The Wheelock furnishings are plain and our own belongings would pack in small space and bring little in open market and it struck both Ethel and myself in spite of our fears that it was very funny for a burglar to be looking for plunder in our cottage. I fancy that he himself saw he had picked out a poor house, for he left the spare room, contented himself with a casual glance into our sparsely furnished bedroom and then went creaking down the stairs again. Burglars in books make no noise, but I am sure I could have gone down stairs more quietly than he did and I was in an agony of fear—no longer of him but that Minerva might wake up and become panic stricken. The burglar went as far as the kitchen and then he actually stumbled over a chair and this brought about the dreaded result. Minerva waked up and the next instant we heard a husky, “Is that you, Mis. Vernon?” Next we heard steps in her hall and the query repeated in a louder tone, “Is that you, Mis. Vernon?” Then came a shriek. She had evidently encountered the burglar. “Oh, Philip, what _shall_ we do?” said Ethel. “Don’t you think it will be safe to go and tell the burglar to go away? Minerva will surely go into hysterics and leave in the morning.” “She’s gone there now. Hear her!” The noise occasioned by the advent of the bat was as nothing compared to the din that Minerva let out upon the midnight air. And now we heard a man’s voice, the voice of the burglar. “Be quiet. I’m not going to hurt you. I made a mistake in the house.” Made a mistake in the house and the next one half a mile away! “Philip, if he were a dangerous burglar he would have shot her by this. Go and speak to him and tell him to go away.” It was a risky proceeding, but after all we had gone through I was determined to keep Minerva with us at any risk, so pulling a dressing gown over my pajamas and leaping into my slippers, I went down stairs choking down my rising heart. I met the burglar coming down the back stairs with his hands in his ears to shut out the shrieks that arose from Minerva. When he saw me he sat down on the stairs and said, “I thought so. I thought she’d waken the house.” Now this was a queer way for a burglar to act and it gave me heart. By all the rules of burglary the man should either have given me one in the jaw or a bit of lead in the lung or else he should have rushed past me and escaped, but he sat down on the top step and reminded me of Francis Wilson by the quaintness of his intonation and the expression that came over his face.