"It wasn't my fault," Oswald said; "there was something the matter with the beasts. I fed them right enough."
Alice said she didn't mean that, and she went on—
"I came down into the garden, and I saw a light in the house, and dark figures moving about. I thought perhaps it was burglars, but Father hadn't come home, and Eliza had gone to bed, so I couldn't do anything. Only I thought perhaps I would tell the rest of you."
"Why didn't you tell us this morning?" Noël asked. And Alice explained that she did not want to get any one into trouble, even burglars. "But we might watch to-night," she said, "and see if we see the light again."
"They might have been burglars," Noël said. He was sucking the last bit of his macaroni. 'You know the people next door are very grand. They won't know us—and they go out in a real private carriage sometimes. And they have an 'At Home' day, and people come in cabs. I daresay they have piles of plate and jewellery and rich brocades, and furs of price and things like that. Let us keep watch to-night."
"It's no use watching to-night," Dicky said; "if it's only burglars they won't come
