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 aprons and some towels were bleaching, and a row of red crocks were sunned on an unpainted bench by the back door. He reached the kitchen. It was open.

"Holloa, here!" he called again before the door, peering into the cool room then and once more turning to survey the garden-beds, in which more poultry strayed.

By this time the fatigues of the past few hours were half-forgotten in a certain new excitement.

"Well, Towzer, if your people are all away and are willing to leave their house and home open and unprotected, in this free and easy sort of fashion, pirates must be out of date with a vengeance! I don't know what strangers coming to them for charity can do except to do what Mrs. Wooden calls 'act according to their best lights'—eh?" The dog had trotted into the kitchen behind him, and now stood wagging his tail and barking a sharp note, here and there, beside an empty platter that rested on the hearth.

"Cold? Yes, and there hasn't been a fire in that stove for hours and hours," exclaimed Philip, examining; "nor have you been fed,