Presently he heard a noise in the pantry, which was next his own little room. Harold rose and crept noiselessly out of his chamber. Yes, there was someone in the pantry. The door was open,--something not allowed in his mother's kitchen rule. An uncertain light flickered behind the pantry door. Harold could not see plainly, but there certainly was some one meddling with the dishes on the shelves. Suddenly a silhouette came between Harold and the light, and he saw the shape of the intruder. It seemed to be a very tall old woman in bonnet and shawl, and her great hand was carrying something from the pantry shelf to the mouth within the bonnet. Harold felt himself growing very angry. Who was this stranger who dared to force a way into their cottage and eat up the hard-earned victuals which his mother had painfully prepared? Such doings were rare indeed in Kisington. It was a wicked thief, a robber, a house-breaker! Even though it was a woman, she must be punished. There was a key in the lock outside the pantry door. Quick as a flash Harold made a leap for it, and turned it in the lock. At the same time he shouted to his mother who slept in the room upstairs,--"Quick! Quick, Mother! There is an old woman in the pantry eating up the food! I have caught her at it!" In a few minutes his mother's feet came pattering down the stairs. But in the mean time what a hubbub was going on in the pantry! Evidently the thief had no mind to be discovered and taken in her criminal act. There was the sound of overturned boxes and barrels, the crash of crockery and glass. The thief was smashing the pantry window! "Open the door, Harold!" screamed his mother. "She is climbing out the window!" It did not seem possible that the thief could do this, it was such a tiny window. But, sure enough! when the door was opened, and Harold and his mother crowded into the pantry, they were but just in time to seize the hem of the old woman's shawl, as her last leg squeezed through the casement. Harold held on to the shawl tightly, however, and off it came in his hands. It was a very nice shawl. "Who ever heard of a thief in Kisington!" exclaimed the mother. "Who could it be? I never saw a shawl like this. Let us examine what she has taken, the wicked old creature!" Harold got a candle, and presently returned to the pantry, where his mother was groping among the smashed crockery for some other clue to the thief. When the light flickered on the pantry shelves the mother gave a scream of surprise and anger. "My six beautiful pies!" she exclaimed. "The thief has stolen my six beautiful apple pies! Oh, what a wicked old soul!" "Those lovely pies!" groaned Harold. "See, Mother, she has gobbled one and left the empty plate. The others she has taken away with her." "I wish they may choke her!" cried the mother angrily. "Now you will have none to take to your Red King to-morrow. I was going to save the finest of all for him, in the hope that it would soften his hard heart."