Jack looked doubtfully at Eloise, who shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I shall tell her you have been here.  It would be a deception not to.”

“As you like.  And it’s too late now, for here she comes!” Howard said, as Mrs. Biggs passed the window and stooped to find the key.

It was not there.  Turning the mat upside down, she failed to discover it.  The key was gone!

“For goodness’ sake, what can have happened?” they heard her say, as she pushed the door open and entered the room, where the two young men stood, one on either side of Eloise, as if to protect her.  “Well, if I ain’t beat!” the widow exclaimed, dropping into a chair and beginning to untie her bonnet strings as if they choked her.  “Yes, I am beat.  Hain’t you been to meetin’?” she asked rather severely, her eyes falling on Howard, who answered quickly, “Yes, I have, and on my way home called to inquire for Miss Smith, and found this rascal here before me.  He had unlocked the door and taken possession.  You ought to have him arrested as a burglar, breaking into your house on Sunday.”

“I s’pose I or’ter,” Mrs. Biggs said, “and I hope none of the neighbors seen you come in.  Miss Brown acrost the way is a great gossip, and there hain’t a speck of scandal ever been on my house in my life, and I a-boardin’ schoolma’ams for fifteen years!”

Mrs. Biggs was inclined to be a little severe on the two young men invading her premises, but Jack was equal to the emergency.  She was tugging at her bonnet strings, which were entangled in a knot, into which the cord of her eyeglasses had become twisted.

“I can swear that neither Mrs. Brown, nor any one else was looking from the window when I came in.  She was probably at church,” Jack said, offering to help her, and finally undoing the knot which had proved too much for her.  “There you are,” he said, removing the bonnet, and setting her false piece, which had become a little askew, more squarely on her head.  “You are all right now, and can blow me up as much as you please.  I deserve it,” he added, beaming upon her a smile which would have disarmed her of a dozen prejudices.

Jack’s ways were wonderful with women, both young and old, and Mrs. Biggs felt their influence and laughed, as she said, “I ain’t goin’ to blow, though I was took aback to see two men here, and I’d like to know how you knew where to find the key.”

“I told him,” Eloise answered rather shamefacedly.

Mrs. Biggs shot a quick glance at her, and then said, with a meaning nod, “I s’pose I’d of done the same thing when John and me was courtin’, and young folks is all alike.”

Eloise’s face was scarlet, while Jack pretended suddenly to remember the lateness of the hour, and started to leave the room.  As he did so his eyes fell upon a table on which a few books were lying.

“You must find these lively,” he said, turning them over and reading their titles aloud. “‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘Foxe’s Martyrs,’ ‘Doddridge’s Rise and Fall,’ ‘Memoir of Payson,’ all solid and good, but a little heavy, ‘United States History,’ improving, but tedious,—­and,—­upon my word, ‘The Frozen Pirate’!  That is jolly!  Have you read it?”