nterest. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked very slowly, and I
realised that an eternity of these long seconds separated me from
dinner-time. I thought I would like to go out.

The enterprise presented certain difficulties and dangers, but none
that could not be surpassed. I would have to steal down to the hall
and get my boots and waterproof on unobserved. I would have to open
the front door without making too much noise, for the other doors
were well guarded by underlings, and I would have to run down the
front drive under the eyes of many windows. Once beyond the gate I
would be safe, for the wetness of the day would secure me from
dangerous encounters. Walking in the rain would be pleasant than
staying in the dull schoolroom, where life remained unchanged for a
quarter of an hour at a time; and I remembered that there was a
little wood near our house in which I had never been when it was
raining hard. Perhaps I would meet the magician for whom I had looked
so often in vain on sunny days, for it was quite likely that he
preferred walking in bad weather when no one else was about. It would
be nice to hear the drops of rain falling on the roof of the trees,
and to be quite warm and dry underneath. Perhaps the magician would
give me a magic wand, and I would do things like the conjurer last
Christmas.

Certainly I would be punished when I got home, for even if I were not
missed they would see that my boots were muddy and that my waterproof
was wet. I would have no pudding for dinner and be sent to bed in the
afternoon: but these things had happened to me before, and though I
had not liked them at the time, they did not seem very terrible in
retrospect. And life was so dull in the schoolroom that wet morning
when I was eight years old!

And yet I did not go out, but stood hesitating at the window, while
with every gust earth seemed to fling back its curls of rain from its
shining forehead. To stand on the brink of adventure is interesting
in itself, and now that I could think over the details of my
expedition was no longer bored. So I stayed dreaming till the golden
moment for action was passed, and a violent exclamation from one of
the chess-players called me back to a prosaic world. In a second the
board was overturned and the players were locked in battle. My little
sister, who had already the feminine craving for tidiness, crept out
of her corner and meekly gathered the chessmen from under the feet of
the combat