visible in the prim
kitchen garden surrounded by its white paling.

"The shades are all down," said Diana ruefully. "I believe that nobody
is home."

This proved to be the case. The girls looked at each other in
perplexity.

"I don't know what to do," said Anne. "If I were sure the platter was
the right kind I would not mind waiting until they came home. But if it
isn't it may be too late to go to Wesley Keyson's afterward."

Diana looked at a certain little square window over the basement.

"That is the pantry window, I feel sure," she said, "because this house
is just like Uncle Charles' at Newbridge, and that is their pantry
window. The shade isn't down, so if we climbed up on the roof of that
little house we could look into the pantry and might be able to see the
platter. Do you think it would be any harm?"

"No, I don't think so," decided Anne, after due reflection, "since our
motive is not idle curiosity."

This important point of ethics being settled, Anne prepared to mount the
aforesaid "little house," a construction of lathes, with a peaked roof,
which had in times past served as a habitation for ducks. The Copp girls
had given up keeping ducks . . . "because they were such untidy birds". .
. and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of
correction for setting hens. Although scrupulously whitewashed it had
become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up
from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box.

"I'm afraid it won't bear my weight," she said as she gingerly stepped
on the roof.

"Lean on the window sill," advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned.
Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a
willow-ware platter, exactly such as she was in quest of, on the shelf
in front of the window. So much she saw before the catastrophe came. In
her joy Anne forgot the precarious nature of her footing, incautiously
ceased to lean on the window sill, gave an impulsive little hop of
pleasure . . . and the next moment she had crashed through the roof up
to her armpits, and there she hung, quite unable to extricate herself.
Diana dashed into the duck house and, seizing her unfortunate friend by
the waist, tried to draw her down.

"Ow . . . don't," shrieked poor Anne. "There are some long splinters
sticking into me. See if you can put something under my feet . . . then
perhaps I can draw myself up."

Diana hastily dragged in the previously me