te an adventure, isn't it? I told Mrs. Viney to get us
some bread and butter, and meat and things, and to have supper ready. I
suppose she's laid it in the dining-room. So let's go and see."

The dining-room opened out of the kitchen. It looked much darker than
the kitchen when they went in with the one candle. Because the kitchen
was whitewashed, but the dining-room was dark wood from floor to
ceiling, and across the ceiling there were heavy black beams. There was
a muddled maze of dusty furniture--the breakfast-room furniture from
the old home where they had lived all their lives. It seemed a very long
time ago, and a very long way off.

There was the table certainly, and there were chairs, but there was no
supper.

"Let's look in the other rooms," said Mother; and they looked. And in
each room was the same kind of blundering half-arrangement of furniture,
and fire-irons and crockery, and all sorts of odd things on the floor,
but there was nothing to eat; even in the pantry there were only a rusty
cake-tin and a broken plate with whitening mixed in it.

"What a horrid old woman!" said Mother; "she's just walked off with the
money and not got us anything to eat at all."

"Then shan't we have any supper at all?" asked Phyllis, dismayed,
stepping back on to a soap-dish that cracked responsively.

"Oh, yes," said Mother, "only it'll mean unpacking one of those big
cases that we put in the cellar. Phil, do mind where you're walking to,
there's a dear. Peter, hold the light."

The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. There were five wooden steps
leading down. It wasn't a proper cellar at all, the children thought,
because its ceiling went up as high as the kitchen's. A bacon-rack hung
under its ceiling. There was wood in it, and coal. Also the big cases.

Peter held the candle, all on one side, while Mother tried to open the
great packing-case. It was very securely nailed down.

"Where's the hammer?" asked Peter.

"That's just it," said Mother. "I'm afraid it's inside the box. But
there's a coal-shovel--and there's the kitchen poker."

And with these she tried to get the case open.

"Let me do it," said Peter, thinking he could do it better himself.
Everyone thinks this when he sees another person stirring a fire, or
opening a box, or untying a knot in a bit of string.

"You'll hurt your hands, Mammy," said Roberta; "let me."

"I wish Father was here," said Phyllis; "he'd get it open in two shakes.
What ar