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 Then the clock downstairs struck seven, and she felt it safe to slip out. In the glass she saw the blankets open, a pair of legs grope outward. Cautiously, not to rouse Mother, she picked up her clothes and got to the door. As she turned the knob one shoe fell with a thump. She looked anxiously at the rounded hill. It stirred ominously, but said nothing.

Sylvia, with sheets and blankets trailing from her, lay like a bundle of laundry on the window seat. Janet woke her, they sat dressing and babbling together, now and then shouting along the passage to Rose, who slept with Nounou. Rose kept opening the nursery door to ask what they said, then, while the remark was being repeated, Nounou's voice would command her to shut it. Janet, with brown knees hunched under her chin, picked at shoelace knots. Sylvia, in her deliberate way, was planning this time to get her shirt on right side forward. She announced several times her intention of drinking plenty of ginger ale at the Picnic, because peanut butter sandwiches make you so thirsty. She kept saying this in the hope of learning, from Janet's comment, whether milk has to be drunk at Picnics. Janet did not contradict her, so Sylvia felt that the ginger ale was a probability.