CHAPTER IIPETER'S COAL-MINE

"What fun!" said Mother, in the dark, feeling for the matches on the table. "How frightened the poor mice were—I don't believe they were rats at all."

She struck a match and relighted the candle, and every one looked at each other by its winky, blinky light.

"Well," she said, "you've often wanted something to happen, and now it has. This is quite an adventure, isn't it? I told Mrs. Viney to get us some bread and butter, and meat things, and to have supper ready. I suppose she's laid it in the dining room. So let's go and see."

The dining room opened out of the kitchen. It looked much darker than the kitchen when they went in with the one candle. Because the kitchen was whitewashed, but the dining room was dark wood from floor to ceiling, and across the ceiling there were heavy black beams. There was a muddled maze of dusty furniture—the breakfast-room