he shutters were up in all the rooms; how was she to get out? She
felt for the green baize double-door which shut off the kitchen from
the other parts of the house, opened it, and groped her way down the
passage. As she did so, she saw a faint glimmer of light at the far
end--not candlelight, moonlight--and at the same moment she became
aware of some one else moving. At the end of the passage she was in,
there was a little door leading out into a garden. If that were open
all would be easy. She had stopped to listen. Certainly some one else
was moving quite close to her. What was she near? Oh, the store-room.
Something grated like a key in a lock--a door was opened, a match
struck, a candle lighted; and there was Mrs. Cook in the store-room
itself, hurriedly filling paper-bags with tea, sugar, raisins,
currants, and other groceries from Uncle James's carefully guarded
treasure, and packing them into a small hamper with a lid. When the
hamper was full she blew out the candle, came out of the store-room,
locked the door after her, and went into the kitchen, without
discovering Beth. She left the kitchen door open; the blind was up;
and Beth could see a man, whom she recognised as the cook's son,
standing in the moonlight.

"Is there much this time, mother?" he asked.

"A goodish bit," cook replied, handing him the hamper.

"'E 'asn't 'ad 'is eyes about 'im much o' late, then?"

"Oh, 'e allus 'as 'is eyes about 'im, but 'e doan't see much. You'll
get me what ye can?"

"I will so," her son replied, and kissed cook as she let him out of
the back-door, which she fastened after him. Then she went off herself
up the back-stairs to bed.

When all was quiet again, Beth thought of the garden-door at the end
of the passage. To her relief she found it ajar; the gleam of light
she had seen in that direction was the moonlight streaming through the
crevice. She slipped out cautiously; but the moment she found herself
in the garden she became a wild creature, revelling in her freedom.
She ran, jumped, waved her arms about, threw herself down on the
ground, and rolled over and over for yards, walked on all fours,
turned head over heels, embraced the trunks of trees, and hailed them
with the Eastern invocation, "O tree, give me of thy strength!"

For a good hour she rioted about the place in this way, working off
her superfluous energy. By that time she had come to the stackyard.
There, among the great stacks, she played hide-and-