"Peter or no Peter, I think I'll wait--unless you really wish me to say 'good-night' now?" But with a dexterous turn she eluded me, and waving her hand hurried up the rose-bordered path. An hour, or even two, does not seem so very long when one's mind is so full of happy thoughts as mine was. Thus, I was filling my pipe and looking philosophically about for a likely spot in which to keep my vigil, when I was aware of a rustling close by, and as I watched a small figure stepped from the shadow of the hedge out into the moonlight. "Hallo, Uncle Dick!" said a voice. "Imp!" I exclaimed, "what does this mean? You ought to have been in bed over an hour ago!" "So I was," he answered with his guileless smile; "only I got up again, you know." "So it seems!" I nodded. "An' I followed you an' Auntie Lisbeth all the way, too." "Did you, though; by George!" "Yes, an' I dropped one of the parcels an' lost a sausage, but you never heard." "Lost a sausage!" I repeated, staring. "Oh, it's all right, you know," he hastened to assure me; "I found it again, an' it wasn't hurt a bit." "Imp," I said sternly, "come here, I want to talk to you." "Just a minute, Uncle Dick, while I get my parcels. I want you to help me to carry them, please," and with the words he dived under the hedge to emerge a moment later with his arms full of unwieldy packages, which he laid at my feet in a row. "Why, what on earth have you got there, Imp?" "This," he said, pointing to the first, "is jam an' ham an' a piece of bread; this next one is cakes an' sardines, an' this one is bread-an'-butter that I saved from my tea." "Quite a collection!" I nodded. "Suppose you tell me what you mean to do with them." "Well, they're for my outlaw. You remember the other day I wanted to play at being outlaws? Well, two days ago, as I was tracking a base caitiff through the woods with my trusty bow and arrow, I found a real outlaw in the old boat-house." "Ah! and what is he like?" I inquired. "Oh, just like an outlaw--only funny, you know, an' most awfull' hungry. Are all outlaws always so very hungry, Uncle Dick?" "I believe they generally are, Imp. And he looks 'funny,' you say?" "Yes; I mean his clothes are funny--all over marks like little crosses, only they aren't crosses." "Like this?" I inquired; and picking up a piece of stick I drew a broad-arrow upon the path. "Yes, just like that!" cried the Imp in a tone of amazement "How did you know? You're awfull' clever, Uncle Dick!" "And he is in the old boat-house, is he?" I said, as I picked up an armful of packages. "'Lead on, MacDuff!'" "Mind that parcel, please, Uncle Dick; it's the one I dropped an' lost the sausage out of--there one trying to escape now!" Having reduced the recalcitrant sausage to a due sense of law and order, we proceeded toward the old boat-house--a dismal, dismantled affair, some half mile or so downstream. "And what sort of a fellow is your outlaw, Imp?"