“O, it’s auntie’s rings—­it’s auntie’s rings,” cried Fly, jumping up, and seizing the pretended old woman by her calico sleeve.

“Why, Aunt Madge, that isn’t you!”

“But how’d you take out yer teeth?” said Fly; “your teeth? your teeth?”

“O, I didn’t take them out, Miss Bright-eyes.  I only put a little spruce gum over them.”

“Horace, I can’t find auntie anywhere in this house,” said Prudy, appearing at the parlor door.  “Do you suppose she’s gone off and hid?”

“Yes, she’s hid inside that old gown.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s auntie, and her teeth’s in,” explained Fly.

“Only I wish she was an old woman, and had really brought me my money,” said Horace, in a disappointed tone.  “I declare, there was one time I thought the old nuisance was coming round to it, and going to give me the wallet.”

“What a wise, wonderful youth!” said the aged dame, in a cracked voice.  “Thinks I can give him his wallet, when he’s got it himself, right close to his heart.”

Horace put his hand in his breast pocket.

Wonder of wonders!  There was the wallet!  And not only his, but Prudy’s!  Had he been asleep all day?  Or was he asleep now?

“Money safe?  Not a cent gone.  Hoo-rah!  Hoo-ra-ah!”

And for want of a cap to throw, he threw up Fly.

“Where did it come from?  Where did the old woman find it?  O, no; the man in the green-bottle coat?—­O, no; there wasn’t any old woman,” cried the children, hopelessly confused.  “But who found the money?  Did I drop it on Cranberry Street?” “Did he drop it on Quamby Street?” “Who brought it?” “Who bringed it?”

Aunt Madge stuffed her fingers into her ears.  “They are all talking at once; they’re enough to craze a body!  They forget how old I am!  Came all the way from the Eagle office, afoot and alone, with only four children to—­”

“O, auntie, don’t play any more!  Talk sober!  Talk honest!  Did Horace have his pockets picked?”

“Yes, he did,” replied Aunt Madge, speaking in her natural tones, and throwing off the pumpkin hood; “if you want the truth, he did.”

“Why Aunt Madge Allen!  It does not seem possible!  Who picked my pockets?”

“Some one who heard you talking so loud about your money.”

“But how could it be taken out, and I not know it?”

“Quite as easily as it could be put back, and you not know it.”

“That’s true, Horace Clifford!  Auntie put it back, and you never knew it.”

“So she did,” said Horace, looking as bewildered as if he had been whirling around with his eyes shut; “so she did—­didn’t she?  But that was because I was taken by surprise, seeing her without a tooth in her head, you know.”

“You have been taken by surprise twice to-day, then,” said Aunt Madge, demurely.  “It is really refreshing, Horace, to find that such a sharp young man can be caught napping!”