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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Girls of the Forest, by L. T. Meade
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Girls of the Forest
+
+Author: L. T. Meade
+
+Release Date: June 22, 2008 [EBook #25872]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIRLS OF THE FOREST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+GUARANTEE
+
+The story in this book is complete as written
+and published by the Author
+
+MACLELLAN ·N·Y· COMPANY
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST
+
+L. T. MEADE
+
+AUTHOR OF ALWYN'S FRIENDS, BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS,
+GOOD LUCK, PLAYMATES, PRETTY GIRL AND THE OTHERS,
+THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL, ETC.
+
+AKRON, OHIO
+MACLELLAN ·N·Y· COMPANY
+PUBLISHERS
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born
+at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade,
+rector at Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She
+wrote her first book, _Lettie's Last Home_, at the age of 17, and since
+then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining wide
+popularity on both sides of the Atlantic.
+
+She worked in the British Museum, lived in Bishopsgate Without, making
+special studies of East London life, which she incorporated in her
+stories. She edited the _Atlanta_, a magazine, for six years. Her
+pictures of girls, especially in the influence they exert on their
+elders, are drawn with intuitive fidelity, pathos, love, and humor, as in
+_Girls of the Forest_, flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled
+extensively, and is devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports.
+
+Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with
+questions of home life, are: _A Knight of To-day_ (1877), _Bel-Marjory_
+(1878), _Mou-setse: a Negro Hero_ (1880), _Mother Herring's Chickens_
+(1881), _A London Baby: The Story of King Roy_ (1883), _Two Sisters_
+(1884), _The Angel of Life_ (1885), _A World of Girls_ (1886), _Sweet
+Nancy_ (1887), _Nobody's Neighbors_ (1887), _Deb and The Duchess_ (1888),
+_Girls of the Forest_ (1908), _Aylwyn's Friends_ (1909), _Pretty Girl and
+the Others_ (1910).
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE GUEST WHO WAS NEITHER OLD NOR YOUNG.
+
+
+It was a beautiful summer's afternoon, and the girls were seated in a
+circle on the lawn in front of the house. The house was an old
+Elizabethan mansion, which had been added to from time to time--fresh
+additions jutting out here and running up there. There were all sorts of
+unexpected nooks and corners to be found in the old house--a flight of
+stairs just where you did not look for any, and a baize door shutting
+away the world at the moment when you expected to behold a long vista
+into space. The house itself was most charming and inviting-looking; but
+it was also, beyond doubt, much neglected. The doors were nearly
+destitute of paint, and the papers on many of the walls had completely
+lost their original patterns. In many instances there were no papers,
+only discolored walls, which at one time had been gay with paint and
+rendered beautiful with pictures. The windows were destitute of curtains;
+the carpets on the floors were reduced to holes and patches. The old
+pictures in the picture gallery still remained, however, and looked down
+on the young girls who flitted about there on rainy days with kindly, or
+searching, or malevolent eyes as suited the characters of those men and
+women who were portrayed in them.
+
+But this was the heart of summer, and there was no need to go into the
+musty, fusty old house. The girls sat on the grass and held consultation.
+
+"She is certainly coming to-morrow," said Verena. "Father had a letter
+this morning. I heard him giving directions to old John to have the trap
+patched up and the harness mended. And John is going to Lyndhurst Road to
+meet her. She will arrive just about this time. Isn't it too awful?"
+
+"Never mind, Renny," said her second sister; "the sooner she comes, the
+sooner she'll go. Briar and Patty and I have put our heads together, and
+we mean to let her see what we think of her and her interfering ways. The
+idea of Aunt Sophia interfering between father and us! Now, I should like
+to know who is likely to understand the education of a girl if her own
+father does not."
+
+"It is all because the Step has gone," continued Verena. "She told us
+when she was leaving that she meant to write to Aunt Sophia. She was
+dreadfully cross at having to go, and the one mean thing she ever did in
+all her life was to make the remark she did. She said it was very little
+short of disgraceful to have ten girls running about the New Forest at
+their own sweet will, without any one to guide them."
+
+"Oh, what a nuisance the Step is!" said Rose, whose pet name was Briar.
+"Shouldn't I like to scratch her! Dear old Paddy! of course he knows how
+to manage us. Oh, here he comes--the angel! Let's plant him down in our
+midst. Daisy, put that little stool in the middle of the circle; the
+Padre shall sit there, and we'll consult as to the advent of precious
+Aunt Sophia."
+
+Patty, Briar, and Verena now jumped to their feet and ran in the
+direction where an elderly gentleman, with a stoop, gray hair hanging
+over his shoulders, and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his
+nose, was walking.
+
+"Paddy, Paddy! you have got to come here at once," called out Briar.
+
+Meanwhile Verena took one of his arms, Patty clasped the other, Briar
+danced in front, and so they conducted him into the middle of the group.
+
+"Here's your stool, Paddy," cried Briar. "Down you squat. Now then,
+squatty-_vous_."
+
+Mr. Dale took off his spectacles, wiped them and gazed around him in
+bewilderment.
+
+"I was construing a line of Virgil," he said. "You have interrupted me,
+my dears. Whatever is the matter?"
+
+"We have brought the culprit to justice," exclaimed Pauline. "Paddy,
+forget the classics for the time being. Think, just for a few moments, of
+your neglected--your shamefully neglected--daughters. Ten of them, Paddy,
+all running wild in the Forest glades. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
+Don't you feel that your moment of punishment has come? Aunt Sophia
+arrives to-morrow. Now, what have you got to say for yourself?"
+
+"But, my dear children, we can't have your Aunt Sophia here. I could not
+dream of it. I remember quite well she came here once a long time ago. I
+have not got over it yet. I haven't really."
+
+"But she is coming, Paddy, and you know it quite well, for you got the
+letter. How long do you think you can put up with her?"
+
+"Only for a very short time, Pauline; I assure you, my darling, she is
+not--not a pleasant person."
+
+"Describe her, Paddy--do," said Verena.
+
+She spoke in her very gentlest tone, and held out one of her long white
+hands and allowed her father to clasp it. Verena was decidedly the
+best-looking of the eight girls sitting on the grass. She was tall; her
+complexion was fair; her figure was naturally so good that no amount of
+untidy dressing could make it look awkward. Her hair was golden and soft.
+It was less trouble to wind it up in a thick rope and hairpin it at the
+back of her head than to let it run wild; therefore she was not even
+untidy. Verena was greatly respected by her sisters, and Briar was rather
+afraid of her. All the others sat silent now when she asked the old Padre
+to describe Aunt Sophia.
+
+"My dear," he answered, "I have not the slightest idea what her
+appearance is like. My memory of her is that she was fashionable and very
+conventional."
+
+"What on earth is 'conventional'?" whispered Pat.
+
+"Don't interrupt, Patty," said Verena, squeezing her father's hand. "Go
+on, Paddy; go on, darling of my heart. Tell us some more. Aunt Sophia is
+fashionable and conventional. We can look out the words in the dictionary
+afterwards. But you must know what she is like to look at."
+
+"I don't, my dears; I cannot remember. It was a good many years ago when
+she came to visit us."
+
+"He must be prodded," said Briar, turning to Renny. "Look at him; he is
+going to sleep."
+
+"Excuse me, girls," said the Squire, half-rising, and then sitting down
+again as Verena's young hand pushed him into his seat. "I have just made
+a most interesting discovery with regard to Virgil--namely, that----"
+
+"Oh, father! we don't want to know about it," said Briar. "Now, then,
+Renny, begin."
+
+"Her appearance--her appearance!" said Verena gently.
