e were all lying
in a snuggly heap like a litter of puppies.

"Oh, I _am_ so stiff!" said Alice, stretching. "I never slept in my
clothes before. It makes me feel as if I had been starched and ironed
like a boy's collar."

We all felt pretty much the same. And our faces were tired too, and
stiff, which was rum, and the author cannot account for it, unless it
really was spiders that walked on us. I believe the ancient Greeks
considered them to be venomous, and perhaps that's how their venom
influences their victims.

"I think mills are merely beastly," remarked H.O. when we had woke him
up. "You can't wash yourself or brush your hair or anything."

"You aren't always so jolly particular about your hair," said Dicky.

"Don't be so disagreeable," said Dora.

And Dicky rejoined, "Disagreeable yourself!"

There is certainly something about sleeping in your clothes that makes
you feel not so kind and polite as usual. I expect this is why tramps
are so fierce and knock people down in lonely roads and kick them.
Oswald knows he felt just like kicking any one if they had happened to
cheek him the least little bit. But by a fortunate accident nobody did.

The author believes there is a picture called "Hopeless Dawn." We felt
exactly like that. Nothing seemed the least bit of good.

It was a pitiful band with hands and faces dirtier than any one would
believe who had not slept in a mill or witnessed others who had done so,
that crossed the wet, green grass between the Mill and the white house.

"I shan't ever put morning dew into my poetry again," Noel said; "it is
not nearly so poetical as people make out, and it is as cold as ice,
right through your boots."

We felt rather better when we had had a good splash in the brick-paved
back kitchen that Miss Sandal calls the bath-room. And Alice made a fire
and boiled a kettle and we had some tea and eggs. Then we looked at the
clock and it was half-past five. So we hastened to get into another part
of the house before Mrs. Beale came.

"I wish we'd tried to live the higher life some less beastly way," said
Dicky as we went along the passage.

"Living the higher life always hurts at the beginning," Alice said. "I
expect it's like new boots, only when you've got used to it you're glad
you bore it at first. Let's listen at the doors till we find out where
he isn't sleeping."

So we listened at all the bedroom doors, but not a snore was heard.

"Perhaps he was a burglar,"