instead of attending to the holy words, she pinched herself, and
pulled herself, and kept her eyes staring open, gazing at the
flickering shadows cast by the dim home-made rush candle.

She went to sleep for a moment, then started into wakefulness again;
Rose had ceased to repeat her Psalms aloud, but was still at her
needlework; another doze, another waking. There was some hope of
Rose now, for she was kneeling down to say her prayers. Lucy thought
they lasted very long, and at her next waking she was just in time to
hear the latch of the door closing, and find herself left in
darkness. Rose was not in bed, did not answer when she called. Oh,
she must be gone to take Walter's coat back to his room. But surely
she might have done that in one moment; and how long she was staying!
Lucy could bear it no longer, or rather she did not try to bear it,
for she was an impetuous, self-willed child, without much control
over herself. She jumped out of bed, and stole to the door. A light
was just disappearing on the ceiling, as if someone was carrying a
candle down stairs; what could it mean? Lucy scampered, pit-pat,
with her bare feet along the passage, and came to the top of the
stairs in time to peep over and discover Rose silently opening the
door of the hall, a large dark cloak hung over her arm, and her head
and neck covered by her black silk hood and a thick woollen kerchief,
as if she was going out.

Lucy's curiosity knew no bounds. She would not call, for fear she
should be sent back to bed, but she was determined to see what her
sister could possibly be about. Down the cold stone steps pattered
she, and luckily, as she thought, Rose, probably to avoid noise, had
only shut to the door, so that the little inquisitive maiden had a
chink to peep through, and beheld Rose at a certain oaken corner-