+
+"Whose appearance, dear?"
+
+"Why, Aunt Sophia's; the lady who is coming to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Mr. Dale; "but she must not come. This cannot be
+permitted; I cannot endure it."
+
+"Paddy, you have given John directions to fetch her. Now, then, what is
+she like?"
+
+"I don't know, children. I haven't the slightest idea."
+
+"Prod, Renny! Prod!"
+
+"Padre," said Verena, "is she old or young?"
+
+"Old, I think; perhaps neither."
+
+"Write it down, Briar. She is neither old nor young. Paddy, is she dark
+or fair?"
+
+"I really can't remember, dear. A most unpleasant person."
+
+"Put down that she is--not over-beautiful," said Verena. "Paddy, must we
+put on our best dresses when she comes--our Sunday go-to-meeting frocks,
+you know?"
+
+"Children, wear anything on earth you like, but in Heaven's name let me
+go away now! Only to think that she will be here to-morrow! Why did Miss
+Stapleton leave us? It is really too terrible."
+
+"She left," said Briar, her eyes twinkling, "because we would call her
+Step, which means step-mother. She was so dreadfully, dreadfully afraid
+that you might find it out."
+
+"Oh, children, how incorrigible you are! The poor woman! I'd sooner have
+married---- I--I never mean to marry anybody."
+
+"Of course you don't, Padre. And you may go now, darling," said Verena.
+"Go, and be happy, feeling that your daughters will look after you. You
+are not lonely, are you, darling, with so many of us? Now go and be very
+happy."
+
+Eight pairs of lips blew kisses to the departing figure. Mr. Dale
+shambled off, and disappeared through the open window into his study.
+
+"Poor dear!" said Verena, "he has forgotten our existence already. He
+only lives when he thinks of Virgil. Most of his time he sleeps, poor
+angel! It certainly is our bounden duty to keep him away from Aunt
+Sophia. What a terror she must be! Fancy the situation. Eight nieces all
+in a state of insurrection, and two more nieces in the nursery ready to
+insurrect in their turn!"
+
+"Something must be done," interrupted Pauline. "Nurse is the woman to
+help us. Forewarned is forearmed. Nurse must put us up to a wrinkle or
+two."
+
+"Then let's go to her at once," said Verena.
+
+They all started up, and, Verena leading the way, they went through the
+little paddock to the left of the house, and so into a yard, very
+old-fashioned and covered with weeds and cobble-stones. There were
+tumble-down stables and coach-houses, hen-houses, and buildings, useful
+and otherwise, surrounding the yard; and now in the coach-house, which
+for many years had sheltered no carriage of any sort, sat nurse busy at
+work, with two little children playing at her feet.
+
+"Don't mind the babies at present," said Verena. "Don't snatch them up
+and kiss them, Briar. Patty, keep your hands off. Nurse, we have come."
+
+"So I see, Miss Verena," said nurse.
+
+She lifted her very much wrinkled old face and looked out of deep-set,
+black eyes full at the young girl.
+
+"What is it, my darling child?"
+
+"How are we to bear it? Shall we fall on our knees and get round you in a
+little circle? We must talk to you. You must advise us."
+
+"Eh, dears!" said nurse. "I am nearly past that sort of thing. I'm not as
+young as I wor, and master and me we're both getting old. It doesn't seem
+to me to matter much now whether a body's pretty or not, or whether you
+dress beautiful, or whether a thing is made to look pretty or otherwise.
+We're all food for worms, dears, all of us, and where's the use of
+fashing?"
+
+"How horrid of you, nurse!" said Verena. "We have got beautiful bodies,
+and our souls ought to be more beautiful still. What about the
+resurrection of the body, you dreadful old nurse?"
+
+"Oh, never mind me, dears; it was only a sort of dream I were dreaming of
+the funeral of your poor dear mother, who died when this dear lamb was
+born."
+
+Here nurse patted the fat arm of the youngest hope of the house of Dale,
+little Marjorie, who looked round at her with rosy face and big blue
+eyes. Marjorie was between three and four years old, and was a very
+beautiful little child. Verena, unable to restrain herself any longer,
+bent down and encircled Marjorie with her strong young arms and clasped
+her in an ecstatic embrace.
+
+"There, now," she said; "I am better. I forbid all the rest of you girls
+to touch Marjorie. Penelope, I'll kiss you later."
+
+Penelope was seven years old--a dark child with a round face--not a
+pretty child, but one full of wisdom and audacity.
+
+"Whatever we do," Verena had said on several occasions, "we must not let
+Penelope out of the nursery until she is quite eight years old. She is so
+much the cleverest of us that she'd simply turn us all round her little
+finger. She must stay with nurse as long as possible."
+
+"I know what you are talking about," said Penelope. "It's about her, and
+she's coming to-morrow. I told nurse, and she said she oughtn't never to
+come."
+
+"No, that she oughtn't," said nurse. "The child is alluding to Miss
+Tredgold. She haven't no call here, and I don't know why she is coming."
+
+"Look here, nurse," said Verena; "she is coming, and nothing in the world
+will prevent her doing so. The thing we have to consider is this: how
+soon will she go?"
+
+"She'll go, I take it," said nurse, "as soon as ever she finds out she
+ain't wanted."
+
+"And how are we to tell her that?" said Verena. "Now, do put on your
+considering-cap at once, you wise old woman."
+
+"Yes, do show us the way out, for we can't have her here," said Briar.
+"It is absolutely impossible. She'll try to turn us into fine ladies, and
+she'll talk about the dresses we should have, and she'll want father to
+get some awful woman to come and live with us. She'll want the whole
+house to be turned topsy-turvy."
+
+"Eh!" said nurse, "I'll tell you what it is. Ladies like Miss Tredgold
+need their comforts. She won't find much comfort here, I'm thinking.
+She'll need her food well cooked, and that she won't get at The Dales.
+She'll need her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won't get much of
+that sort of thing at The Dales. My dear young ladies, you leave the
+house as it is, and, mark my words, Miss Tredgold will go in a week's
+time at the latest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A HANDFUL.
+
+
+The girls looked full at nurse while she was talking. A look of
+contentment came into Verena's face. She shook herself to make sure she
+was all there; she pinched herself to be certain that she was not
+dreaming; then she settled down comfortably.
+
+"There never was anybody like you, nursey," she said. "You always see the
+common-sense, possible side of things."
+
+"Eh!" said nurse. "If I hadn't seen the common-sense, possible side of
+things many years ago, where would I be with the handling and bringing up
+of you ten young ladies? For, though I say it that shouldn't, there ain't
+nicer or bonnier or straighter children in the whole Forest; no, nor
+better-looking either, with cleaner souls inside of them; but for all
+that, anybody else"--and here nurse gave a little sort of wink that set
+Pauline screaming--"anybody else would say that you were a handful. You
+are a handful, too, to most people. But what I say now is this. You
+needn't take any notice of me; you can keep your own counsel and say
+nothing; but if you want her to go--the lady that has no call to be
+here--the lady that's forced herself where she ain't wanted--why, you
+have _got_ to be handfuls. And now I'll go into the house with my two
+precious lambs."
+
+The elder "precious lamb" looked very cross at being suddenly informed
+that she was to go indoors while the sun shone so brightly and the summer
+warmth surrounded her.
+
+"No, I won't," said Penelope. "I am going to stay out with the others.
+I'm a very big girl; I am not a baby any longer. And you aren't to keep
+me in the nursery any longer, Verena. And I won't be naughty. I'll make
+up to Aunt Sophia like anything--that I will--if you keep me in the
+nursery any longer."
