“Really?”

“Really!”

“Tom?”

“Well, Jane!”

“Those that ain’t clever enough to hide secrets should trust them to those that are.”

“I don’t know what you mean, my lass.”

“Oh, nothing; only I sat up till halfpast one in the kitchen, and I listened till three in my room.

“You took a deal of trouble on my account.”

“Oh, it was more curiosity than regard,” was the keen reply.

“So I should say.”

The girl colored and seemed nettled by this answer.  She set demurely about the work of small vengeance.  “Now,” said she with great cordiality, “you tell me what you were doing all night and why you broke into the house like a—­a—­hem! instead of coming into it like a man, and then you’ll save me the trouble of finding it out whether you like or not.”

These words chilled Robinson.  What! had a spy been watching him—­perhaps for days—­and above all a female spy—­a thing with a velvet paw, a noiseless step, an inscrutable countenance, and a microscopic eye.

He hung his head over his cup in silence.  Jenny’s eye was scanning him.  He felt that without seeing it.  He was uneasy under it, but his self-reproach was greater than his uneasiness.

At this juncture the street door was opened with a latch-key.  “Here comes the head scamp,’ said Jenny, with her eye on Robinson.  The next moment a bell was rung sharply.  Robinson rose.

“Finish your breakfast,” said Jenny, “I’ll answer the bell,” and out she went.  She returned in about ten minutes with a dressing-gown over her arm and a pair of curling-irons in her hand.  “There,” said she, “you are to go in the parlor, and get up the young buck; curl his nob and whiskers.  I wish it was me, I’d curl his ear the first thing I’d curl.”

“What, Jane, did you take the trouble to bring them down for me?”

“They look like it,” replied the other tartly, as if she repented the good office.

Robinson went in to his master.  He expected a rebuke for being out of the way; but no! he found the young gentleman in excellent humor and high spirits.  “Help me off with this coat, Tom.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh! not so rough, confound you.  Ah!  Ugh!”

“Coat’s a little too tight, sir.”

“No it isn’t—­it fits me like a glove but I am stiff and sore.  There, now, get me a shirt.”

Robinson came back with the shirt, and aired it close to the fire; and this being a favorable position for saying what he felt awkward about, he began: 

“Mr. Miles, sir.”

“Hallo!”

“I am going to ask you a favor.”

“Out with it!”

“You have been a kind master to me.”

“I should think I have, too.  By Jove, you won’t find such another in a hurry.”

“No, sir, I am sure I should not, but there is an opening for me of a different sort altogether.  I have a friend, a squatter, near Bathurst, and I am to join him if you will be so kind as to let me go.”