Tiny drew her dress closer together, and pressed to the tree trunk, looking terribly guilty, while her sister went on watching.
The steps came nearer, and the stepper’s eyes were busy with a keen look for everything, as he seemed to feast on the beauties of Nature around him.
“‘I love the merry, merry sunshine,’” he sang, in a bold, bluff voice; “and—Hallo, what the dickens have we here?” he cried, stopping short, and setting two hearts beating quickly. “Lady’s basket and ferns dug up—yes, within the last hour. Why, that must be—Hallo, I spy, hi!”
For as he spoke his eyes had been wandering about, amongst the brakes and bushes, and he had caught sight of a bit of muslin dress peeping out from behind a gnarled oak.
The result of his summons was that the scrap of dress was softly drawn out of sight, and a voice from up in the ties whispered—
“Oh, go down, Tiny, and then he won’t see me.”
“Hallo! whispers in the wind,” cried the newcomer, glancing higher, and seeing a bit of Fin. “Is it a bird? By Jove, I wish I’d a gun. No: poachers—trespassers. Here, you fellows, come out!”
Jenkles’s Confession.
Sam Jenkles always boasted that he never kept anything from his wife; but he was silent for two days; and then, after a hard day’s work, he was seated in his snug kitchen, watching the browning of a half-dozen fine potatoes in a Dutch oven before the fire, when Mrs Jenkles, a plump, bustling little woman, who was stitching away at a marvellous rate, her needle clicking at every stroke, suddenly exclaimed—