ept at night, and she could keep
it quiet for herself when she wanted to lie down and rest. The bed
places were put just where the roof was lowest, so that, in fact, when
lying down, our faces were within two feet of the roof, but, by this
means, we had more room in which to stand upright and move about. The
kitchen had an outlet at the side. The reason we made our side roofs
slope down so much was to allow the rain to fall off quicker, and to let
hurricanes blow over us, if possible, without finding any resisting
substance the wind could blow away. Then all round our house we planted
the prickly pear, which grew like a weed, so that nothing could attack
our dwelling from the outside, excepting by the door, and that makes me
remember to remark that we had no door at all, and we often laughed at
ourselves for taking such care to guard the sides of the house when we
left open the only place where there was an entrance. However, then we
were under no alarm regarding thieves and robbers. But we had a
sail-cloth curtain, which at night we fastened with bars of wood across,
as much to prevent the wind flapping it to and fro as to hinder anything
getting in; also, each bed-room had a curtain before its door or
entrance. We had a great deal of trouble with the roof it must be
acknowledged, even the clerk of the works stamped her foot, and went so
far as to say, "Hang the roof," to which Sybil demurely replied, "That's
just what we want to do."

We took three spars, one for the middle and two each side, these latter
being placed two feet lower; on these we nailed a strip of sail-cloth
each side, which we tarred and painted very often, especially the
inside, which, at the children's request, was painted in blue, to make
our roof or ceiling look pretty; above the sail-cloth outside we laid a
smooth layer of leaves, and then across we nailed shingles of wood
lapped one over the other, which again were seamed by cross pieces very
strongly fastened. Lucky it was that the walls were so thick, otherwise
such an elaborate roof could never have been supported. When finished,
we all had an argument as to whether it really would resist water, and
Gatty offered, with Serena to help her, to go up and empty buckets of
water on it to try. This handsome offer was declined, as we thought the
rain would do that soon enough, and we were at present too much in love
with our work to bear the shock of finding all our labour was thrown
away. I am afra