“The shades are all down,” said Diana ruefully.  “I believe that nobody is home.”

This proved to be the case.  The girls looked at each other in perplexity.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Anne.  “If I were sure the platter was the right kind I would not mind waiting until they came home.  But if it isn’t it may be too late to go to Wesley Keyson’s afterward.”

Diana looked at a certain little square window over the basement.

“That is the pantry window, I feel sure,” she said, “because this house is just like Uncle Charles’ at Newbridge, and that is their pantry window.  The shade isn’t down, so if we climbed up on the roof of that little house we could look into the pantry and might be able to see the platter.  Do you think it would be any harm?”

“No, I don’t think so,” decided Anne, after due reflection, “since our motive is not idle curiosity.”

This important point of ethics being settled, Anne prepared to mount the aforesaid “little house,” a construction of lathes, with a peaked roof, which had in times past served as a habitation for ducks.  The Copp girls had given up keeping ducks . . . “because they were such untidy birds”. . . and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens.  Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box.

“I’m afraid it won’t bear my weight,” she said as she gingerly stepped on the roof.

“Lean on the window sill,” advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned.  Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a willow-ware platter, exactly such as she was in quest of, on the shelf in front of the window.  So much she saw before the catastrophe came.  In her joy Anne forgot the precarious nature of her footing, incautiously ceased to lean on the window sill, gave an impulsive little hop of pleasure . . . and the next moment she had crashed through the roof up to her armpits, and there she hung, quite unable to extricate herself.  Diana dashed into the duck house and, seizing her unfortunate friend by the waist, tried to draw her down.

“Ow . . . don’t,” shrieked poor Anne.  “There are some long splinters sticking into me.  See if you can put something under my feet . . . then perhaps I can draw myself up.”

Diana hastily dragged in the previously mentioned keg and Anne found that it was just sufficiently high to furnish a secure resting place for her feet.  But she could not release herself.

“Could I pull you out if I crawled up?” suggested Diana.

Anne shook her head hopelessly.

“No . . . the splinters hurt too badly.  If you can find an axe you might chop me out, though.  Oh dear, I do really begin to believe that I was born under an ill-omened star.”

Diana searched faithfully but no axe was to be found.