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themselves—although he moved quickly, the furniture of the hall was dissolving and vanishing away before him even more quickly. Even before he reached the middle of the hall, everything had gone from it but the grandfather clock; and when he reached the middle, and could look sideways towards the stairs, he saw them uncarpeted, exactly as they were when his uncle and aunt and the others used them during the day. These were not the stairs that could ever lead him anywhere now but to bed.
    ‘Bother!’ said Tom. He turned back the way he had come, towards the garden door: through it the garden lay unchanged. As he stepped out over the threshold, he glanced back over his shoulder into the house: sure enough, the hall was re-filling behind him. Brackets, barometer, glass cases, umbrella stand, gong and gong-stick—they were all stealing back; and, of course, the grandfather clock had been there all the time.
    Tom was vexed; but he resolved not to let this disappointment spoil his enjoyment of the garden. He would resolutely put James and the others out of his mind. He had already as good as forgotten the girl, Hatty. She had not come across the lawn and into the house after her cousins; for some reason, she had given up the chase. He did not wonder where she was in the garden now, or what she was doing.

IX
Hatty
    T om only rarely saw the three boys in the garden. They would come strolling out with the air-gun, or for fruit. They came for apples on the second occasion of Tom’s seeing them, which was only a few days after the first.
    With a terrier at their heels, they sauntered out of the house and—apparently aimlessly—took the path by the greenhouse, and so came into the kitchen-garden. Then, suddenly, they bunched together and closed upon a young tree of early ripening apples.
    ‘We were only told not to pick any,’ said Hubert. ‘Come on, lads! Shake the tree and make them fall!’
    He and James set their hands to the tree-trunk and shook it to and fro. An apple dropped, and then several more. Edgar was gathering them up from the ground, when he paused, looked sharply across to the bushes, and cried: ‘Spying!’ There stood the child, Hatty. She came out into the open, then, as concealment had become pointless.
    ‘Give me an apple, please,’ she said.
    ‘Or you’ll tell, I suppose!’ cried Edgar. ‘Spy and tell-tale!’
    ‘Oh, give her an apple—she means no harm!’ said James. As Edgar seemed unwilling, he himself threw one to her, and she caught it in the bottom of her pinafore held out in front of her. ‘Only don’t leave the core on the lawn, Hatty, as you did last time, or you’ll get yourself into trouble, and us too, perhaps.’
    She promised, and, eating her apple, drew nearer to the group. Each boy had an apple now, and they were eating them hurriedly, scuffling the earth with their feet as they came away from the tree, to confuse the tracks they had made.
    Now they halted again—and it happened to be quite near Tom, but with their backs to him—while they finished their apples. The terrier snuffed his way round their legs and so came to Tom’s side of the group. He was closer to Tom than he had ever been before, and became—in some degree—aware of him. So much was clear from the dog’s behaviour: he faced Tom; his hackles rose; he growled again and again. Hubert said, ‘What is it, Pincher?’ and turned; he looked at Tom, and never saw him.
    Edgar had turned quickly, at the same time: he looked more searchingly, through and through Tom. Then James turned, and lastly even Hatty. They all four stared and stared through Tom, while the dog at their feet continued his growling.
    It was very rude of them, Tom felt, and very stupid, too. Suddenly he lost patience with the lot of them. He felt the impulse to be rude back, and gave way to it—after all, no one could see him: he stuck out his tongue at them.
    In retort, the girl Hatty darted out her tongue at Tom.
    For a moment, Tom was so