WINNING THE BOOK. 1]

mind that. She slipped out of bed, and dressed ~
herself, moving about the room very gently so
as not to be heard by either her father in his
bed-room or her mother down below.

Having to be so cautious made her much
slower than she usually was, so that by the
time she was ready to go down, the daylight
was coming fast to say that the sun would soon
be in sight. Nellie looked from the window,
saw that the weather was fine, and put on her
hat and jacket ready for going out. Then she
drew from under the bed a big straw-basket
which she had put there the night before.

Her object was to get away from the house
without being seen. All the while she felt very
cuilty and half ashamed of what she was going
to do, yet she never once even for a moment
thought of giving up her plan.

A thief on his way to steal something valu-
able could not have crept more silently down-
stairs than Nellie. She had to wait in the
passage leading to the kitchen until she heard
her mother humming to herself in the dairy,
and then she glided through, slipped out of the
back-door, and was gone.

“That was splendid,” she thought as she