ONE LESS THAN FIVE One morning we woke up, and found mother had left us. The window was open, and mother had suddenly felt tired of nursing and as if she must have a breath of fresh air. She was outside on a kind of coping there was all round the house. Nobody was worrying at all when in came Mary and Rosamond. They called to mother to come in at once, for it was blowing a cold east wind, and then suddenly they discovered that she was in difficulties. She had jumped off the coping to another piece that stuck out at the side, and now, though she wanted to come back, her resolution had deserted her, and she thought she should never be able to do it. She told us all this, but Mary and Rosamond only thought she was crying out piteously. 'She can do it quite easily, Miss, if she will only face it,' said Mary. 'It stands to reason that if she could jump there, she can jump back!' 'Of course, Mary,' said Rosamond. 'What you can do once you can do again. Come, you silly-billy! Jump! Don't be a coward!' Mother explained that the more she thought about it, the more she couldn't do it, and that perhaps if they would go away and leave her to herself, she would feel differently, but of course they couldn't understand her. They took a small chair and held it out of the window with one hand. Mother knew that if she were to leap upon that, her weight would make them drop it, and, sure enough, they did drop it all the same, and it went clattering down into the garden below. Then they said 'Ow! Whatever'll Miss May say?' and shut the window. Mother was glad of that, for the wind was really too cold for us as we lay inside, and as a matter of fact she was not in the slightest danger if only they would go away, go downstairs and pick up the pieces of the chair in the garden. She mildly suggested it to them, but they did not even begin to understand. 'Aw, poor thing, don't her mew come faint-like through the window!' said that silly Mary. 'You and me can't both leave her, Miss. Shall one of us go and fetch Miss May?' 'Do, do go away!' implored mother, 'and then I shall be able to make my jump!'