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However, the flames leaped high into the great chimney mouth, when Captain John Hopkins and his wife entered.

“How pleasant it is, and how thankful we ought to be to have a good warm room to enter,” said Great-great-great-grandmother Letitia Hopkins, although she looked very grave. The sick neighbor was very sick unto death, it was feared, and she was a good woman and a good neighbor.

Josephus Peabody stayed all night and slept wrapped up in a homespun blanket beside the fire, but the next morning it was hardly daylight before Goodman Cephas Holbrook came for him. Cephas Holbrook was a very stern man, and he believed in the rod. Before Josephus left he had just one chance and he improved it. It was while Mr. Holbrook was partaking of a glass of something warm and spicy which Great-great-great-grandmother Letitia Hopkins mixed for him. It was a cordial of her own compounding and a good thing for the stomach on a bitter morning, and this morning was very bitter.

Josephus whispered to Letitia: “He will give me an awful licking when we get home, and I am not afraid, honest. But if I can get hold of that key, I mean to go into that book this very night.”

Letitia looked frightened.

“You had better–” began Josephus, and he nodded meaningly.

Letitia knew what he meant, but she had no chance to reply, for Mr. Holbrook had finished his cordial and had Josephus by the hand, and was jerking him rather forcibly out of the door.

“A froward child, I fear,” remarked Captain John Hopkins when they had gone.

“Yes,” assented his wife.

“He is afraid of Injuns when there are none, too,” said Great-great-grandmother Letitia.

“That is an evil thing, too,” said her father. “It is distrusting the Almighty to fear where is nothing to fear. A froward child, and I trust that Goodman Holbrook will not spare the rod.”

Letitia was very sure that he would not, and she pitied poor Josephus Peabody with all her heart. She also pitied herself more than usual that day, for the cold was stinging, and she was put to hard tasks, and she felt forlorn at the thought that her little brother in the hardships of the Past might that very night strive to make his escape. Gradually her own resolve grew. She was horribly afraid, but she was also horribly homesick, and homesickness will urge to desperate deeds.

That night, also, Captain John Hopkins and his wife went to visit the sick neighbor, and, after the younger sisters were in bed, Letitia was left alone with her great-great-grandmother, who was sleepy. Letitia did not talk; she knitted, with a shrewd eye upon the elder Letitia, who presently fell fast asleep. Then Letitia rose softly, and laid down her knitting work. It might be her chance for nobody knew how long, and Josephus might even now be entering his book. She pulled off her shoes, tiptoed in her thick yarn stockings up to the loft, got her own clothes out of the chest, and put them on. The little great-great-aunts did not stir. Letitia blew a kiss to them. Then she tiptoed down, got the key out of the secret drawer, blew another farewell kiss to her sleeping great-great-grandmother and was out of the house.

It was broad moonlight outside. She ran around to the north side of the house, and there was the little green door hidden under the low branches of the spruce tree. Letitia gave a sob of fear and thankfulness. She fitted the key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, and there she was back in her great-aunt’s cheese-room.

She shut the door hard, locked it, and carried the key back to its place in the satin-wood box. Then she looked out of the window, and there was her great-aunt Peggy, and the old maid-servant just coming home from meeting.

Letitia confessed what she had done, and her aunt listened gravely. Letitia did not say anything about Josephus Peabody.