fairly momentous nature was suggested by the circumstance that the tail lamp was lying in the middle of the drive. It was as I picked it up that I heard a familiar humming in the vicinity of the hall door. "He didn't go so far, after all," said Miss Bennett, somewhat blown, but holding her own, in spite of the satin shoes. I turned the last corner at a high rate of speed, and saw the dignified Georgian façade of the house, pale and placid in the moonlight; through the open hall door a shaft of yellow light fell on the ground. The car was nowhere to be seen, yet somewhere, close at hand, the engine throbbed and drummed to me,--a _cri de coeur_, as I felt it, calling to me through the accursed jingle of the piano that proceeded from the open door. "Where the devil----?" I began. Even as I spoke I descried the car. It was engaged, apparently, in forcing its way into the shrubbery that screened one end of the house. The bonnet was buried in a holly bush, the engine was working, slowly but industriously. The lamps were not lighted, and there was no one in it. "Those two imps made good use of their legs, never fear them!" puffed Miss Bennett; "the 'cuteness of them--cutting away to warn the brother!" "What's this confounded thing?" I said fiercely, snatching at something that was caught in the handle of the brake. Miss Bennett snatched it in her turn, and held it up in the moonlight, while I stilled the fever of the engine. "Dublin for ever!" she exclaimed. "What is it but the streamers of Miss Cooney's mandoline! There's the spoils of war for you! And it's all the spoils you'll get--the whole pack of them's hid in the house by now!"