130 THE STRAWBERRY GARDEN. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE MIDNIGHT RAID. 



THAT night, soon after the owl train had shrieked 

 through the village, and just as the rural chanticleer had 

 finished his last farinaceous dream and was sleepily tun- 

 ing his horn, two of the family awoke. Do what they 

 would they could not sleep again. 



The restless Johnny, after piling Alps on Alps with the 

 bedclothes, and muttering to himself that " he'd do it, sure 

 as sixty," sat up in bed and looked out of the window at 

 the waning moon. 



Just beside him in the next room his lister Kate also sat 

 up, with wide-awake eyes, and wondering if " she heard 

 robbers or anything." 



For a while all was silent. Then she heard a queer 

 sound just outside her window. In a little fright she hid 

 her head in the bedclothes. The noise went on. A sound 

 of footsteps on the roof of the piazza by her window. 



Resolved to be very brave, she slipped out of bed. scram- 

 bled into a wrapper, and grasped her shoe to fling at the 

 burglar. Looking out, she beheld a young lad standing 

 before her window. She was upon the point of indulging 



