s quickly as we can,
because I don't know what I should do if there wasn't time to put
Sadie's barrow away. We have to run in the very second we hear the
bell, and wash our hands."

"It's full enough now," said Sylvia. "I'll start with it first. Don't
jog me or I shall upset it."

"I think we might make a short cut," suggested Linda. "Instead of
walking all round the drive and the avenue we'll go straight through
the shrubbery, it will take off an enormous corner and save us the
hill by the rosery. We're not supposed to go there, but no one will
notice."

They plunged therefore under the trees, wheeling the little barrow
with some difficulty over the grass and among the rhododendrons, and
were just getting in sight of the lawn when Linda suddenly stopped and
clutched Sylvia by the arm.

"Look!" she cried. "There's Sadie Thompson coming with Gertie
Warburton. What will she say when she finds we've taken French leave
with her barrow? She'll be ever so cross. Give it me quick and we'll
rush over here amongst the bushes. Perhaps they won't see us."

She seized the handles from Sylvia's grasp and they scuttled as fast
as they could under the over-hanging boughs of a particularly big
rhododendron, which appeared to offer a safe retreat.

"Quick, quick, they're looking!" cried Linda, bending low to avoid the
branches and scrambling farther under the bush. "Hullo! Why! Oh! I
say! What's happened?" She might well exclaim, for to her extreme
astonishment the wheelbarrow suddenly seemed to plunge into the
ground, and she saw before her nothing but the tips of the handles
standing out from among a quantity of dead and withered leaves.

"How very peculiar!" she said. "There must be a hole here. Why, it's a
sort of pool, I believe. Look, it's all horrid black mud and water
under the dead leaves. What a disgusting mess the barrow is in! How
are we to get it out?"

"We've lost all our stones," said Sylvia, kneeling at the edge and
breaking off a stick to poke into the muddy depths below. "What a
queer place it is!"

"I don't mind the stones, because we can find some more, but I do mind
the barrow. Even if we fish it out, how are we ever to wash it? Sadie
will be most dreadfully angry, and we shall get into such a scrape. We
aren't really allowed to borrow each other's things without asking,
and if Sadie turns nasty, and tells, and Miss Kaye hears about it, I
don't know what may happen."

"Can't we pull it out and take it