"I wish I had asked Dora to come with me," she thought; "I shall have
to hurry to get hack before dark."

"I want to go to the library just a minute, Bruce," she said to the
man who opened the door.

He looked somewhat surprised to see her alone, but made no comment,
only replying, "I am afraid it is rather cold there; we are having the
furnace cleaned to-day."

"I only want to get a book. I'm not going to stay. And you needn't
wait, Bruce. I can let myself out," she said.

The library was at the end of the hall, almost opposite the front
door, but somewhat cut off from the rest of the house, as it
communicated with no other room.

As Louise entered she pushed the door to behind her. Yes, there was
the volume she wanted on the table. Taking it up and turning to go,
her eyes fell on the corner where Uncle William kept his story
books--books intended for his young guests, which he very much enjoyed
reading himself sometimes, and to which he was constantly adding. As
there seemed to be some new ones, Louise sat down to examine them, and
before she knew it became absorbed. When at length she looked up it
was beginning to grow dark.

"Dear me! what will Aunt Zelie say? I must hurry," she exclaimed, and
running to the door she stopped in bewilderment, for there wasn't any
knob, and yet it was securely latched. She was very much puzzled. For
a few minutes it seemed rather funny to be fastened up in Uncle
William's library, but when all her attempts to open the door failed
it did not seem so much like a joke. She tried pounding on it, but any
noise such small hands might make could not be heard twenty feet away.
Louise soon realized this; the servants she knew were on the other
side of the house and might not come near the library till the next
day. She thought of the windows, and tried them one after another,
standing on tiptoe on the sill, but she could not move the fastenings.
The one that faced the street was too far back for any possibility of
attracting the attention of passers-by.

"What shall I do? They won't know what has become of me," she said.
She wondered if Bruce would not come to turn on the light in the hall,
only to be disappointed again, for when she peeped through the keyhole
it was already burning. Again and again she tried to move the latch
with a pen-knife, and then with a paper-cutter, but without success.

Then she sat down to think. There was nothing to do but wait. She was
a brave little p