was striking three. She could hear Nurse snoring through the wall,
and Nurse Nancy had a most peculiar snore, first a long-drawn note, as of a
horn, and then a little whistle.

"I wonder how she does it," said Terry to herself, and tried to imitate the
sounds. "I couldn't. It's awfully clever of her. And when you see her going
about in the daytime you would never think she could do it."

Terry thought it would be quite easy to lie awake, waiting, for three
hours. However, after listening for about five minutes to Nursey's snoring,
and blowing through her own little nose to try to do the same, she was fast
asleep again.

She wakened again exactly at a quarter to six. The moonlight was now
pouring into the room, and she could see everything as well as if by day.
She got up and went out to the landing to look at the clock, and stood
there in her white night-dress, with her little bare toes on the carpet,
gazing at the solemn white face of the tall brown clock which Granny said
had stood there just as she was for quite two hundred years. It was
impossible not to think of this clock as a personage, and she was
accustomed to change her character very much as Terry changed her moods.
Sometimes she was a cheery old creature, hurrying on the time with her
pleasant chimes, coaxing round the sunshine out of the dark, and bringing
back the cosy bed-time when children were tired. At other times she had the
air of a stern prophetess, with a threat in every "tick, tick", and a hint
of doom in the striking of every hour. As she stood now in her brown cloak
darkened by the moonlight, and her round meaningless face whitened by it,
she recalled to Terry a remark once made by Granny, "Many a life she has
ticked away out of this house, and out of this world, has that old
great-grandfather's clock, my children!"

"She sha'n't tick my life away," thought Terry. "I hope she won't tick away
Gran'ma's and Nursey's! But that is nonsense, of course. Granny couldn't
have meant that she had anything to do with it, for that is only God's
business!"

These ideas just flashed through Terry's little head as she stared at the
clock and heard her give that curious snarl with which she always warned
one that there were but three minutes left of the passing hour. And the
hour hand was at six.

It was just the time for Terry. She dressed quickly, putting on the little
riding-skirt that she had brought from Africa. It was some inches shorter
than it had