Robert and Jane tiptoed down the stairs--one flight, two flights.
Then they looked over the banisters. Horror! a servant was coming
up with a loaded scuttle.
The children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open
door.
The room was a study, calm and gentlemanly, with rows of books, a
writing table, and a pair of embroidered slippers warming
themselves in the fender. The children hid behind the
window-curtains. As they passed the table they saw on it a
missionary-box with its bottom label torn off, open and empty.
'Oh, how awful!' whispered Jane. 'We shall never get away alive.'
'Hush!' said Robert, not a moment too soon, for there were steps on
the stairs, and next instant the two ladies came into the room.
They did not see the children, but they saw the empty missionary
box.
'I knew it,' said one. 'Selina, it WAS a gang. I was certain of
it from the first. The children were not mad. They were sent to
distract our attention while their confederates robbed the house.'
'I am afraid you are right,' said Selina; 'and WHERE ARE THEY NOW?'
'Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and
sugar-basin and the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt
Jerusha's teaspoons. I shall go down.'
'Oh, don't be so rash and heroic,' said Selina.
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