There was a sound of muffled, shuffled feet on the stairs. Like the heroine of the classic poem, Jane "thought it was the boys," and, as she now felt quite wide awake and not nearly so tired as before, she crept gently from Anthea's side and followed the footsteps. They went down into the basement. The cats, which seemed to have fallen into the sleep of exhaustion, awoke at the sound of the approaching footsteps and mewed piteously. Jane was at the foot of the stairs before she saw that it was not her brothers whose coming had roused her and the cats, but a burglar. She knew he was a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red and black charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was. If you had been stood in Jane's shoes you would no doubt have run away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid screams. But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars, as well as some affecting pieces of poetry, and she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he meets one when burgling. Indeed, in all the cases Jane had read of his burglarishness was almost at once forgotten in the interest he felt in the little girl's artless prattle. So if Jane hesitated for a moment before addressing the burglar it was only because she could not at once think of any remark sufficiently prattling and artless to make a beginning. In the stories and the affecting poetry the child could never speak plainly, though it always looked old enough to in the pictures. And Jane could not make up her mind to lisp and "talk baby," even to a burglar. And while she hesitated he softly opened the nursery door and went in. Jane followed--just in time to see him sit down flat on the floor, scattering cats as a stone thrown into a pool splashes water. She closed the door softly and stood there, still wondering whether she _could_ bring herself to say: "What's 'oo doing here, Mithter Wobber?" and whether any other kind of talk would do. Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke:-- "It's a judgment," he said. "Oh, 'ere's a thing to 'appen to a chap! Cats an' cats an' cats. Let alone the cow. If she ain't the moral of the old man's Daisy! She's a dream out of when I was a lad; I don't mind 'er so much. 'Ere, Daisy, Daisy!" The cow turned and looked at him. "_She's_ all right," he went on; "sort of company, too. But them cats--oh, take 'em away, take 'em away! Oh, take 'em away!" "Burglar," said Jane, close behind him, and he started convulsively and turned on her a blank face whose pale lips trembled--"I can't take those cats away." "Lor'!" exclaimed the man; "if 'ere ain't another on 'em. Are you real, miss, or something I'll wake up from presently?" "I am quite real," said Jane, relieved to find that a lisp was not needed to make the burglar understand her. "And so," she added, "are the cats."