+
+This was such a daring threat that, although Penelope was not thought
+much of as a rule, the girls looked at her now with a sort of awe.
+
+"She might as well stay for a quarter of an hour longer, mightn't she,
+nursey?" said Briar.
+
+"No, that she ain't to do, Miss Rose. She comes right indoors and
+prepares for her bed like a good child. Is it me that's to be shortened
+of my hours of rest by a naughty little thing like this? Come along this
+minute, miss, and none of your nonsense."
+
+So Penelope, her heart full of rage, retired into the house with nurse
+and baby Marjorie.
+
+"I hope she won't do anything mean and nasty," said Pauline. "It's the
+sort of thing she would do, for she's frightfully clever."
+
+"Oh, we needn't consider her," said Verena. "Do let's make up our minds
+what to do ourselves."
+
+"I have all sorts of things in my head," said Patty. "The pony-carriage
+might break down as it was coming from the station. I don't mean her to
+be badly hurt, but I thought she might get just a little bit hurt, so
+that she could stay in her bed for twenty-four hours. An aunt in bed
+wouldn't be so bad, would she, Renny?"
+
+"I don't know," said Verena. "I suppose we must be polite. She is
+mother's half-sister, you know. If mother were alive she would give her a
+welcome. And then Padre will have to talk to her. He must explain that
+she must go. If he doesn't, we will lead him a life."
+
+The girls talked a little longer. They walked round and round the ugly,
+ill-kept lawn; they walked under the beautiful trees, entwined their arms
+round each other's waists, and confabbed and confabbed. The upshot of it
+all was that on the following day a very large and very shabby bedroom
+was got ready after a fashion for Miss Tredgold's arrival; and John, the
+sole factotum of the establishment--the man who cleaned the boots and
+knives, and swept up the avenue, removed the weeds from the flower-beds,
+cleaned the steps whenever they were cleaned, and the windows whenever
+they were cleaned--appeared on the scene, leading a tumble-down,
+knock-kneed pony harnessed to a very shabby pony-cart.
+
+"I'm off now, miss," he said to Verena, pulling a wisp of hair as he
+spoke. "No, miss, there ain't any room. You couldn't possibly sit on the
+back seat, for it's as much as ever I'll do to bring the lady home in
+this tumble-down conveyance. Our own is too bad for use, and I had to
+borrow from Farmer Treherne, and he said he wouldn't trust any horse but
+old Jock; this carriage will just keep together until the lady's here."
+
+"But whatever he thinks," said Verena, "do you suppose we can have a
+smart, neat carriage ready to take Miss Tredgold back again this day
+week? You will see about that, won't you, John?"
+
+"I will, miss. There'll be no difficulty about that; we'll get the lady
+away whenever she wants to go."
+
+"Very well. You had better be off now. You must wait outside the station.
+When she comes out you are to touch your hat and say, 'This is the
+carriage from The Dales.' Be sure you say that, John. And look as
+important as ever you can. We must make the best of things, even if we
+are poor."
+
+"You never saw me, miss, demeaning the family," said John.
+
+He again touched his very shabby hat, whipped up the pony, and
+disappeared down the avenue.
+
+"Now, then," said Briar, "how are we to pass the next two hours? It will
+take them quite that time to get here."
+
+"And what are we going to give her to eat when she does come?" said
+Patty. "She'll be awfully hungry. I expect she'll want her dinner."
+
+"Dinner!" cried Josephine. "Dinner! So late. But we dine at one."
+
+"You silliest of silly mortals," said Verena, "Aunt Sophia is a
+fashionable lady, and fashionable ladies dine between eight and nine
+o'clock."
+
+"Do they?" said Josephine. "Then I'm glad I'm not a fashionable lady.
+Fancy starving all that long time! I'm always famished by one o'clock."
+
+"There's Penelope!" suddenly said Patty. "Doesn't she look odd?"
+
+Penelope was a very stout child. She had black eyes and black hair. Her
+hair generally stood upright in a sort of halo round her head; her face
+was very round and rosy--she looked like a kind of hard, healthy
+winter-apple. Her legs were fat, and she always wore socks instead of
+stockings. Her socks were dark blue. Nurse declared that she could not be
+fashed with putting on white ones. She wore a little Turkey-red frock,
+and she had neither hat nor coat on. She was going slowly and
+thoughtfully round the lawn, occasionally stooping and picking something.
+
+"She's a perfect mystery," said Pauline. "Let's run up to her and ask her
+what she's about."
+
+Catching Patty's hand, the two girls scampered across the grass.
+
+"Well, Pen, and what are you doing now? What curious things are you
+gathering?" they asked.
+
+"Grasses," replied Penelope slowly. "They're for Aunt Sophia's bedroom.
+I'm going to make her bedroom ever so pretty."
+
+"You little horror!" said Pauline. "If you dare to go against us you will
+lead a life!"
+
+Penelope looked calmly up at them.
+
+"I'll make a bargain," she said. "I'll throw them all away, and be
+nastier than you all--yes, much nastier--if you will make me a schoolroom
+girl."
+
+Pauline looked at her.
+
+"We may be low," she said, "and there is no doubt we are very poor, but
+we have never stooped to bribery and corruption yet. Go your own way,
+Penelope. If you think you can injure us you are very much mistaken."
+
+Penelope shook her fat back, and resumed her peregrinations round and
+round the lawn.
+
+"Really she is quite an uncomfortable child," said Pauline, returning to
+her other sisters. "What do you think she is doing now? Picking grasses
+to put in Aunt Sophia's room."
+
+"Oh, let her alone," said Verena; "it's only her funny little way. By the
+way, I wonder if Padre has any idea that Aunt Sophia is coming to-day."
+
+"Let's invade him," said Patty. "The old dear wants his exercise; he
+hasn't had any to-day."
+
+The eight girls ran with whoops and cries round the house. Penelope
+picked her grasses with more determination than ever. Her small, straight
+mouth made a scarlet line, so tightly was it shut.
+
+"I am only seven, but I'm monstrous clever," she whispered to herself. "I
+am going to have my own way. I'll love poor Aunt Sophy. Yes, I will. I'll
+kiss her, and I'll make up to her, and I'll keep her room full of lovely
+grasses."
+
+Meanwhile the other girls burst into the study. A voice was heard
+murmuring rapidly as they approached. A silvery-white head was bending
+over a page, and some words in Latin came like a stream, with a very
+beautiful pronunciation, from the scholar's lips.
+
+"Ah, Verena!" he said, "I think I have got the right lines now. Shall I
+read them to you?"
+
+Mr. Dale began. He got through about one line when Patty interrupted him:
+
+"It can't possibly be done, Paddy. We can't listen to another line--I
+mean yet. You have got to come out. Aunt Sophia is coming to-day."
+
+"Eh? I beg your pardon; who did you say was coming?"
+
+"Aunt Sophia--Miss Tredgold. She's coming to-day on a visit. She'll be
+here very soon. She's coming in an old cart that belongs to Farmer
+Treherne. She'll be here in an hour; therefore out you come."
+
+"My dears, I cannot. You must excuse me. My years of toil have brought to
+light an obscure passage. I shall write an account of it to the _Times_.
+It is a great moment in my life, and the fact that---- But who did you
+say was coming, my dears?"
+
+"Really, Paddy, you are very naughty," said Verena. "You must come out at
+once. We want you. You can't write another line. You must not even think
+of the subject. Come and see what we have done for Aunt Sophia. If you
+don't come she'll burst in here, and she'll stay here, because it's the
+most comfortable room in the house. And she'll bring her work-basket
+here, and perhaps her mending. I know she'll mend you as soon as she
+arrives. She'll make you and mend you; and you need mending, don't you,
+dear old Padre?"
