Janet had given a most violent start when she opened the door of her mother’s bedroom where the davenport stood; and Janet much resented being startled; no doubt that was the reason she was so cross, thought Barbara, but still it was very disagreeable.

That room was the child’s also.  She had been her mother’s bed-fellow ever since her father’s death, and she felt her present solitude.  The nights were sultry, and her sleep had been broken of late.

That night she was in a slumber as cool as a widely-opened window would make it, but not so sound that she was not haunted all the time by dread for Armine.

Suddenly she was awakened to full consciousness by seeing a light in the room.  No, it was not the maid putting away her dresses.  It was Janet, bending over her mother’s davenport.

Babie started up.

“Janet!  Is anything the matter?”

“Nothing!  Nonsense! go to sleep, child.”

“What are you about?”

“Never mind.  Only mother keeps her things in such a mess; I was setting them to rights after disturbing them to find the book.”

There was something in the tone like an apology.

Babie did not like it, but she well knew that she should be contemptuously put down if she attempted an inquiry, far less a remonstrance, with Janet.  Only, with a puzzled sort of watch-dog sense, she sat up in bed and stared.

“Why don’t you lie down?” said Janet.

Babie did lie down, but on her back, her head high up on the pillow, and her eyes well open still.

Perhaps Janet did not like it, for she gave an impatient shuffle to the papers, shut the drawer with a jerk, locked it, took up her candle, and went away without vouchsafing a “good-night.”

Babie lay wondering.  She knew that the davenport contained all that was most sacred and precious to her mother, as relics of her old life, and that only dire necessity would have made her let anyone touch it.  What could Janet mean?  To speak would be of no use.  One-and-twenty was not likely to listen to thirteen, though Babie, in her dreamy wakefulness, found herself composing conversations in which she made eloquent appeals to Janet, which she was never likely to utter.

At last the morning twitterings began outside, doves cooed, peacocks miawed, light dawned, and Babie’s perceptions cleared themselves.  In the wainscoted room was a large closet, used for hanging up cloaks and dresses, and fortunately empty.  No sooner did the light begin to reflect itself in its polished oak-panelled door, than an idea struck Babie, and bounding from her bed, she opened the door, wheeled in the davenport, shut it in, turned the big rusty key with both hands and a desperate effort, then repairing to her own little inner room, disturbed the honourable retirement of the last and best-beloved of her dolls in a pink-lined cradle in a disused doll’s house, and laying the key beneath the mattress, felt heroically ready for the thumbscrew rather than yield it up.  She knew Armine would say she was right, and be indignant that Janet should meddle with mother’s private stores.  So she turned over on the pillow, cooled by the morning breeze, and fell into a sound sleep, whence she was only roused by the third “Miss Barbara,” from her maid.