CHAPTER VII.

AN ARRIVAL, AND THE NOISE IN THE NIGHT.

"DINA, she's come! She's come! I haven't seen her, but I saw the carriage and the luggage."

"So we've got a governess at last!" remarked Dina. "I'd forgotten she was coming to-day."

"Let's have our guessing game as to what she'll be like," said Gerald, "and see which of us gets nearest to the truth."

"All right!" rejoined Dina. "I guess that she is very tall, dark, rather bony, and wears a big comb in her back hair, and not much hair to put the comb in. Oh, yes, and blue goggles!"

Gerald laughed.

"What a beauty!" he said. "Now I guess she's fair, red hair perhaps, and very much poodled—you know what I mean—curled and frizzed and fussed. She's a sort of pretty, make-believe, doll-de-doll-doll governess."

Dina laughed in her turn. "I don't like your guess any better than I do mine," she said.

"Maybe we're both wrong," answered Gerald; and so it turned out.

Indeed so far away from the truth were the guesses of both that, when the new governess came down to tea, the twins could only stare.

And Mr. Ellis, who had joined them at tea in honour of the new arrival, said sharply, "Well, children, where are your manners? Have you no welcome for Miss Burnard?"

"It is natural they should feel a little shy of a stranger just at first," said she pleasantly, with a bright smile; "but I hope we may be very good friends soon. Do you know, my dears, I have always wished to have twins to teach; I think twins are so very interesting."

"We're not," rejoined Dina; "ask dad!"

"No, thank you," laughed Miss Burnard, "I am not going to ask anyone. I mean to judge for myself. But I love children so dearly that to me they are always interesting."

After tea the twins went out again, while the governess unpacked her boxes, and settled comfortably into her own room.

"I say, Dina," said Gerald, "she's not a bit like your guess of the grenadier party with the comb."

"Nor the poodley, doll-de-doll-doll that you guessed," retorted Dina.

"She's not at all young," said Gerald, "and she's not pretty, and yet—"

"And yet she is," replied Dina with assurance. "Her smile is ever so sweet, and her big grey eyes are lovely; and then she has such a quantity of brown hair, with just little gleams of white as if they had been sprinkled in with a sugar-sifter. And she's tall and graceful, like darling mother." And the child's voice broke, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Dad's not often nice to anyone," said Gerald after a brief pause; "but he was to her. If he'd been half as good to Brother Bob, he'd have been here now."

"Poor dear Brother Bob!" sighed Dina. "There's nothing now to keep him from going to the bad," and the little girl turned away sad at heart, and wandered off alone, brooding over the sorrow which had already come into her young life.

The next day the children had lessons all the morning, at which Miss Burnard showed herself an interesting teacher. In the afternoon the twins took her all over the queer old house.

"For you must see for yourself what a musty old curiosity shop it is, Miss Burnard," said Gerald.

"Yes," added Dina, "dad cares for nothing much younger than Noah's ark, and that's why he never cared much about his children, though he's only had three—Brother Bob and us twins."

"Come along, Miss Burnard," said Gerald, "come and see the only beautiful things in all dad's collection." And he led the way to the gem cabinet in the drawing-room.

"You are right, my dear boy," said the governess, when the twins had done the honours of the cabinet; "these things are indeed beautiful, and they must be valuable too."

"I shouldn't wonder," replied Gerald discontentedly. "I wish dad would sell the lot and buy us ponies to ride, but he's the sort of dad who only thinks of himself."

"I hope—oh, I do hope you are not the sort of boy who often speaks of his father like that," was the gentle rejoinder, and Gerald could not resent it, for her smile was so sweet, and the pressure of her hand on his arm had in it an attractive force that drew the boy to her in spite of himself.

Dina was wakeful that night, long after the rest of the household was asleep; and it might have been between twelve and one o'clock when she heard a curious rasping noise, which seemed to come from the ground floor, on the same side as her own room. With a heart beating fast, and eyes staring into the darkness, the child sat up to listen.

Yes—it was not fancy; the subdued sound kept on, and Dina at once jumped to conclusions.

"We're going to be burgled," said she to herself. "Somebody's trying to get in at the drawing-room window after the gems. What had I better do?"

The next minute Dina was standing at her brother's bedside.

"Gerry, wake up! It's burglars. Oh, do stop snoring and wake up! Burglars! Burglars!"

The frightened whisper at last reached the boy's drowsy brain. He started up and jumped out of bed.

"Let's go and see what's up!" he said; and shoving his feet into slippers, he flung his dressing-gown about him, and opening his door came out on the landing, Dina, behind him. Here the rasping noise came less softly to their ears, and Gerald said, "They're filing the catch of the drawing-room window. It's the gems they're after."

Suddenly—and before the twins had made up their mind how to act—the noise ceased and a window was gently opened.

"Oughtn't I to go and tell dad?" whispered Gerald.

"Yes, of course he must know," replied Dina; "I'll go with you as far as his landing."

Mr. Ellis was a little deaf, and took some waking; and Dina, leaving her brother to this, and possessed by a strange mingling of curiosity and dread, crept noiselessly downstairs in the dark, till she stood by the drawing-room door, which was ajar.

Holding her breath, she leaned forward and peeped in, and saw, by the light of a lantern which shone full into the gem cabinet, the dark outline of a man's form in a crouching position. His hands alone were in the clear light of the lantern as they quickly and deftly collected the treasures from the shelves, and slipped them into a bag that lay on the floor. The face of the man was in deep shadow, and not a feature was visible.

But Dina had seen something which appalled her more than a dozen savage ruffians could have done. By that light she recognised those handsome hands, with their long deft fingers, and the plain broad wedding-ring on the little finger, kept as a precious possession through years of hardship and want, for the dead mother's sake. For one moment the child stood in the doorway, rigid with horror; then she darted into the room, and as the burglar looked up, startled, Dina fell forward into his arms.

"How could you? Oh, how could you?" she sobbed. "You that we love so!" and the childish voice was thrilling in its agony of sorrow and reproach. The man's bosom heaved convulsively, and the bag of gems lay unheeded on the floor as he clasped the poor little wrong twin to his heart.

"I was starving, Dina, starving. Do you know what hunger means? And hadn't I a right to something in this house? And if my right was denied, I must help myself."

"Hark!" whispered Dina. "There's dad coming! Run away quick! I'll come to you in the shrubbery, if you'll hide in the jungle walk."

As the child spoke she was pulling him towards the window—one of those big French windows opening down the middle like a double door, and level with the garden path outside.

As Mr. Ellis entered, he just caught a glimpse of the burglar's tall form and caught him by the arm ere he passed out, though not firmly enough to secure him. There was the quick crack of a revolver shot, and a smothered cry from the thief as he stumbled through the window into the darkness beyond.