+
+"I don't know, my dears. I'm a stupid old man, and don't care about
+dress. Who is the person you said was coming? Give her some tea and send
+her away. Do you hear, Verena? Give her tea, my darling, and--and toast
+if you like, and send her away. We can't have visitors here."
+
+"Patty!" said Verena.
+
+Patty's eyes were shining.
+
+"Pauline!"
+
+The two girls came forward as though they were little soldiers obeying
+the command of their captain.
+
+"Take Padre by the right arm, Pauline. Patty, take Padre by the left arm.
+Now then, Paddy, quick's the word. March!"
+
+Poor Mr. Dale was completely lifted from his chair by his two vigorous
+daughters, and then marched outside his study into the sunshine.
+
+"We are not going to be cross," said Verena, kissing him. "It is only
+your Renny."
+
+"And your Paulie," said the second girl.
+
+"And your Rose Briar," said the third.
+
+"And your Patty," said the fourth.
+
+"And your Lucy," "And your Josephine," "And your Helen," "And your
+Adelaide," said four more vigorous pairs of lips.
+
+"And we all want you to stand up," said Verena.
+
+"Good heavens! I did think I had come to the end of my worries. And what
+on earth does this mean? Penelope, my child, what a hideous bouquet you
+have in your hand! Come here and kiss father, my little one."
+
+Penelope trotted briskly forward.
+
+"Do you like my red frock, father?" she asked.
+
+"It is very nice indeed."
+
+"I thought it wor. And is my hair real tidy, father?"
+
+"It stands very upright, Penelope."
+
+"I thought it did. And you like my little blue stockings, father?"
+
+"Very neat, dear."
+
+"I thought they wor."
+
+"You look completely unlike yourself, Penelope. What is the matter?"
+
+"I want to be a true, kind lady," said the little girl. "I am gathering
+grasses for my aunty; so I are."
+
+She trotted away into the house.
+
+"What a pretty, neat, orderly little girl Penelope has become!" said Mr.
+Dale. "But---- You really must excuse me, my dear girls. You are most
+charming, all of you. Ah, my dears!--so fresh, so unsophisticated,
+so--yes, that is the word--so unworldly. But I must get back to my
+beloved Virgil. You don't know--you can never know--what a moment of
+triumph is mine. You must excuse me, darlings--Verena, you are nearly
+grown up; you will see to the others. Do what you can to make them
+happy--a little treat if necessary; I should not mind it."
+
+"Give us fourpence to buy a pound of golden syrup for tea, please,
+Padre," suddenly said Briar. "If there is a thing I love, it is golden
+syrup. A pound between us will give us quite a feast--won't it, Renny?"
+
+"Only we must save a little for the aunt," cried Patty.
+
+"I do hope one thing," said Pauline: "that, whatever her faults, she
+won't be greedy. There isn't room for any one to be greedy in this house.
+The law of this house is the law of self-denial; isn't it, Padre?"
+
+"I begin to perceive that it is, Pauline. But whom are you talking of?"
+
+"Now, Padre," said Verena, "if you don't wake and rouse yourself, and act
+like a decent Christian, you'll be just prodded--you'll be just shaken.
+We will do it. There are eight of us, and we'll make your life a burden."
+
+"Eh--eh!" said Mr. Dale. "Really, girls, you are enough to startle a man.
+And you say----"
+
+"I say, Paddy, that Miss Sophia Tredgold is on her way here. Each instant
+she is coming nearer. She is coming in the old pony cart, and the old
+pony is struggling with all his might to convey her here. She is coming
+with her luggage, intending to stay, and our object is to get her to go
+away again. Do you hear, Padre?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, I hear. I comprehend. It takes a great deal to bring a man
+back down the ages--down--down to this small, poor, parsimonious life; it
+takes a great deal. A man is not easily roused, nor brought back; but I
+am back now, darlings.--Excuse me, Briar; no more prodding.--Hands off,
+Pauline.--Hands off, Patty. Perhaps I had better tidy myself."
+
+"You certainly would look nicer, and more like the owner of The Dales, if
+you got into your other coat," said Briar.
+
+"Shall we all come up and help you, Padre?" called out the eight in a
+breath.
+
+"No, no, dears. I object to ladies hovering about my room. I'll run away
+now."
+
+"Yes, yes; and you'd better be quick, Padre, for I hear wheels."
+
+"I am going, loves, this moment."
+
+Mr. Dale turned and absolutely ran to the shelter of the house, for the
+wheels were getting near--rumbling, jumping, uncertain. Now the rumbling
+and the jumping and the uncertainty got into the avenue, and came nearer
+and nearer; and finally the tumble-down pony cart drew up at the house.
+The pony printed his uncertain feet awkwardly but firmly on the
+weed-grown sweep in front of the unpainted hall door, and Miss Tredgold
+gazed around her.
+
+Miss Tredgold was a very thin, tall woman of about forty-five years of
+age. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion. She wore a perfectly
+immaculate traveling dress of dark-gray tweed. It fitted her
+well-proportioned figure like a glove. She had on a small, very neat
+black hat, and a spotted veil surrounded her face. She stepped down from
+the pony cart and looked around her.
+
+"Ah!" she said, seeing Verena, "will you kindly mention to some of the
+ladies of the family that I have arrived?"
+
+"I think I need not mention it, because we all know," said Verena. "I am
+your niece Verena."
+
+"You!"
+
+Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her voice. Verena
+stepped back, and her pretty face grew first red and then pale. What she
+would have said next will never be known to history, for at that instant
+the very good child, Penelope, appeared out of the house.
+
+"Is you my Aunty Sophy?" she said. "How are you, Aunty Sophy? I am very
+pleased to see you."
+
+Miss Sophia stared for a moment at Penelope. Penelope was hideously
+attired, but she was at least clean. The other girls were anyhow. They
+were disheveled; they wore torn and unsightly skirts; their hair was
+arranged anyhow or not at all; on more than one face appeared traces of
+recent acquaintance with the earth in the shape of a tumble. One little
+girl with very black eyes had an ugly scratch across her left cheek;
+another girl had the gathers out of her frock, which streamed in the most
+hopeless fashion on the ground.
+
+"How do you do?" said Aunt Sophia. "Where is your father? Will you have
+the goodness, little girl, to acquaint your father with the fact that his
+sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold, has come?"
+
+"Please come into the house, Aunt Sophy, and I'll take you to father's
+study--so I will," exclaimed champion Penelope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.
+
+
+Penelope held up a chubby hand, which Miss Tredgold pretended not to see.
+
+"Go on in front, little girl," she said. "Don't paw me. I hate being
+pawed by children."
+
+Penelope's back became very square as she listened to these words, and
+the red which suffused her face went right round her neck. But she walked
+solemnly on in front without a word.
+
+"Aunties are unpleasant things," she said to herself; "but, all the same,
+I mean to fuss over this one."
+
+Here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her parent:
+
+"Paddy, here comes Aunt Sophia Tredgold."
+
+But she spoke to empty air--Mr. Dale was still busy over his toilet.
+
+"Whom are you addressing by that hideous name?" said Miss Sophia. "Do you
+mean to tell me you call your father Paddy?"
+
+"We all do," said Penelope.
+
+"Of course we do," said Verena, who had followed behind.
+
+"That is our name for the dear old boy," said Pauline, who stood just
+behind Verena, while all the other children stood behind Pauline.
+
+It was in this fashion that the entire party invaded Mr. Dale's sanctum.
+Miss Tredgold gazed around her, her face filled with a curious mixture of
+amazement and indignation.
