Then Ladybird treated the listeners to one of her best blood-curdling yells. "Oh, gracious, glorious goodness!" she cried, "here's a hatchet! They _were_ going to kill us! Come down, aunty; there's nobody here but a hatchet. And your white lady is all smashed to smithereens! And here's matches all over! And here's one of the burglar's hats! Oh, aunty, come down; truly there's nobody here!" Timidly the Misses Flint, followed by Bridget and Martha, came down and viewed with dismay the havoc in the parlor. At first Miss Priscilla was overcome with sorrow at the smashed marble; then appalled with fear at their narrow escape from the dreadful hatchet; but was most deeply stirred by indignation at the muddy footprints on the carpet. "They'll never come out," she wailed; "those spots will always show!" "Don't be foolish, Priscilla," said her sister; "be thankful you're here to scrub at them, and not dead in your bed, hatcheted into eternity by a gory villain!" "Oh, I _am_ thankful," moaned Miss Priscilla. "And to think we owe our lives to that blessed little dog! Ladybird, don't you ever hint at giving him away! The Bateses can't have him. Why, I wouldn't be safe a minute without that dog in the house!" And so the next day Ladybird went over to tell Mr. Bates she had changed her mind about giving him the dog. That good man was greatly interested in the story of the burglars, but he seemed much more anxious to hear how the Flint ladies were affected by it than to learn the details of the burglary itself. "And when the burglars heard Cloppy bark," went on Ladybird, thrilled by the exciting mental picture, "they dropped their hatchet and ran. And the hatchet had a B cut on it." "It did?" said Mr. Bates, suddenly startled. "Oh, well, that stands for Burglar." "And he left a horrid old hat. And he must have been awful scared, for he only stole three things; but they were three of aunty's pet treasures. And what do you think! We found them, all three, this morning, out on the piazza and lawn!" "Then he did no real damage?" said Mr. Bates. "Oh, yes; he smashed Aunt Priscilla's head." "What?" "Oh, I don't mean her own head, but that big marble one, or plaster or something; it's called 'Cherry Ripe,' and it was a work of art." "It was a civic calamity," said Mr. Bates. "I don't know what civic means," said Ladybird; "but it was an awful calamity, and Aunt Priscilla feels perfectly dreadful about it. But anyhow, Cloppy saved us all from our untimely ends, and so aunty says we're going to keep Cloppy, and so it has all turned out right." "Yes," said Mr. Bates, with a smile of deep satisfaction, "it all turned out right." CHAPTER XI A MATRIMONIAL BUREAU "Ladybird and Stella Russell seem to be great cronies," observed Miss Dorinda one afternoon as she sat knitting by the window and watched the two girls walking down the garden path.