ain,

Wilfred Everard Berkeley,
Peter Everard Berkeley,
Robin Everard Berkeley.

'P.S.--Kit isn't in it, because he raised objections and we shunted him.
So your lifelong gratitude need not be extended to him.'

* * * * *

'But when are you going to give Jill the letter?' asked Barbara, looking
extremely puzzled, as she came to the end of this elaborate composition.

'We're not going to give it to her,' explained Peter. 'It's going to be
dropped into the barn through a hole in the roof, as soon as Robin has
coaxed her to go inside. The letter is to explain why we've locked her----'

He did not finish his sentence, for Wilfred called him from below, and he
seized the sheet of paper and scampered off with it.

Barbara was left in a great state of bewilderment. Something was evidently
going to happen to Jill, and it was apparently intended to save her from
something that was much worse; but what it all meant was a mystery to
her, and there was no one about to give her any more details. The three
conspirators were careful to keep out of her way, and she did not see
any more of them until after lunch, when they raced out of the front door
and disappeared in the direction of the nine-acre field.

'I'm going to leave you for half an hour,' said Jill, when Barbara had
finished her midday meal. 'Bobbin has been worrying me all dinner-time
to go and look at a baby rabbit he has found, so I promised to run down
to the barn and meet him there. Do you mind?'

Barbara said she did not mind at all; and she was left behind, consumed
with curiosity as to whether Jill was really going to be locked into the
barn, and whether it really could be for her good, as the boys had
said, and whether Jill would be angry with them for doing it or would
give them her lifelong gratitude. Somehow, Babs did not believe in the
lifelong gratitude much; it did not seem likely that Jill would be
grateful to any one for shutting her up in a dark and dirty barn for a
whole afternoon, even if it was to save her from an awful fate that
still remained to be explained. As she thought about it, Babs even
began to wonder if she had been right in promising not to warn Jill.
But then, if it _was_ to save her from an awful fate, as Peter declared
it was, it would have been very unkind