+
+"I had an intuition that I ought to come here," she said aloud. "I did
+not want to come, but I obeyed what I now know was the direct call of
+duty. I shall stay here as long as I am wanted. My mission will be to
+bring order out of chaos--to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to
+submission--to try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into ladies."
+
+"Oh, oh! I say, aunty, that is hard on us!" burst from Josephine.
+
+"My dear, I don't know your name, but it is useless for you to make those
+ugly exclamations. Whatever your remarks, whatever your words, I shall
+take no notice. You may struggle as you will, but I am the stronger. Oh!
+here comes---- Is it possible? My dear Henry, what years it is since we
+met! Don't you remember me--your sister-in-law Sophia? I was but a little
+girl when you married my dear sister. It is quite affecting to meet you
+again. How do you do?"
+
+Miss Tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. Mr. Dale put both his
+hands behind his back.
+
+"Are you sorry to see me?" asked Miss Tredgold. "Oh, dear, this is
+terrible!"
+
+The next instant the horrified man found that Miss Tredgold had kissed
+him calmly and with vigor on each cheek. Even his own children were never
+permitted to kiss Mr. Dale. To tell the truth, he was the last sort of
+person anybody would care to kiss. His face resembled a piece of
+parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried up. There was an
+occasion in the past when Verena had taken his scholarly hand and raised
+it to her lips, but even that form of endearment he objected to.
+
+"I forgive you, dear," he said; "but please don't do it again. We can
+love each other without these marks of an obsolete and forgotten age.
+Kissing, my dear, is too silly to be endured in our day."
+
+That Miss Tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity which the
+miserable man was scarcely likely to get over as long as he lived.
+
+"And now, girls," said the good lady, turning round and facing her
+astonished nieces, "I have a conviction that your father and I would have
+a more comfortable conversation if you were not present. Leave the room,
+therefore, my dears. Go quietly and in an orderly fashion."
+
+"Perhaps, children, it would be best," said Mr. Dale.
+
+He felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made an effort not to
+show his feelings.
+
+"There is no other possible way out of it," he said to himself. "I must
+be very frank. I must tell her quite plainly that she cannot stay. It
+will be easier for me to be frank without the children than with them."
+
+So the girls left the room. Penelope, going last, turned a plump and
+bewildered face towards her aunt.
+
+But Miss Tredgold took no more notice of Penelope than she did of the
+others. When the last pair of feet had vanished down the passage, she
+went to the door and locked it.
+
+"What are you doing that for?" asked Mr. Dale.
+
+"My dear Henry, I locked the door because I wish to have a quiet word
+with you. I have come here--I will say it plainly--for the sole purpose
+of saving you."
+
+"Of saving me, Sophia! From what?"
+
+"From the grievous sin you are committing--the sin of absolutely and
+completely neglecting the ten daughters given to you by Providence. Do
+you do anything for them? Do you try in the least to help them? Are you
+in any sense of the word educating them? I scarcely know the children
+yet, but I must say frankly that I never came across more terribly
+neglected young people. Their clothes are in rags, they are by no means
+perfectly clean in their persons, and they look half-starved. Henry, you
+ought to be ashamed of yourself! I wonder my poor sister doesn't turn in
+her grave! When I think that Alice was their mother, and that you are
+bringing them up as you are now doing, I could give way to tears. But,
+Henry, tears are not what are required. Action is the necessary thing. I
+mean to act, and nothing will turn me from that resolution."
+
+"But, my dear Sophia, I have not met you for years. To be frank with you,
+I had almost forgotten your existence. I am a terribly busy man,
+Sophia--a scholar--at least, I hope so. I do not think the children are
+neglected; they are well, and no one is ever unkind to them. There is no
+doubt that we are poor. I am unable to have the house done up as poor
+Alice would have liked to see it; and I have let the greater part of the
+ground, so that we are not having dairy produce or farm produce at
+present. The meals, therefore, are plain."
+
+"And insufficient; I have no doubt of that," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"They are very plain," he answered. "Perhaps you like dainty food; most
+ladies of your age do. I must be as frank with you as you are with me.
+You won't like our table. Sometimes we do without meat for a week at a
+time."
+
+"I do not care if you never touch meat again," said Miss Sophia. "Thank
+goodness, with all my faults, I am not greedy."
+
+"What a pity!" murmured Mr. Dale.
+
+"What was that you said? Do you like greedy women?"
+
+"No, Sophia; but I want to put matters so straight before you that you
+will consider it your bounden duty to leave The Dales."
+
+"Where my duty calls me I stay, whatever the circumstances, and however
+great the inconveniences," remarked Miss Sophia.
+
+"Well, Sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress me
+considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am busy now over a most
+important matter. I have just discovered----"
+
+"A gold mine on your estate?"
+
+"No; something fifty times more valuable--a new rendering----"
+
+"Of what, may I ask?"
+
+"'The noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.' Bowen is quite
+wrong in his translation; I am about to prove it. I allude to Virgil's
+_Æneid_."
+
+"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss Tredgold, "is the man staring mad? Now, my
+dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. I can tell you plainly that
+it will be no treat to live with you. If it were not for my sister I
+would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to
+destruction; but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when
+I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for your children."
+
+"But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I am poor. I cannot
+afford a governess. Verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little
+about plain needlework. She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her
+work seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or the
+other."
+
+"Oh, you man--you man!" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"And the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of
+them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been
+removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and
+they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are
+healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The
+food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with
+it. They don't worry me much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am
+not well enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the
+comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear Sophia, if you
+would be kind enough to leave The Dales."
+
+"Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and only force will
+turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. I
+brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to
+meet me. As to the money question, it needn't trouble you, for I shall
+pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries, I am
+indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to eat their food like ladies,
+and I mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house
+shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the
+ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay here for at
+least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me,
+'Sophia, I can never thank you enough for what you have done,' I shall be
+surprised. Now I have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear
+Henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study your
+beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness' sake come
+to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman."
+
+"My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean that I--I have not
+put on an evening coat for years."
+
+"You probably have one at the back of nowhere," said Miss Tredgold in a
+contemptuous tone. "But, anyhow, put on the best you have got. Believe
+me, I have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. I
+have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another
+word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutshell, and you and your
+children must learn to submit to the arrival of Sophia Tredgold."
+
+At these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.
+
+As she walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many
+feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been
+listening at the keyhole.
+
+"I can't allow that sort of thing again," she said to herself. "But
+now--shall I take notice?"
+
+She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into her cheeks and her
+eyes looked bright.
+
+"For my sister's sake I will put up with a good deal," was her final
+comment; and then she went into the hall.
+
+There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall
+now stood the good child Penelope. She had brought in a quantity of fresh
+grasses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. Miss
+Tredgold took no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and
+looked out.
+
+"Might be made a pretty place," she said aloud.
+
+Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. Penelope echoed
+the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss Tredgold was arrested by the
+sound, and looked down.
+
+"Ah, little girl!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you'd like me to help you," said Penelope. "I wor
+waiting for you to come out of Pad's room."
+
+"Don't use that hideous word 'wor.' W-a-s, was. Can you spell?"
+
+"No; and I don't want to," said Penelope.
+
+"We'll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you take me to my
+room?"
+
+"May I hold of your hand?" said Penelope.
+
+"May you hold my hand, not _of_ my hand. Certainly not. You may go on in
+front of me. You have got clearly to understand---- But what did you say
+your name was?"
+
+"Penelope."
+
+"You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not pet children. I
+expect them to be good without sugar-plums."
+
+Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. She had heard of
+them, and at Christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had
+hitherto come into her life. She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.
