"Go out and play? No, indeed!" said her aunt indignantly. "Go out and dirty another clean pinafore? Not if I know it! Take your doll and play with it in the window-seat, and keep yourself clean for five minutes, if you can do such a thing." Audrey obeyed without a word, for she had been taught to do as she was told. She went into the parlour and took up her poor old wooden doll Olivia, who had lost all the colour from her cheeks and all the hair from her head. Audrey did not play with her; she stood with her in her arms gazing through the small square diamond-paned window into her playground outside. CHAPTER II A Curious Playground AUDREY stood a long time looking out of that window. It opened like a door, and the ground outside was only two feet below it. Audrey could get into her playground in a moment by jumping through the window; and oh, how she longed to be there! It was a strange place in which to play, for it was a very old and long-disused churchyard. A great tombstone stood close to the window, and shut out much of Audrey's view. A green, moss-grown, dirty old tombstone it looked; but it was only like all the other stones in that melancholy and deserted place. They had all been put up to the memory of people long since dead—long since forgotten. No loving hands ever brought flowers or wreaths to lay on those old graves, for the ones who loved them and cared for them had themselves been long since numbered with the dead, and were lying in their own quiet resting-places. Behind the old stones, so black with the smoke of years, so discoloured and weather-stained by the dews of many a summer and the rains of many a winter, Audrey could see the ancient church, which was fully as dismal and deserted as were the graves amongst which it stood. It had been built eight hundred years ago, and at one time large and fashionable congregations had no doubt attended it. Now they had all passed away, and with them had departed the usefulness of the old church. It was shut up and neglected, and was left to the spiders and other creeping things, which had made a happy home there. That old churchyard was the happiest place in the world to Audrey; she had loved it ever since she was a little child. She knew every corner of it; she felt as if it belonged to her, and as if no one else had a right to be there—no one except little Stephen. She shared everything with him, and she loved him as if he were her brother. There he was now under the lilac tree, sitting patiently waiting for her to come; and Aunt Cordelia would not let her go out to him. How disappointed Stephen would be! A tear trickled down Audrey's cheek at the thought, and fell on the top of poor Miss Olivia's head. "What—Audrey crying!" said her aunt, coming briskly into the room. "What is it all about?" Audrey wiped the tear off Miss Olivia's hair, and made no answer. "What?" said her aunt. "Because I said you were not to go out? Now, Audrey!"