“Emily!” screamed Mrs. Barnes.  “Emily!  Come here!”

Emily came, fighting her way against the wind.  She found her cousin standing by the corner of the house.

“I’ve got it,” cried Aunt Thankful, panting but triumphant.  “I’ve got it.  One of the windows on the other side is unfastened, just as I suspicioned it might be.  I think one of us can get in if t’other helps.”

She seized the arm of her fellow castaway and together they turned the corner, struggled on for a short distance and then stopped.

“This is the window,” gasped the widow.  “Here, right abreast of us.  See!”

She held up the lantern.  The window was “abreast” of them, but also it was a trifle high.

“It ain’t fastened,” shouted Thankful; she was obliged to shout in order to be heard.  “I could push it open a little mite from the bottom, but I couldn’t reach to get it up all the way.  You can if I steady you, I guess.  Here!  Put your foot on that box.  I lugged it around from the back yard on purpose.”

Standing on an empty and shaky cranberry crate and held there by the strong arm of Mrs. Barnes, Emily managed to push up the lower half of the window.  The moment she let go of it, however, it fell with a tremendous bang.

“One of the old-fashioned kind, you might know,” declared Thankful.  “No weights nor nothin’.  We’ll have to prop it up with a stick.  You wait where you are and I’ll go get one.  There’s what’s left of a woodpile out back here; that’s where that crate came from.”

She hastened away and was back in a moment with a stout stick.  Emily raised the window once more and placed the stick beneath it.

“There!” panted her companion.  “We’ve got a gangway anyhow.  Next thing is to get aboard.  You come down and give me a boost.”

But Emily declined.

“Of course I shan’t do any such thing,” she declared, indignantly.  “I can climb through that window a great deal easier than you can, Auntie.  I’m ever so much younger.  Just give me a push, that’s all.”

Her cousin demurred.  “I hate to have you do it,” she said.  “For anybody that ain’t any too strong or well you’ve been through enough tonight.  Well, if you’re so set on it.  I presume likely you could make a better job of climbin’ than I could.  It ain’t my age that bothers me though, it’s my weight.  All ready?  Up you go!  Humph!  It’s a mercy there ain’t anybody lookin’ on. . . .  There! all right, are you?”

Emily’s head appeared framed by the window sash.  “Yes,” she panted.  “I—­I think I’m all right.  At least I’m through that window.  Now what shall I do?”

“Take this lantern and go to one of the doors and see if you can unfasten it.  Try the back door; that’s the most liable to be only bolted and hooked.  The front one’s probably locked with a key.”

The lantern and its bearer disappeared.  Mrs. Barnes plodded around to the back door.  As she reached it it opened.