“Just wait till I come down, I’ll give it to you, you audacious villain, you,” she cried, as she closed the window; “I’ll see if I can’t move you!” Caddy hastily seized a broom, and descended the stairs with the intention of inflicting summary vengeance upon the dirty delinquent who had so rashly made himself liable to her wrath.  Stealing softly down the alley beside the house, she sprang suddenly forward, and brought the broom with all her energy down upon the head of Mr. Winston, who was standing on the place just left by the beggar.  She struck with such force as to completely crush his hat down over his eyes, and was about to repeat the blow, when her father caught her arm, and she became aware of the awful mistake she had made.

“Why, my child!” exclaimed her father, “what on earth, is the matter with you, have you lost your senses?” and as he spoke, he held her at arm’s length from him to get a better look at her.  “What are you dressed up in this style for?” he continued, as he surveyed her from head to foot; and then bursting into a loud laugh at her comical appearance, he released her, and she made the quickest possible retreat into the house by the way she came out.

Bushing breathless upstairs, she exclaimed, “Oh, mother, mother, I’ve done it now!  They’ve come, and I’ve beat him over the head with a broom!”

“Beat whom over the head with a broom?” asked Mrs. Ellis.

“Oh, mother, I’m so ashamed, I don’t know what to do with myself.  I struck Mr. Winston with a broom.  Mr. Winston, the gentleman father has brought home.”

“I really believe the child is crazy,” said Mrs. Ellis, surveying the chagrined girl.  “Beat Mr. Winston over the head with a broom! how came you to do it?”

“Oh, mother, I made a great mistake; I thought he was a beggar.”

“He must be a very different looking person from what we have been led to expect,” here interrupted Esther.  “I understood father to say that he was very gentlemanlike in appearance.”

“So he is,” replied Caddy.

“But you just said you took him for a beggar?” replied her mother.

“Oh, don’t bother me, don’t bother me! my head is all turned upside down.  Do, Esther, go down and let them in—­hear how furiously father is knocking!  Oh, go—­do go!”

Esther quickly descended and opened the door for Winston and her father; and whilst the former was having the dust removed and his hat straightened, Mrs. Ellis came down and was introduced by her husband.  She laughingly apologized for the ludicrous mistake Caddy had made, which afforded great amusement to all parties, and divers were the jokes perpetrated at her expense during the remainder of the evening.  Her equanimity having been restored by Winston’s assurances that he rather enjoyed the joke than otherwise—­and an opportunity having been afforded her to obliterate the obnoxious marks from the door-steps—­she exhibited great activity in forwarding all the arrangements for tea.