meeting with disaster. She was not satisfied
unless she was manipulating a rod and line, and she did not know which
filled her with the greatest heartrending compunction, the sight of the
poor worm writhing on the hook or the poor fish. Then she was always
being thrown into a panic of terror by the sight of a snake or a frog
or a mud-turtle, and when real dangers did not menace, the boys
supplied imaginary ones more terrible.

But, for all this, when John and Charles Stuart went abroad Elizabeth
must accompany them, and, though her aunt felt that every such
expedition removed her niece farther from the genteel ideal, she
generally allowed her to go. For there were quieter times at home when
the noisy one was away.

Elizabeth knew by experience that the two would be likely to arise at
dawn and steal away, and she went to bed that night in the bare
white-washed little room, which she and Mary shared, with the
determination that she would lie awake until morning and be ready. By
persistent pinching of her arms and tossing about, much to poor Mary's
discomfort, she managed to keep herself awake for about an hour, but
sleep overcame her at last, the dead, dreamless sleep of childhood, and
all Elizabeth's joys and sorrows were as naught until morning.

But her restless spirit asserted itself early. When she awoke it was
scarcely light. The old clock in the study downstairs had just struck
three. The room was quite dark, but a faint light from the window, and
a strange hum of life from the outdoor world, told her that morning was
approaching.

She slipped stealthily from her bed and, trembling with excitement, ran
silently down the long, bare hall to her brothers' room. It was a big
chamber above the dining-room. Its only furniture was two beds; a big
old four-poster, where John and Malcolm slept on a lumpy straw
mattress, and a low "bunk" or box-like structure on casters, where the
little boys, Archie and Jamie, lay tossed about in a tangle of bare
limbs and blankets. Elizabeth brushed back her hair from her sleepy
eyes, and peered into the dim room. The green paper blinds were partly
raised, and she could discern through the gloom John's black head on
the bolster beside Malcolm's fair one. The black head was hanging half
out of bed and its mouth was wide open. Elizabeth giggled softly. She
longed to stuff something into that yawning cavity; but she knew that
dire consequences followed upon tampering with J