Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/333

Rh curtain with angry suddenness. Then she lighted candles and looked at herself in the looking-glass. She thought she had never looked so pretty. And she was right. Then she went to bed, and slept like a tired baby.

Next morning the suburb was electrified by the discovery, made by the nursing aunt, that all the silver and jewels and valuables from the safe at the top of the stairs had vanished.

"The villains must have come through your room, child," she said to Harry's sweetheart; "the ladder proves that. Slept sound all night, did you? Well, that was a mercy! They might have murdered you in your bed if you'd happened to be awake. You ought to be humbly thankful when you think of what might have happened."

The girl did not think very much of what might have happened. What had happened gave her quite food enough for reflection. Especially when to her side of the night's adventures was added the tale of Harry's.

He had not played cricket, he had not hurt his knee, he had merely confided in his father's