"Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to spare.

Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham.

Ha, ha!" and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep.

There was a light pattering on the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim, hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor.

At the same moment the father shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and with the other seized her wrist.
"Where were you yesterday ?" he asked.
Nellie looked at him, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Here." "You were in the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there in disguise; you've met him there before.