Page:Jepson--Pollyooly.djvu/98

 Even her natural serenity could not stand the strain of her dire imaginings; and by a quarter to one she had worked herself into a fever of anxiety. Then a happy idea came to her. She ran up to the attic above Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' sitting-room, opened the window and looked out.

The window of her own attic was fifteen feet away, and open. The slope of the roof was not very steep; also, if she did slip, there was a broad gutter; and she thought it looked strong. She took off her shoes, slipped out of the window, and tested the grip of her feet on the tiles. Her feet gripped them firmly; for the course of time had worn away their original seventeenth-century smoothness, and many little tufts of lichen helped to hold the sole. She began to crawl, firmly, in a course slanting slightly upward, to a point above her own window.

Of course, a policeman on the farther pavement of the King's Bench Walk, having nothing else to do, espied her in her perilous transit, and with all the intelligence of his force and race, shouted at her. Pollyooly had perfect nerves; but it was just as well at the moment that she did not hear him, though, indeed, she was not thinking at all of the