+
+"If I are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or
+three?" she asked.
+
+Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.
+
+"We'll see," she said. "I never make rash promises. Oh! so this is my
+room."
+
+She looked around her.
+
+"No carpet," she said aloud; "no curtains; no pictures on the walls. A
+deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for
+dirt and wear. Hum! You do live plain at The Dales."
+
+"Oh, yes; don't us?" said Penelope. "And your room is much the handsomest
+of all the rooms. We call it very handsome. If you wor to see our
+rooms----"
+
+"Were to see----"
+
+"Yes, were to see," repeated Penelope, who found this constant correction
+very tiresome.
+
+"And may I ask," exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to
+the little girl's words, "what on earth is that in the blue mug?"
+
+She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug
+of very common delft filled with poor Penelope's grasses.
+
+"What horror is this?" she said. "Take it away at once, and throw those
+weeds out."
+
+At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt
+Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a
+bevy of sisters.
+
+"Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room,
+did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?"
+
+"Yes, did she?" came from Verena's lips; and Pauline's eager eyes, and
+the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.
+
+Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.
+
+"I thought I'd be the goodest of you all," she said. "I maded up my mind
+that I just would; but I doesn't like Aunt Sophia, and I think I'll be
+the naughtiest."
+
+"No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can't
+possibly stay long, for we can't afford it," said Verena.
+
+"She'll stay," answered Penelope. "She have made up her mind. She throwed
+away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did
+stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she
+said she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did so
+want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I'd get sugar-plums
+and perhaps pennies. And I thought she'd let me tell her when you was all
+bad. Oh, I hate her now! I don't think I care to be took out of the
+nursery if she's about."
+
+"You certainly are a caution, Penny," said Verena. "It is well that you
+have told us what your motives are. Believe me, there are worse places
+than that despised nursery of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort
+of dinner or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her
+head aches, and if----"
+
+"Oh, come along; let's go and find out," said Pauline. "I feel so
+desperate that I have the courage for anything."
+
+It is to be owned that the Dales did not keep an extensive establishment.
+Old John pottered about the gardens and did what little gardening he
+thought necessary. He also did odd jobs about the house. Besides John,
+there was Betty. Betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen.
+Betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered
+necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without. As a rule she did
+without. She said that cooking was bad for her--that it made her head and
+back ache. On the days when Betty's head or back ached there was never
+any dinner. The family did not greatly mind. They dined on these
+occasions on bread, either with butter or without. Betty managed to keep
+them without dinner certainly at the rate of once or twice a week. She
+always had an excellent excuse. Either the boiler was out of gear, or the
+range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or the butcher
+had failed to come. Sometimes the children managed to have jam with their
+bread-and-butter, and then they considered that they had a very fine meal
+indeed. It mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they
+only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough. This more
+constantly happened in the winter than in the summer, for in the summer
+there was always plenty of milk and always plenty of fruit and
+vegetables.
+
+When Betty heard that Miss Tredgold was coming to stay she immediately
+gave Verena notice. This was nothing at all extraordinary, for Betty gave
+notice whenever anything annoyed her. She never dreamed of acting up to
+her own words, so that nobody minded Betty's repeated notices. But on the
+morning of the day when Miss Tredgold was expected, Betty told nurse that
+she was about to give a real, earnest notice at last.
+
+"I am going," she said. "I go this day month. I march out of this house,
+and never come back--no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the
+hymeneal altar."
+
+Betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises. She was
+seldom so low in health as to condescend to a "hearl," and there had even
+been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire
+to her hand.
+
+"She must be really going," said Verena when nurse repeated Betty's
+speech. "She would not say that about the duke if she was not."
+
+"You leave her alone," said nurse. "But she's dreadful put out, Miss
+Renny; there's no doubt of that. I doubt if she'll cook any dinner for
+Miss Tredgold."
+
+Verena, Pauline, and Penelope now rushed round to the kitchen premises.
+They were nervous, but at the same time they were brave. They must see
+what Betty intended to do. They burst open the door. The kitchen was not
+too clean. It was a spacious apartment, which in the days when the old
+house belonged to rich people was well taken care of, and must have sent
+forth glorious fires--fires meant to cook noble joints. On the present
+occasion the fire was dead out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of
+ashes lying in a forlorn manner at its feet. Betty was sitting at the
+opposite side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious
+person on another. She was busily engaged devouring the last number of
+the _Family Paper_. She had come to a most rousing portion in her
+story--that part in which the duke marries the governess. Betty was, as
+she said, all in a twitter to see how matters would end; but just at this
+crucial moment the girls burst in.
+
+"Betty, do stop reading," said Verena. "She's come, Betty."
+
+"I know," cried Betty. "I'm not deaf, I suppose. John told me. He brought
+her, drat him! He says she's the sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. I'll
+have none of her. I won't alter my ways--no, not a hand's-turn--for the
+like of her, and I go this day month."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" said Verena.
+
+"I do, my dear; I do. I can't put up with the ways of them sort--never
+could. I like you well enough, young ladies, and your pa; and I'd stop
+with you willing--so I would, honey--but I can't abide the likes of her."
+
+"All the same, she's come, Betty, and we must have something for dinner.
+Have you anything in the house?"
+
+"Not a blessed handful."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" said Verena; "and I told you this morning, and so did nurse.
+We said we must have dinner to-night at seven o'clock. You should have
+got something for her."
+
+"But I ain't done it. The stove's out of order; we want the sweep. I have
+a splitting headache, and I'm just reading to keep my mind off the pain."
+
+"But what are we to do? We must get her something."
+
+"Can't she have tea and bread-and-butter? We've half-a-pound of cooking
+butter in the house."
+
+"Are there any eggs?"
+
+"No. I broke the last carrying it across the kitchen an hour ago. My
+hands were all of a tremble with the pain, and the egg slipped."
+
+"Betty, you are too dreadful! Won't you put that paper down and try to
+help us?"
+
+Betty looked at the three faces. In their shabby dresses, and with their
+pretty, anxious eyes, Verena having a frown between her charming brows,
+they made a picture that struck the cook's heart. With all her odd and
+peculiar ways, she was affectionate.
+
+"Are you fretting about it, Miss Renny?" she asked.
+
+As she spoke she put down her feet and pushed the tempting number of the
+_Family Paper_ from her.
+
+"There!" she said; "poor little Miss Dunstable may marry the Dook of
+Mauleverer-Wolverhampton just as soon as she pleases, but I won't have
+you put out, Miss Renny."
+
+"I did want something nice for dinner," said Verena.
+
+"Then I'll manage it. There ain't a better cook than I anywhere when I'm
+put on my mettle. Miss Penny, will you help me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Penelope.
+
+"Well, run into the garden and pick all the peas you can find. There's a
+nice little joint in the larder, and I'll roast it, and you shall have a
+beautiful dinner. Now off you go, dears. You shall have custard-pudding
+and cream and strawberry-jam afterwards."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" cried Penelope, with a little gasp. "Be sure you give us
+_plenty_ of strawberry-jam, and make a very large custard-pudding, for
+there's such a lot of us to eat the things, and I generally get the
+teeniest little bit."
+
+"You are a nursery child, and it's in the nursery you'll have your tea,"
+said Verena in a stern tone. "Go and pick the peas."
+
+"Not me," said Penelope.
+
+She sat down just where she was, in an obstinate heap, in the middle of
+the floor.
+
+"If I are not to eat those peas I don't pick 'em," she said. "I wor going
+to be kind, but I won't be kind if I'm to be turned into a nursery
+child."
+
+"Oh! do let her come to the dining-room just for to-night," pleaded
+Pauline.
