"No," the Yankee smiled. "Is he your uncle?"

The littlest rebel regarded him with a look of positive pity for his
ignorance.

"He's _everybody's_ uncle," she stated warmly. "An' if I was to tell
him, he'd come right after you an'--an' lick the _stuffins_ out of
you."

The soldier laughed.

"My dear," he confided, with a dancing twinkle in hip eye, "to tell you
the honest truth, your Uncle Fitz has done it already--_several_ times."

"Has he?" she cried, in rapturous delight. "Oh, _has_ he?"

"He has," the enemy repeated, with vigor and conviction. "But suppose we
shift our conversation to matters a shade more pleasant. Take you, for
instance. You see--" He stopped abruptly, turning his head and listening
with keen intentness. "What's that?" he asked.

"_I_ didn't hear anything," said Virgie, breathing very fast; but she
too had heard it--a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone
lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she
spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke as it struck the floor.

Morrison looked up, starting as he saw the outlines of the closely
fitting scuttle, for the loft was so low and shallow that he had not
suspected its presence from an outside view; but now he was certain of