1. But when she came to the back door at which she had come out, Mercy found a great trouble. She lifted the latch1, but the door did not open.
2. She gave a pull, a second pull, and then a tug2 with all her might; but it still held fast. "Why," she thought, "I am as badly off as the donkey. I shall have to go into the pigsty3 with him!"
3. She had been out much longer than she thought. And while she had been taking care of Brownie her father had turned the big key in the door and gone to bed.
4. What was to be done? It would[Pg 63] never do to wake up poor tired father, and bring him out in the cold too. So she stood there trying to puzzle out some plan for getting in.
5. The bright moonlight showed her a way to do it. The cottage was a low one, and just under the window of the room where she and Nelly slept, was a bench.
6. Standing4 on tiptoe upon this, Mercy found that she could reach the branches of an old vine tree, which grew over the walls of the little house.
7. She could climb up into this, and so get near the bedroom window. It was easy enough to scramble5 up in summer time, but not so easy now.
8. The boughs6 were a sheet of ice, and her fingers so cold that they could hardly take hold of them. At last, after many slips and frights, she was safely up.
9. But what would little Nelly think of seeing her sister outside the window, asking to be let in, as their pussy7 cat often did?
10. She was sound asleep too, and had to be wakened by many hard taps at the[Pg 64] glass. First, Nelly felt fear at seeing a face looking in at her.
11. But she soon knew who it was. "Oh Mercy," cried Nelly, "how long you have been! What have you been at? And why did you come back this way?"
12. "Get into bed again, there's a dear," said Mercy, "and I will tell you all............