'What?' said Hermie.
'Lock the door while I was reading.'
'Of course I didn't,' Hermie said impatiently.
'It's that young beggar Roly,' Bart said; 'I'll have to take it out of him for this. He'd even jammed the window, and I'd no end or work to get it open. I want to go and help father.'
'Where is he?' Hermie said.
'He's washing the paint-brushes in the cowshed,' said Bart. 'Isn't it lucky? Morty says there are about three dozen tins of red paint at his place, no earthly good to any one, and he's going to send them down in the morning, and dad and I are going to give all the place a coat of paint before mother comes.'
Hermie went to her bedroom, shut the door, and sat down by the window, glad of the sheltering darkness.
But two or three feet away, at the next window, sat Miss Browne, also in the dark, Miss Browne, now crying happily into her wet handkerchief, now looking at the moon and whispering, 'Love, love, how beautiful, how beautiful!'
The sound of footsteps, however, in the adjoining room brought her swiftly outside Hermie's window.
'Hermie!' she cried in a breathless tone at the sight of the girl sitting there in her white dress. 'That cannot be you?'