to keep awake until Mother's return. It
seemed as if she had only just closed her eyes for a minute or two;
and yet, when she opened them again, the bright morning sunlight was
filling the room.

'But if not....' After all, there had been no need for Mother to
finish the sentence. Now that Dorcas was wide awake she could complete
it for herself only too well. For Dorcas knew that at any moment a
Meeting of five or more persons who met to practise a form of worship
not authorized by law might be rudely interrupted by the constables,
and all the Friends who were sitting in silence together dragged off
to prison for disobeying the Quaker Act. Since that Act had been
passed in this same month of May 1662, Quaker children understood that
this might happen at any moment, but of course each child hoped that
it would not happen just yet, or at least not to his own Father and
Mother. But now apparently it had happened here in peaceful Reading
beside the broad Thames.

Last night's Meeting had been fixed at an unusually late hour. For, as
the late Spring evenings were lengthening, the Reading Quakers had
wished to take advantage of the long May twilight to gather together
and meet with a Friend, one of the Valiant Sixty, who had come in for
a few hours unexpectedly on his way to London. So the children had
fallen asleep as usual, fully expecting to find their parents beside
them when they woke. But now the empty places and the unslept-in beds
told their own tale.

'Be a mother to the little ones, Dorcas,' Mother had said. Well,
Dorcas was trying her very best, but it was not easy. Baby had many
strings to tie and many buttons to fasten, and just as she was getting
the very last button safely into its button-hole the Twins came
running up to say that they had got into each other's clothes by
mistake and could not get out of them again. This was serious; for
though Phenie's frock was only a little too big for Phosie, Phosie's
frock was much too small for Phenie.

Dorcas was obliged to put Baby down to attend to them; but this
reminded Baby that he had still not been provided with his
much-desired breakfast, whereupon he began to howl, till Dorcas took
him up in her arms again, and dandled him as Mother did. This made him
crow for happiness, just as he did when Mother took him, so for a few
minutes Dorcas was happy too, till she saw that the Twins were now
beginning to squabble again, and to tear out each other's hair with
the