Katharine came over the brow of the hill that sloped down towards the chalk pit, scaled the wooden fence at the bottom, and skirted the edge of the little chasm until she came to the line of beech-trees. Here she paused for a moment, pecked a hole in the soft ground with her heel, and peered thoughtfully down into the pit. Then she turned abruptly away again, and struck across the fields to the further side of the village, where she sped down a grassy lane that was for the most part under water, and stopped at last before a gap in the hedge that was hardly large enough to be noticeable. She squeezed adroitly through it, however, and came in view of an ugly modern house standing in a neglected looking garden, with an untidy farmyard and some stable buildings at the back. Here she was careful to keep a clump of box-trees between herself and the front of the house, until she could come out with safety into the open and approach the iron fence that separated the paddock from the lawn. This she vaulted easily, dropping lightly on the grass beyond, and managed to arrive at last unnoticed, under a small oriel window at the corner of the house. She picked up a handful of small stones, and swung them with a sure aim at the little glass panes, and called, "Coo-ey," as loudly as she dared. "Lazy toad!" she muttered impatiently. "On a morning like this, too! And just when I had got a real adventure to tell him, that he knows absolutely nothing about, not anything at all!" She did not throw up any more stones, but mounted the iron railings instead, and sat there with her feet dangling and her eyes fixed on the oriel window. "It's the biggest score I've ever had over him," she chuckled to herself. "I think I shall _explode_ soon, if he doesn't wake up. I'm getting so awfully hungry, too; it must be eight o'clock." She called again presently, without changing her position; and this time there was a sign of life behind the oriel window, and the curtains were drawn aside. Katharine forgot all her previous caution, and gave a loud "whoop" of satisfaction. The lattice flew open, and some one with rumpled hair and flushed cheeks looked out and yawned. "Don't make such a shindy, Kit; you'll wake the mother," he grumbled. "Why the dickens have you come so beastly early?" "Because Aunt Esther was asleep, of course," answered Katharine promptly. "Hurry up, Ted, and have your bath; it'll make you feel piles better. And you'll have to get me some food; I could eat my boots." "Don't do that," said Ted. "Last night's steak will do just as well." "How is _she_?" asked Katharine, with a jerk of her head towards the front of the house. "Awful. She's getting worse. She docks the pudding course at supper now. Don't go, Kitty; I'll be down directly." He was not long, but she was full of impatient reproaches by the time he joined her at the fence.