d have been
better if I had made them all come away then, but it did seem such a
pity to miss the singing. I think it was 'Angels ever bright and fair,'
but I'm not sure. We've heard so many of her beautiful songs since then
that I'm not sure which it was.

Suddenly we heard the door pushed open, and some one came into the
church. It was a girl; she came in very quickly, and hurried up the
aisle and in through a door or a curtain somewhere at the side. It was
already darker than when we came. A minute after, we heard talking--the
singing had stopped, I forgot to say--and then two people came out at
the side, and hurried back again down the aisle and out at the door. It
was the person who had been playing, and the girl who had come evidently
to fetch her.

They didn't shut the door to, only closed it a little.

'What a pity,' said Anne, 'she's been fetched away.'

'Yes,' said I, 'but Maudie's rather cold. Perhaps it's best for us to go
home,' and we got up and went towards the door.

I looked round for Serry. She wasn't in the corner we had seen her in.

'I expect Serry's outside in the porch,' I said to Anne. But no, she
wasn't.

'She was sitting in the same place just before the girl came in,' said
Anne. 'I saw her.'

'She can't have gone home,' I said. 'She's not very fond of walking
about alone. She must be somewhere in the church.'

And then all of a sudden there came over me the remembrance of her boast
about being able to hide in the church so that we couldn't find her. Was
that what she had been after? Was that her reason for following us, that
she thought it would be a good chance for playing us this trick? It was
too bad. There was poor Maud tired and cold, and Anne and me who had
been worried enough already. I really felt as if I couldn't stand it.

I asked Maud what she thought, but of course Serry hadn't said a word to
her about hiding. It wasn't likely she would, but every minute we got
surer that she _was_ hiding.

You can't shout out in a church, and yet it wasn't easy to hunt. We
began; we poked into any of the dark corners we could think of, and
behind the doors and curtains, and even in the pulpit, though it was a
sort of open-work that a mouse could scarcely have hidden in--not like
the one in the 'Maggie' story. But it was all no use, and it was more
provoking than you can fancy to know that all the time the naughty child
was hearing us, and laughing at us. We went on for a quarter of an