Part 2

"Oh," she whispered, "please do me another favor, wont you? Please let me slip quietly upstairs and bring down my own things instead. They will be so easy to carry away, and they are very valuable, and--and I will make you a present of them if you will not touch anything that belongs to papa. He is so fond of his things and, besides that, he is so good."

The burglar gave a rather strange and disturbed look at her.

"Go an' get yer gimcracks," he said in a somewhat grumbling voice.

Her treasures were in her own room, and her bare feet made no sound as she crept slowly up the staircase and then down again. But when she handed the little box to the burglar her eyes were wet.

"Papa gave me the watch, and mamma gave me the locket," she whispered, tremulously; "and the pearls were grandmamma's, and grandmamma is in heaven."

It would not be easy to know what the burglar thought; he looked queerer than ever. Perhaps he was not quite so bad as some burglars, and felt rather ashamed of taking her treasures from a little girl who loved other people so much better than she loved herself. But he did not touch any of papa's belongings, and, indeed, did not remain much longer. He grumbled a little when he looked into the drawing-room, saying something to himself about "folks never 'avin' no consideration for a cove, an' leavin' nothin' portable 'andy, a expectin' of him to carry off seventy-five pound bronze clocks an' marble stattoos;" but though Editha was sorry to see that he appeared annoyed, she did not understand him.

After that, he returned to the pantry and helped himself to some cold game pie, and seemed to enjoy it, and then poured out a tumbler of wine, which Editha thought a great deal to drink at once.

"Yer 'e'lth, my dear," he said, "an' 'appy returns, an' many on 'em. May yer grow up a hornyment to yer sect, an' a comfort to yer respected mar an' par."

And he threw his head very far back, and drank the very last drop in the glass, which was vulgar, to say the least of it.

Then he took up his bundles of silver and the other articles he had appropriated, and seeing that he was going away, Editha rose from the pantry step.

"Are you going out through the window?" she asked.

"Yes, my dear," he answered with a chuckle, "it's a little 'abit I've got into. I prefers 'em to doors."

"Well, good-by," she said, holding out her hand politely. "And thank you, my lord."

She felt it only respectable to say that, even if he had fallen into bad habits and become a burglar.

He shook hands with her in quite a friendly manner, and even made a bow.

"Yer welcome, my dear," he said. "An' I must hadd that if I ever see a queerer or better behaved little kid, may I be blowed--or, as yer told me it would be more correcter to say, I'll be blown."

Editha did not know he was joking; she thought he was improving, and that if he had had advantages he might have been a very nice man.

It was astonishing how neatly he slipped through the window; he was gone in a second, and Editha found herself standing alone in the dark, as he had taken his lantern with him.

She groped her way out and up the stairs, and then, for the first time, she began to feel cold and rather weak and strange; it was more like being frightened than any feeling she had had while the burglar was in the house.

"Perhaps, if he had been a very bad burglar, he might have killed me," she said to herself, trembling a little. "I am very glad he did not kill me, for--for it would have hurt mamma so, and papa too, when he came back, and they told him."

Her mamma wakened in the morning with a bright smile.

"Nobody hurt us, Nixie," she said. "We are all right, aren't we?"

"Yes, mamma dear," said Editha.

She did not want to startle her just then, so she said nothing more, and she even said nothing all through the excitement that followed the discovery of the robbery, and indeed, said nothing until her papa came home, and then he wondered so at her pale face, and petted her so tenderly, and thought it so strange that nothing but her treasures had been taken from upstairs, that she could keep her secret no longer.

"Papa," she cried out all at once in a trembling voice, "I gave them to him myself."

"You, Nixie! You!" exclaimed her papa, looking alarmed. "Kitty, the fright has made the poor little thing ill."

"No, papa," said Editha, her hands shaking, and the tears rushing into her eyes, she did not know why. "I heard him, and--I knew mamma would be so frightened,--and it came into my mind to ask him--not to waken her,--and I crept down stairs--and asked him;--and he was not at all unkind though he laughed. And I stayed with him, and--and told him I would give him all my things if he would not touch yours nor mamma's. He--he wasn't such a bad burglar, papa,--and he told me he would rather be something more respectable."

And she hid her face on her papa's shoulder.

"Kitty!" papa cried out. "Oh, Kitty!"

Then her mamma flew to her and knelt down by her, kissing her, and crying aloud:

"Oh, Nixie! if he had hurt you,--if he had hurt you."

"He knew I was not going to scream, mamma," said Editha. "And he knew I was too little to hurt him. I told him so."

She scarcely understood why mamma cried so much more at this, and why even papa's eyes were wet as he held her close up to his breast.

"It is my fault, Francis," wept the poor little mamma. "I have left her too much to herself, and I have not been a wise mother. Oh, to think of her risking her dear little life just to save me from being frightened, and to think of her giving up the things she loves for our sakes. I will be a better mother to her, after this, and take care of her more."

But I am happy to say that the watch and locket and pearls were not altogether lost, and came back to their gentle little owner in time. About six months after, the burglar was caught, as burglars are apt to be, and, after being tried and sentenced to transportation to the penal settlements (which means that he was to be sent away to be a prisoner in a far country), a police officer came one day to see Editha's papa, and he actually came from that burglar, who was in jail and wanted to see Editha for a special reason. Editha's papa took her to see him, and the moment she entered his cell she knew him.

"How do you do, my lord?" she said, in a gentle tone.

"Not as lively as common, miss," he answered, "in consekence o' the confinement not bein' good fer my 'e'lth."

"None of your chaff," said the police officer. "Say what you have to say."

And then, strange to say, the burglar brought forth from under his mattress a box, which he handed to the little girl.

"One o' my wisitors brought 'em in to me this mornin," he said. "I thought yer might as well hev 'em. I kep' 'em partly 'cos it was more convenienter, an' partly 'cos I took a fancy to yer. I've seed a many curi's things, sir," he said to Editha's papa, "but never nothin' as bloomin' queer as that little kid a-comin' in an' tellin' me she wont 'urt me, nor yet wont scream, and please wont I burgle quietly so as to not disturb her mar. It brought my 'art in my mouth when first I see her, an' then, lor', how I larft. I almost made up my mind to give her things back to her afore I left, but I didn't quite do that--it was agin human natur'."

But they were in the box now, and Editha was so glad to see them that she could scarcely speak for a few seconds. Then she thanked the burglar politely.

"I am much obliged to you," she said, "and I'm really very sorry you are to be sent so far away. I am sure papa would have tried to help you if he could, though he says he is afraid you would not do for an editor."

The burglar closed one eye and made a very singular grimace at the police officer, who turned away suddenly and did not look round until Editha had bidden her acquaintance good-bye.

And even this was not quite all. A few weeks later, a box was left for Editha by a very shabby, queer-looking man, who quickly disappeared as soon as he had given it to the servant at the door; and in this box was a very large, old-fashioned silver watch, almost as big as a turnip, and inside the lid were scratched these words:

To the little Kid, From 'er fr'end and wel wisher, Lord halgernon hedward halbert de pentonwill, ide park.

Transcriber's Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original--this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

End of Project Gutenberg's Editha's Burglar, by Frances Hodgson Burnett