She might have known that some day Mamma would come up and find her putting the children to bed. She had seven. There was Isabel Batty, and Mrs. Farmer's red-haired baby, and Mark in the blue frock in the picture when he was four, and Dank in his white frock and blue sash, and the three very little babies you made up out of your head. Six o'clock was their bed-time. "You'd no business to touch those baby-clothes," Mamma said. The baby-clothes were real. Every evening she took them from the drawer in the linen cupboard; and when she had sung the children to sleep she shook out the little frocks and petticoats and folded them in a neat pile at the foot of the bed. "I thought you were in the schoolroom learning your lessons?" "So I was, Mamma. But--you know--six o'clock is their bed-time." "Oh Mary! you told me you'd given up that silly game." "So I did. But they won't let me. They don't want me to give them up." Mamma sat down, as if it was too much for her. "I hope," she said, "you don't talk to Catty or anybody about it." "No, Mamma. I couldn't. They're my secret." "That was all very well when you were a little thing. But a great girl of twelve--You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Mamma had gone. She had taken away the baby-clothes. Mary lay face downwards on her bed. Shame burned through her body like fire. Hot tears scalded her eyelids. She thought: "How was I to know you mustn't have babies?" Still, she couldn't give them all up. She _must_ keep Isabel and the red-haired baby. But what would Mr. Ponsonby think of her if he knew? IV. "Mr. Ponsonby. Mr. Ponsonby! Stay where you are and look!" From the window at the end of the top corridor the side of the house went sheer down into the lane. Mary was at the window. Mr. Ponsonby was in the lane. She climbed on to the ledge and knelt there. Grasping the bottom of the window frame firmly with both hands and letting her knees slide from the ledge, she lowered herself, and hung for one ecstatic moment, and drew herself up again by her arms. "What did you do it for, Mary?" Mr. Ponsonby had rushed up the stairs and they were sitting there. He was so tall that he hung over her when he leaned. "It's nothing. You ought to be able to pull up your own weight." "You mustn't do it from top-storey windows. It's dangerous." "Not if you've practised on the banisters first. Where's Mark?" "With your Mater. I say, supposing you and I go for a walk." "We must be back at six o'clock," she said. When you went for walks with Mark or Mr. Ponsonby they always raced you down Ley Street and over the ford at the bottom. They both gave you the same start to the Horn's Tavern; the only difference was that with Mr. Ponsonby you were over the ford first.