o dark for her to see her grandmother stretched on the ground
with faggots of wood lying all around her.

For a moment Mona's heart seemed to stand still with fear. She thought
her grandmother was killed, or, at any rate, had broken her leg. Then, to
her intense relief, Mrs. Barnes groaned, and began to rouse herself.

"However did these things come scattered about like this, I should like to
know," she cried angrily. But in her relief at knowing she was able to
move and speak Mona did not mind granny's crossness.

"Didn't you pull them down?"

"I pull them down." Granny's voice was shrill with indignation. "It was
they pulled me down! I wonder I wasn't killed outright. It must have
been those cats that knocked them over. They are always ranging all over
the yard. I shall tell Mrs. Lane if she can't keep them in she'll have to
get rid of them. Oh, dear, what a shaking I've had, and I might have
broke my leg and my head and everything. Well, can't you try an' give me
a hand to help me up?"

But Mona was standing dumb-stricken. It had come back to her at last.
It was she who had pulled down the faggots and left them. She had meant
to go out again and pick them up, and, of course, had forgotten about
them, and she might have been the cause of a terrible accident!
She was so shocked and so full of remorse, she could not find a word to
utter. Fortunately, it was dark, and her grandmother was too absorbed to
notice her embarrassment. All her time was taken up in getting on to her
feet again and peering about her to try and catch sight of the cats.

Perhaps if granny had been less determined to wage war on the cats,
Mona might have found courage to make her confession, but while she waited
for a chance to speak her courage ebbed away. She had done so many wrong
things that afternoon, she was ashamed to own to more, and, after all, she
thought, it would not make it better for granny if she did know who really
scattered the faggots. So in the end Mona held her tongue, and contented
herself with giving what assistance she could.

"This is Black Monday for me!" she said to herself as she helped her
grandmother into the house again. "Never mind, I'll begin better
to-morrow. There's one good thing, there's no real harm done."

She was not so sure, though, that 'no harm was done' when she woke the
next morning and heard loud voices and sound of quarrelling coming from
the garden. She soon, indeed, began to f