.'

The snow did continue, and the next day the children voluntarily
suggested that they should resume their usual course of life. With
their mornings occupied, they found their sources of relaxation ample;
and in the evening they acted plays, and Lady Annabel dressed them up
in her shawls, and Dr. Masham read Shakspeare to them.

It was about the fourth day of the visit that Plantagenet, loitering
in the hall with Venetia, said to her, 'I saw your mamma go into the
locked-up rooms last night. I do so wish that she would let us go
there.'

'Last night!' said Venetia; 'when could you have seen her last night?'

'Very late: the fact is, I could not sleep, and I took it into my head
to walk up and down the gallery. I often do so at the abbey. I like to
walk up and down an old gallery alone at night. I do not know why; but
I like it very much. Everything is so still, and then you hear the
owls. I cannot make out why it is; but nothing gives me more pleasure
than to get up when everybody is asleep. It seems as if one were the
only living person in the world. I sometimes think, when I am a man, I
will always get up in the night, and go to bed in the daytime. Is not
that odd?'

'But mamma!' said Venetia, 'how came you to see mamma?'

'Oh! I am certain of it,' said the boy; 'for, to tell you the truth, I
was rather frightened at first; only I thought it would not do for a
Cadurcis to be afraid, so I stood against the wall, in the shade, and
I was determined, whatever happened, not to cry out.'

'Oh! you frighten me so, Plantagenet!' said Venetia.

'Ah! you might well have been frightened if you had been there; past
midnight, a tall white figure, and a light! However, there is nothing
to be alarmed about; it was Lady Annabel, nobody else. I saw her as
clearly as I see you now. She walked along the gallery, and went to
the very door you showed me the other morning. I marked the door; I
could not mistake it. She unlocked it, and she went in.'

'And then?' inquired Venetia, eagerly.

'Why, then, like a fool, I went back to bed,' said Plantagenet. 'I
thought it would seem so silly if I were caught, and I might not have
had the good fortune to escape twice. I know no more.'

Venetia could not reply. She heard a laugh, and then her mother's
voice. They were called with a gay summons to see a colossal
snow-ball, that some of the younger servants had made and rolled to
the window of the terrace-room. It was ornamented with