note from a violin reached their ears.

"Simeon!" cried the woman. "What was that?"

The man did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the barn.

"Simeon, it's a fiddle!" exclaimed Mrs. Holly, as a second tone
quivered on the air "And it's in our barn!"

Simeon's jaw set. With a stern ejaculation he crossed the porch
and entered the kitchen.

In another minute he had returned, a lighted lantern in his hand.

"Simeon, d--don't go," begged the woman, tremulously. "You--you
don't know what's there."

"Fiddles are not played without hands, Ellen," retorted the man
severely. "Would you have me go to bed and leave a half-drunken,
ungodly minstrel fellow in possession of our barn? To-night, on
my way home, I passed a pretty pair of them lying by the
roadside--a man and a boy with two violins. They're the culprits,
likely,--though how they got this far, I don't see. Do you think
I want to leave my barn to tramps like them?"

"N--no, I suppose not," faltered the woman, as she rose
tremblingly to her feet, and followed her husband's shadow across
the yard.

Once inside the barn Simeon Holly and his wife paused