e the idea of acting in the holidays, and they had got up
charades there on a stage made of boxes, with an old counterpane for a
curtain, and farthing candles for footlights. It was a long, narrow
room over the kitchen, with a sloping roof. Three steps led down into
it. There was a window at one end, a small lattice with an iron bar
nailed to the outside vertically. Beth swung herself out round the
bar, dropped on to the back-kitchen roof, crept across the tiles to
the chimney at the far corner, stepped thence on to the top of the old
wooden pump, and from the top to the spout, from the spout to the
stone trough, and so into the garden. Then she ran round to the
kitchen, and got a candle, a canister, and some water in a pail, all
of which she took up to the acting-room by way of the back-kitchen
roof. The canister happened to contain allspice, but this was not to
be considered when she wanted the canister, so she emptied it from the
roof on to Harriet's head as she happened to be passing, and so got
some good out of it, for Harriet displayed strong feeling on the
subject both at the moment and afterwards, when she was trying to get
the stuff out of her hair; which interested Beth, who in some such way
often surprised people into the natural expression of emotions which
she might never otherwise have discovered. Bernadine had been playing
alone peaceably in the garden, but Beth persuaded her to come
upstairs. She found Beth robed in the old counterpane, with her hair
dishevelled, and the room darkened. Beth was Norna now in her cell on
the Fitful Head, and Bernadine was the shrinking but resolute Minna
come to consult her. Beth made her sit down, drew a magic circle round
her with a piece of chalk, and, in a deep tragic voice, warned her not
to move if she valued her life, for there were evil spirits in the
room. The pail stood on a box draped with an old black shawl, and
round this she also drew a circle. Then she put some lead in the
canister, melted it over the candle, dropped it into the water, and
muttered--

"Like snakes the molten metal hisses,
Curses come instead of kisses."

She plunged her hand into the water--

"I search a harp for harmony,
But daggers only do I see;
I search a heart for love and hope,
But find a ghastly hangman's rope.
Woe! Woe!"

Three times round the pail she went, moaning, groaning, writhing her
body, and wringing her hands--

"