It is one thing to talk of the delights of sleeping under a hedgerow, and another to realize them. A hayfield is a very charming place, but in the middle of the night, with the dew clinging to everything, it is apt to prove but a chilly bed; the most familiar objects put on strange and unreal forms, the most familiar sounds become loud and alarming. Annie slept for about an hour soundly; then she awoke, trembling with cold in every limb, startled, and almost terrified by the oppressive loneliness of the night, sure that the insect life which surrounded her, and which would keep up successions of chirps, and croaks, and buzzes, was something mysterious and terrifying. Annie was a brave child, but even brave little girls may be allowed to possess nerves under her present conditions, and when a spider ran across her face she started up with a scream of terror. At this moment she almost regretted the close and dirty lodgings which she might have obtained for a few pence at Oakley. The hay in the field which she had selected was partly cut and partly standing. The cut portion had been piled up into little cocks and hillocks, and these, with the night shadows round them, appeared to the frightened child to assume large and half-human proportions. She found she could not sleep any longer. She wrapped her shawl tightly round her, and, crouching into the hedgerow, waited for the dawn.