owards the cottage door. Then he turned, his face white with
fear.

"You won't go away till I come out," he said. David had been standing
by his father's side, feeling very much relieved that he was not to go
in and see Miss Barnicroft. He had still a lingering doubt in his mind
that she might wish to send him and his brother to prison. But when
Ambrose gave that frightened look back, something made him feel that he
must go in too; he left his father without a word, went up to Ambrose,
and took hold of his hand.

"I'll go in with you," he said.

How often they had longed to see the inside of this mysterious dwelling,
and yet now that the moment had come, how gladly would they have found
themselves safely at home in the Vicarage! Pennie and Ambrose had vied
with each other in providing strange and weird articles of furniture and
ornaments for it; but the reality was almost startlingly different.
When, after several knocks, the boys were told to "come in," they
entered a room which was just like that in any other cottage, except
that it was barer. There was, indeed, scarcely any furniture at all, no
curtain to the window, no pictures on the blank whitewashed walls, and
only a very tiny square of carpet on the floor. A common deal table
stood in the middle of this, and two deal boxes or packing-cases seemed
to serve for seats; on the wide hearth, a fire of sticks was crackling
under a kettle which hung over it by a chain, and two dogs which had
been asleep, got up and growled at the strangers. There was nothing the
least strange in the room, unless it was Miss Barnicroft herself, who,
with her head tied up in a white cotton handkerchief, sat on one of the
boxes, writing busily in a book. She gazed at her two visitors without
knowing them at first, but soon a light came into her eyes.

"Ah, the vicar's little boys, I think?" she said graciously. "Pray sit
down."

She waved her hand with the majesty of a queen towards the other box,
and the boys, not daring to dispute her least sign, bestowed themselves
upon it, as close together as possible, with the fatal little crock
squeezed between them. There they sat for a minute in silence staring
at Miss Barnicroft, who, with her head bent gently forward and a look of
polite inquiry, waited to hear their errand.

It was so dreadful to see her sitting there, and to know how her face
would change presently, that Ambrose had a wild impulse to run out of
the room and l