Mabel found herself trembling a great deal and wishing most heartily she was out of this scrape as she followed Annie across the grass. There was a brilliant moon in the sky, and there was a little piece of lawn, bare of any shelter, which they had to cross in order to get to the home. Should any one happen to be looking out of a window, that person could not fail to see the girls as they crossed this moonlit lawn. Mabel thought of it with growing terror as they returned home, and when they found themselves standing at the edge of a belt of dark pine-trees preparatory to rushing across the lawn, she clutched her companion by the arm. "Oh, I know we shall be seen!" she cried. "Oh, I wish I had not done it!" "It is too late to go back now, Mabel," said Annie; "there is nothing for it but forward--right forward. Don't be a coward;--no one will see us. What teacher is likely to be out of bed at two o'clock in the morning? We shall be in the house in next to no time. We'll then creep upstairs to our private sitting-room, and all danger will be over. Come, May, come; there's no holding back now." Annie took her companion's hand, and they rushed tremblingly across the lawn, each of them devoutly hoping that no one was up. A minute or two later they were safely inside the shelter of the house, and then, again, in another minute Annie had softly opened the door of the girls' sitting-room, where they were to stay until the time for invading Priscilla arrived. "You may go to sleep if you like," said Annie. "I will hold your hand; you needn't be at all alarmed, for I have drawn the bolt of the door, so that if any one should come prying, that person would be prevented entering. But just before you drop asleep I want to arrange my part." "I wish I were well out of the whole thing," said Mabel. "You _can_ be, of course," said Annie. "It is but to destroy, this paper that we have just composed together." "Oh no, Annie; it isn't mine at all." "Well, at least you have done the writing of it; if the thoughts are mine, the penmanship is yours. Come, Mabel, don't be a goose. Everything is in progress, and you'll be as happy as the day is long by this time to-morrow." "You forget that I have still to get that horrid money." "Of course you have; but as you seem so nervous and faint-hearted, you had much better write a little note now to Mrs Priestley. I will light one of the candles, and you can get that over. I will take it to-morrow afternoon, and trust me not to return without your thirty pounds safe and sound. But the one thing which must be settled, and positively settled, is my little part. You have got solemnly to promise that I shall spend the summer holidays with you." "Suppose Aunt Henrietta refuses." "But she is not to refuse, Mabel. If this thing were completed and I found that you had backed out of your honourable bargain with me, I should find it my duty to--Oh Mabel, need I go on?"