It would wrong the truth to say that Master Danny's slumber was disturbed that night; but next morning when the boys awoke together, and Ewan rose on his elbow with a puzzled gaze at his unexpected bed-fellow, Danny sidled out of the bed on to the floor, and, without looking too much into Ewan's face, he began his toilet, as was his wont, by putting on his cap. He had got this length, and was standing in cap and shirt, when he blurted out the mischief of last night's adventure, the singing, the sudden appearance of the Bishop, the race home along the cliff, and the coming up to bed. "But you won't let on, Ewan, will you?" he said. Ewan looked at that moment as if the fate of the universe hung on his answer, but he gave the promise that was required of him. Then the boys went downstairs and found Mona, and imparted the dread secret to her. Presently the Bishop came in to breakfast with a face that was paler than usual, and more than ordinarily solemn. "Danny," he said, "why did you not sleep in your own bed last night, my boy?" "I slept with Ewan, father," Danny answered, promptly. The Bishop said no more then, and they all sat down at the table. "And so you two boys went to bed together--_together_?" he said, and, with a dig of emphasis on his last word, repeated, he looked at Ewan. Ewan's face crimsoned, and his tongue faltered, "Yes, uncle." The Bishop's eyes fell. "Boys," he said, in another tone, "would you think it? I have done you a great wrong." The boys were just then most intent on the tablecloth. "You must know," the Bishop went on, "that there was a most unseemly riot at the Oiel Verree, and all night long I have been sore troubled by the bad thought that Danny was in the midst of it." The boys held their heads very low over their plates, and Mona's big eyes filled visibly. Danny's impulse was to blurt out the whole mischief there and then, but he reflected that to do so would be to charge Ewan with falsehood. Ewan, on his part, would have confessed to the deception, but he knew that this would mean that Danny must be punished. The boy's wise head could see no way out of a tangle like that. The breakfast was the quietest ever eaten on a Christmas morning at Bishop's Court, and, little as the talking was, the Bishop, strangely enough, did it all. But when they rose from the table, and the boys slunk out of the room with most portentous gravity, Mona went up to the Bishop with a face full of liquid grief, and, turning the whole depths of her great troubled eyes upon him, the little maiden said: "Ewan didn't mean to tell you what wasn't true--and cousin Danny didn't intend to deceive--but he was--that is, Danny--I mean--dear uncle, you won't--" "You mean that Danny was at the Oiel Verree last night--I know it, child, I know it," said the Bishop, and he patted her head and smiled.