And now doors, windows, and shutters alike, shrunken and scorched and blistered by the heat of two hundred summers, were dropping into ruin.
The handling of this rotten lock and its rickety accompaniments suddenly brought back a panic fear on Lucy.

What if Alice Manisty and the wind, which was already rising, should burst in upon her together?
She looked down upon her night-gown and her bare feet.

Well, at least she would not be taken quite unawares! She opened her cupboard and brought from it a white wrapper of a thin woollen stuff which she put on.

She thrust her feet into her slippers, and so stood a moment listening, her long hair dropping about her.

Nothing! She lay down, and drew a shawl over her.