+
+"Very well, then; just for once," said Verena.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LIFE OF MISRULE.
+
+
+Dinner went off better than the girls had expected. But to Miss Tredgold
+it was, and ever would be, the most awful meal she had eaten in the whole
+course of her existence. The table was devoid of all those things which
+she, as a refined lady, considered essential. The beautiful old silver
+spoons were dirty, and several of them bent almost out of recognition. A
+like fate had befallen the forks; the knives were rusty, the handles
+disgracefully dirty; and the tablecloth, of the finest damask, was almost
+gray in color, and adorned with several large holes. The use of
+serviettes had been long abolished from The Dales.
+
+The girls, in honor of the occasion, had put on their best frocks, and
+Verena looked fairly pretty in a skimpy white muslin made in an obsolete
+style. The other girls each presented a slightly worse appearance than
+their elder sister, for each had on a somewhat shabbier frock, a little
+more old-fashioned and more outgrown. As to Mr. Dale, it had been
+necessary to remind him at least three times of his sister-in-law's
+arrival; and finally Verena had herself to put him into his very old
+evening-coat, to brush him down afterwards, and to smooth his hair, and
+then lead him into the dining-room.
+
+Miss Tredgold, in contradistinction to the rest of the family, was
+dressed correctly. She wore a black lace dress slightly open at the neck,
+and with elbow sleeves. The children thought that she looked dazzlingly
+fashionable. Verena seemed to remember that she had seen figures very
+like Aunt Sophia's in the fashion books. Aunt Sophia's hair in particular
+absorbed the attention of four of her nieces. How had she managed to turn
+it into so many rolls and spirals and twists? How did she manage the wavy
+short hair on her forehead? It seemed to sit quite tight to her head, and
+looked as if even a gale of wind would not blow it out of place. Aunt
+Sophia's hands were thin and very white, and the fingers were
+half-covered with sparkling rings, which shone and glittered so much that
+Penelope dropped her choicest peas all over her frock as she gazed at
+them.
+
+John was requisitioned to wait at table, and John had no livery for the
+purpose. The family as a rule never required attendance at meals. On this
+occasion it was supposed to be essential, and as Betty refused
+point-blank to stir from the kitchen, John had to come to the fore.
+
+"No, no, Miss Renny," said Betty when poor Verena begged and implored of
+the good woman to put in an appearance. "No, you don't. No, you certain
+sure don't. Because you looked pretty and a bit coaxing I gave up Miss
+Dunstable and the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton two hours ago, but not
+another minute will I spare from them. It's in their select society that
+I spend my haristocratic evening."
+
+Verena knew that it would be useless to coax Betty any further. So John
+appeared with the potatoes in a large dish on a rusty tray, each potato
+having, as Betty expressed it, a stone inside. This she declared was the
+proper way to cook them. The peas presently followed the potatoes. They
+were yellow with age, for they ought to have been eaten at least a week
+ago. The lamb was terribly underdone, and the mint sauce was like no mint
+sauce that Miss Tredgold had ever dreamed of. The pudding which followed
+was a pudding that only Betty knew the recipe for, and that recipe was
+certainly not likely to be popular in fashionable circles. But the
+strawberry-jam was fairly good, and the cream was excellent; and when,
+finally, Miss Tredgold rose to the occasion and said that she would make
+some coffee, which she had brought down from town, in her own coffee-pot
+on her own etna, the girls became quite excited.
+
+The coffee was made, and shed a delicious aroma over the room. Mr. Dale
+was so far interested that he was seen to sniff twice, and was found to
+be observing the coffee as though he were a moth approaching a candle. He
+even forgot his Virgil in his desire to partake of the delicious
+stimulant. Miss Tredgold handed him a cup.
+
+"There," she said. "If you were ever young, and if there was ever a time
+when you cared to act as a gentleman, this will remind you of those
+occasions.--And now, children, I introduce you to 'Open sesame;' and I
+hope, my dear nieces, by means of these simple cups of coffee you will
+enter a different world from that which you have hitherto known."
+
+The girls all drank their coffee, and each pronounced it the nicest drink
+they had ever taken.
+
+Presently Miss Tredgold went into the garden. She invited Verena and
+Pauline to accompany her.
+
+"The rest of you can stay behind," she said. "You can talk about me to
+each other as much as you like. I give you leave to discuss me freely,
+knowing that, even if I did not do so, you would discuss me all the same.
+I am quite aware that you all hate me for the present, but I do not think
+this state of things will long continue. Come, Verena; come, Pauline. The
+night is lovely. We will discuss nature a little, and common sense a
+great deal."
+
+The two girls selected to walk with Miss Tredgold looked behind at the
+seven girls left in the dining-room, and the seven girls looked back at
+them with a mixture of curiosity and pity.
+
+"Never mind your sisters now," said Miss Tredgold. "We want to talk over
+many things. But before we enter into any discussion I wish to ask a
+question."
+
+"Yes," said Verena in her gentle voice.
+
+"Verena," said her aunt suddenly, "how old are you?"
+
+"Fifteen," said Verena.
+
+"Precisely. And on your next birthday you will be sixteen, and on the
+following seventeen, and on the next one again eighteen. You have,
+therefore, nearly three years in which to be transformed from a little
+savage into a lady. The question I now want to ask you is: Do you prefer
+to remain a savage all your days, uneducated, uncultured, your will
+uncontrolled, your aspirations for good undeveloped; or do you wish to
+become a beautiful and gracious lady, kind, sympathetic, learned, full of
+grace? Tell me, my dear."
+
+"How can I?" replied Verena. "I like my life here; we all suit each
+other, and we like The Dales just as it is. Yes, we all suit each other,
+and we don't mind being barbarians."
+
+Miss Tredgold sighed.
+
+"I perceive," she said, "that I shall have uphill work before me. For you
+of all the young people, Verena, are the easiest to deal with. I know
+that without your telling me. I know it by your face. You are naturally
+gentle, courteous, and kind. You are easy to manage. You are also the
+most important of all to be brought round to my views, for whatever you
+do the others will do. It is on you, therefore, that I mean to exercise
+my greatest influence and to expend my heaviest forces."
+
+"I don't quite understand you, Aunt Sophia. I know, of course, you mean
+kindly, but I would much rather----"
+
+"That I went away? That I left you in the disgraceful state in which I
+have found you?"
+
+"Well, I don't consider it disgraceful; and----"
+
+"Yes? You would rather I went?"
+
+Verena nodded. After a moment she spoke.
+
+"It seems unkind," she said--"and I don't wish to be unkind--but I
+_would_ rather you went."
+
+"And so would I, please, Aunt Sophia," said Pauline.
+
+Miss Tredgold looked straight before her. Her face became a little
+pinched, a little white round her lips.
+
+"Once," she said slowly, "I had a sister--a sister whom I loved. She was
+my half-sister, but I never thought of that. She was to me sister and
+mother in one. She brought me up from the time I was a little child. She
+was good to me, and she instilled into me certain principles. One of
+these principles can be expressed in the following words: God put us into
+the world to rise, not to sink. Another of her principles was that God
+put us into the world to be good, to be unselfish. Another one, again,
+was as follows: We must give account for our talents. Now, to allow the
+talent of beauty, for instance, to degenerate into what it is likely to
+do in your case, Verena, is distinctly wicked. To allow you to sink when
+you might rise is sinful. To allow you to be selfish when you might be
+unselfish is also wrong. Your talents, and the talents of Pauline, and
+the talents of your other sisters must be cultivated and brought to the
+fore. I want to tell you now, my dear girls, that for years I have longed
+to help you; that since your mother's death you have scarcely ever been
+out of my mind. But circumstances over which I had no control kept me
+away from you. At last I am free, and the children of my sister Alice are
+the ones I think most about. I have come here prepared for your
+rebellion, prepared for your dislike, and determined not to be
+discouraged by either the one or the other. I have come to The Dales,
+Verena and Pauline, and I mean to remain here for at least three months.
