"How old is Dick?" Hugh asked with interest.

"He is my twin; we are thirteen and a half," answered Mollie, quite
forgetting that in the year 1878 Dick was still minus twenty-nine.
"We do everything together in the holidays except football, and just
now there isn't any football, so Dick is rather bored at school. In
term-time we hardly see each other at all, we are both so horribly
busy. How do you find time to do all these things?"

"I don't find it, I steal it," Hugh answered. "If I waited to _find_
time I should never have enough to be useful. To-day is a half-
holiday, and I am supposed to be learning Roman history and writing
out five hundred lines. But I'm not," he added unnecessarily.

"Building is much more important than Roman history," said Mollie
decidedly, "and lines are absolutely rotten. I wonder why--"

"Hullo!" came a voice from below. "It's me. I have finished my chain
at last, and now I want to come up. Please come and hold the ladder,
Prue."

Prudence crept out, tripped lightly down the ladder, and stood
beside her sister.

"Hold tight, Grizzel, and do remember to push and not pull; if you
pull I can't hold the ladder up."

"I wish Hugh would cut steps in the tree-trunk like the blacks,"
Grizzel complained, as she proceeded rather nervously to climb the
ladder. "I do hate this old tobbely old green old thing."