Woe! Woe!
Thy courage will be sorely tried,
Thou shalt not be the pirate's bride."

At this Bernadine, whose nerves were completely shaken, set up such a
howl that Harriet came running to see what was the matter. She soon
let light into the acting-room. Mrs. Caldwell and Aunt Victoria had
gone to see Aunt Grace Mary, so Harriet was in charge of the children,
and to save herself further trouble, she took them up to a black-hole
there was without a window at the top of the house, and locked them
in. The place was quite empty, so that they could do no harm, and they
did not seem to mind being locked up. Harriet intended to give them a
little fright and then let them out; but, being busy, she forgot them,
and when at last she remembered, it was so dark she had to take a
candle; and great was her horror, on opening the door, to see both
children stretched out on the bare boards side by side, apparently
quite dead. One glance at their ghastly faces was enough for Harriet.
She just looked and then fled, shrieking, with the candle alight in
her hand, right out into the street. Several people who happened to be
passing at the time stopped to see what was the matter. Harriet's
talent for fiction furnished her with a self-saving story on the
instant. She said the children had shut themselves up and got
smothered.

"We'd better go and see if there's nothing can be done," a respectable
workman suggested.

Harriet led the way, about a dozen people following, all awe-stricken
and silent. When they came to the door, they peeped in over each
other's shoulders at the two poor children, stretched out stiff and
stark, the colour of death, their jaws dropped, their glazed eyes
shining between the half-closed lids, a piteous spectacle.

"Just let's see the candle a moment," the workman said. He took it
from Harriet, and entered stooping--the place was a mere closet just
under the roof, and he could not stand upright in it. He peered into
the children's faces, then knelt down beside them, and felt their arms
and chests. Suddenly he burst out laughing.

"You little devils," he said, "what 'a' ye done this for?"

Beth sat up. "Harriet locked us in to give us a fright, so we thought
we'd frighten Harriet," she said.

The walls were whitewashed, and the children had made themselves
ghastly by rubbing their faces all over with the whitening.

"You've getten yer 'ands full wi' them two, I'm thinkin', missis," the
workman remarked