"I am going to make a rope-ladder and pull it up after me," Hugh
said, watching her from the door of his castle in the air. "I don't
want steps that everybody could climb. Look out, Griz, you are
pulling--" he stretched out a hand as he spoke, and held the top of
the ladder, while Prudence steadied it at the bottom, until Grizzel
had safely negotiated "the green passage", as Hugh called it, and
crawled in at his little front door.

"It is very, very, very, very nice," she said approvingly, "and it
will make a lovely place to come and hate in when everybody is
horrid. You can draw the curtains and shut the door, and light your
lantern and sit here hating as long as you like, for no one can get
up when you have your rope-ladder."

"It would be rather stuffy," Mollie said, looking at the thick
blanket curtains. "If he went on hating very long he would be
suffocated. I'd sooner have a tea-party myself, and pull all the tea
up in baskets. The water would be the hard part."

"The water is in that canvas bag," Hugh pointed out; "Papa gave it
to me; it's the boiling that bothers me, because I don't much like
using a spirit-lamp in here."

"Get an old biscuit-tin and fasten it up in the tree and put your
spirit-lamp in that," suggested Mollie the Guide. "Cut out the
front; then you will have a nice little cave all safe and
sheltered."

"That's a jolly good idea," said Hugh; "I'll do it to-morrow and