and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep
near her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there
were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.
If they wouldn t be so frightened I would take them back with me,
said Mary.
She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any
farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by
turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down
until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor
again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know
exactly where she was.
I believe I have taken a wrong turning again, she said, standing
still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the
wall. I don t know which way to go. How still everything is!
It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this
that the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not
quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a
fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.
It s nearer than it was, said Mary, her heart beating rather faster.
And it _is_ crying.
She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then
sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a
door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the
corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of
keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.
What are you doing here? she said, and she took Mary by the arm and
pulled her away. What did I tell you?
I turned round the wrong corner, explained Mary. I didn t know which
way to go and I heard someone crying. She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at
the moment, but she hated her more the next.
You didn t hear anything of the sort, said the housekeeper. You come
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