There was a stirring of dawn in the air. All the world seemed wrapped in a transparent grey veil, just thin enough for objects to loom dimly through the dusk. She could see the heavy outlines of the trees at the farther side of the lawn. A thrush was already giving a preliminary note, and sparrows were beginning to twitter under the eaves. "What's the use of stopping in bed when one can't sleep?" exclaimed Katrine. "Let us dress, find our machines, and go for a spin." "What! Go out now?" "Why not? People are supposed to get up early in the country." "All right! If you're game, I am." The two girls had not been accustomed to much discipline at home, and their notions of school rules were rudimentary. The idea of getting up so early and going out to explore struck them both as delightfully enterprising and adventurous. They made a hurried toilet, crept cautiously downstairs, and found the passage at the back of the house, where their bicycles had been temporarily placed the night before. It was an easy matter to unbolt a side door, and make their way through the garden and down the drive. Before the day was much older, they were riding along the quiet dim road in that calm silence that precedes the dawn. The air was most fresh and exhilarating. As their machines sped through the grey morning mist, they felt almost as if they were on aeroplanes, rushing among the clouds. At first all was dark and vague and mysterious, but every minute the light was growing stronger, and presently they could distinguish the gossamer, hung like a tangled magic web upon the hedges, in dainty shimmering masses, as if the pixies had been spinning and weaving in the night, and had not yet had time to carry off the result of their labours. "It's just like a fairy tale," said Gwethyn. "Do you remember the boy who sat on the fox's tail, and they went on and on till his hair whistled in the wind? Those rabbits ought to stop and talk, and tell us about Brer Terrapin and the Tar Baby. I'm sure Uncle Remus is squatting at the foot of that tree. We shall meet the goose-girl presently, I expect." "What a baby you are! But it is lovely, I agree with you. Oh, Gwethyn, look at the sky over there! That's a fairy tale, if you like. Let's stop and watch it."