Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/190

 *ing-out coat and skirt and changed her shoes. Finally, she put on the better of the only two hats she possessed, slipped her mother's battered old leather purse into her coat pocket, and then, umbrella in one hand, parcel in the other, she turned to the hazard of stealing down-*stairs and making good her escape.

In the middle of the twisty stairs, just before their sharpest bend would bring her into the view of persons below, she stopped to listen. The voices had ceased; she could not hear a sound. Two ways lay before her of reaching the street: one via the parlour to the kitchen and out along the side entry, the other through the front door of the shop. Either route might be commanded at the moment by the enemy. With nothing to guide her, June felt that the only safe course just then was to stay where she was. In the strategic position she had taken up on the stairs she could not be seen from below, yet a quick ear might hope to gain a clue to what was going on.

She had not to wait long. From the inner room, whose door opposite the foot of the stairs was still half open, although its occupant was no more seen, there suddenly came the strident tones of Uncle Si. They were directed unmistakably kitchenward. "Boy, you'd better get the tea ready. Seemin'ly that gell ain't home."

"Very good, sir," came a prompt and cheerful response from the back premises.

June decided at once that the signs were favourable. Now was her chance; the way through the front shop was evidently clear. Deftly as a cat she came down the remaining stairs and stole past the half-open door of what was known as "the lumber room," where, how