"I didn't feel brave. I was scared to death!" admitted Carmel.
Although she would not acknowledge any particular credit in her achievement, Carmel was necessarily the heroine of the hour. Miss Walters, feeling that everybody must be in need of refreshment after such an event, ordered tea to be served immediately, and soon the urns were carried out into the garden, where tables had already been set with cups and saucers and plates of sandwiches and cakes.
After a short time Mr. Bowden, who had accompanied the burglar to the police station, returned to report that their prisoner was safely quartered in a cell, and a formal charge had been lodged against him, which in due course of law would lead to his trial for house-breaking.
"The police think he is not an old offender, but some cyclist who was passing, and probably yielded to a sudden temptation," he explained. "Nevertheless, he'll get a sharp sentence, for there has been too much of this sort of thing going on lately, and the judges are inclined to be very severe on it, and rightly too, or nobody's home would be safe. Thank you, Carmel! Yes, I'll take another cup of tea, please! And then I want to see you do that Sicilian dance before I set off on my travels again. Oh yes! I'm not going away without!"
Poor Carmel was still feeling too much upset to relish dancing, but Mr. Bowden pressed the point, and other guests joined their persuasions, so finally it was decided to give at least a portion of the second part of the program, and the audience again took their seats on the lawn, leaving several people, however, to guard the house.
"It's not likely there'll be another burglar on the same afternoon; still, he might have accomplices about," said Miss Walters. "I shall never feel really safe again, I'm afraid. We shall all be horribly nervous for a long time."
Only the most striking items in Part II were selected for performance, as it was growing late, and most of the guests would soon have to take their leave. There was an affecting tableau of the parting of the widowed Queen of Edward IV from her little son, Richard, Duke of York; a charming pageant of the old street cries of London, in which dainty maidens in eighteenth-century costumes appeared with bunches of "Sweet Lavender," and baskets of "Cherry Ripe," and, after singing the appropriate songs, went the round of the audience and sold their wares.
Noreen, who was the star of the elocution class, recited a poem describing the sad experience of a typical little waif, and his reception in the Home. It was a pretty piece, and had been composed expressly for the Society by a lady who often wrote for magazines.
Then, last of all, came Carmel's Sicilian dance. Miss Lowe had fortunately been able to obtain the score of the Pastorale, and with music and costume complete the performance was an even greater success than it had been on the terrace at Bradstone. People clapped the little figure, partly for her charming dancing and partly for her pluck in trapping the burglar, so that altogether she received quite an ovation.
"We shan't forget the 'Waifs and Strays' afternoon in a hurry," said Lilias, as she tidied her possessions afterwards, for it was her drawer that the burglar had turned upside down in his search for valuables. "I feel I want to sleep with a revolver under my pillow!"