+If at the end of the three months you ask me to go, I will; although even
+then I will not give you up. But until three months have expired you can
+only turn me out by force. I don't think you will do that. It is best
+that we should understand each other clearly; is it not, Verena?"
+
+Verena's face was very white; her big brown eyes were full of tears.
+
+"I ought to be glad and to say 'Welcome.' But I am not glad, and I don't
+welcome you, Aunt Sophia. We like our own way; we don't mind being
+savages, and it is untrue that we are selfish. We are not. Each would
+give up anything, I think, for the other. But we like our poverty and our
+rough ways and our freedom, and we--we don't want you, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"Nevertheless you will have to put up with me," said Miss Tredgold. "And
+now, to start matters, please tell me exactly how you spend your day."
+
+"Our life is not yours, Aunt Sophia. It would not interest you to know
+how we spend our day."
+
+"To-morrow, Verena, when the life of rule succeeds the life of misrule, I
+should take umbrage at your remark, but to-night I take no umbrage. I but
+repeat my question."
+
+"And I will tell you," said Pauline in her brisk voice. "We get up just
+when we like. We have breakfast when we choose--sometimes in the garden
+on the grass, sometimes not at all. We walk where we please, and lose
+ourselves in the Forest, and gather wild strawberries and wild flowers,
+and watch the squirrels, and climb the beech-trees. When it is fine we
+spend the whole day out, just coming back for meals, and sometimes not
+even then, if Betty gives us a little milk and some bread. Sometimes we
+are lazy and lie on the grass all day. We do what we like always, and
+always just when we like. Don't we, Renny?"
+
+"Yes," said Verena. "We do what we like, and in our own way."
+
+"In future," said Miss Tredgold, "you will do things in my way. I hope
+you will not dislike my way; but whether you like or dislike it, you will
+have to submit."
+
+"But, Aunt Sophia," said Verena, "what authority have you over us? I am
+exceedingly sorry to seem rude, but I really want to know. Father, of
+course, has authority over us, but have you? Has anybody but father? That
+is what I want to know."
+
+"I thought you might ask something of that sort," said Miss Tredgold--"or,
+even if you did not ask it, you might think it--and I am prepared with my
+answer. I quite recognize that in the case of girls like you I have no
+authority, and I cannot act fairly by you until I have. Now, my dear
+girls, please understand that before I go to bed to-night I get that
+authority. I shall get it m writing, too, so that you can none of you
+gainsay it, or slip past it, or avoid it. When the authority comes, then
+will also come the happy life of rule, for the life of misrule can never
+be really happy--never for long. Believe me, I am right."
+
+Pauline pulled her hand away from Aunt Sophia's. She ran to the other
+side of Verena.
+
+"I don't like you, Aunt Sophia," she said, "and I don't want you to stay.
+Renny, you don't like her either, and you don't want her to stay. We
+don't believe all the things you are saying, Aunt Sophia. You can't look
+into our hearts, and although you are clever, you can't know all about
+us. Why shouldn't we be wild in our own fashion? We are very happy. To be
+happy is everything. We have only been unhappy since we knew you were
+coming. Please go away; please do."
+
+"You cannot influence me, Pauline. I love you too well to desert you. Now
+I am going into the house. You can discuss me then with your sister to
+your heart's content."
+
+Miss Tredgold went very slowly towards the old and dilapidated house.
+When she reached the hall door she turned and looked around her.
+
+"I certainly have tough work before me. How am I to manage? If I were not
+thinking so much of Alice, I should leave these impertinent, neglected,
+silly girls to their fate. But no--I seem to see my sister's eyes, to
+hear her voice. I can so well understand what she would really want me to
+do. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved sister. I am free,
+hampered by no ties. I will reform these wild young nieces. I will not be
+easily deterred."
+
+Miss Tredgold clasped her hands before her. The moon was rising in a
+silvery bow in the sky; the air was deliciously fresh and balmy.
+
+"The place is healthy, and the children are strong," she thought,
+"notwithstanding their bad food and their disreputable, worn-out clothes.
+They are healthy, fresh, good-looking girls. But this is summer-time, and
+in summer-time one puts up with discomforts for the sake of air like
+this. But what about winter? I have no doubt they have scarcely any
+fires, and the house must be damp. As the children grow older they will
+develop rheumatism and all kinds of troubles. Yes, my duty is plain. I
+must look after my nieces, both soul and body, for the future."
+
+As Miss Tredgold thought these last thoughts she re-entered the house.
+She walked through the desolate rooms. It was now twilight, but no one
+thought of lighting lamps, or drawing curtains, or shutting windows. Miss
+Tredgold stumbled as she walked. Presently she found that she had
+wandered in the neighborhood of the kitchen. She had no intention of
+bearding Betty in her den--she had no idea that there was a Betty--but as
+she was near the kitchen, and as under that doorway alone there streamed
+a light, she opened the door.
+
+"Is there any one inside?" she asked.
+
+A grunt in the far distance came by way of response. The fire was out in
+the stove, and as Miss Tredgold grew accustomed to the gloom she saw in
+the farthest corner something that resembled the stout form of a woman,
+whose legs rested on one chair and her body on another. A guttering dip
+candle was close to her side, and a paper book was held almost under her
+nose.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you," said Miss Tredgold, "but I have come for a
+light. Will you kindly inform me where I can get a candle?"
+
+"There ain't none in the house."
+
+The book was put down, and the angry face of Betty appeared to view.
+
+"Then I fear I must trouble you to resign the one you yourself are using.
+I must have a light to see my way to my bedroom."
+
+"There ain't no candles. We don't have 'em in summer. This one I bought
+with my own money, and I don't give it up to nobody, laidy or no laidy."
+
+"Am I addressing the cook?"
+
+"You are, ma'am. And I may as well say I am cook and housemaid and
+parlor-maid and kitchen-maid and scullery-maid all in one; and I does the
+laundry, too, whenever it's done at all. You may gather from my words,
+ma'am, that I have a deal to do, so I'll thank you to walk out of my
+kitchen; for if I am resting after my day of hard work, I have a right to
+rest, and my own candle shall light me, and my own book shall amuse me.
+So have the goodness to go, ma'am, and at once."
+
+"I will go," replied Miss Tredgold very quietly, "exactly when I please,
+and not a moment before. I wish to say now that I require breakfast to be
+on the table at nine o'clock, and there must be plenty of good food. Do
+you mean to say that you have not got food in the house? You can, I
+presume, send out for it. Here is a half-sovereign. Spend it in what is
+necessary in order to provide an abundant meal on the table to-morrow
+morning for the use of Mr. Dale, myself, and my nieces."
+
+What Betty would have said had there been no half-sovereign forthcoming
+history will never relate. But half-sovereigns were very few and very
+precious at The Dales. It was almost impossible to get any money out of
+Mr. Dale; he did not seem to know that there was such a thing as money.
+If it was put into his hand by any chance, he spent it on books. Betty's
+wages were terribly in arrears. She wanted her wages, but she was too
+generous, with all her faults, to press for them. But, all the same, the
+touch of the gold in her hand was distinctly soothing, and Miss Tredgold
+immediately rose in her estimation. A lady who produced at will golden
+half-sovereigns, and who was reckless enough to declare that one of these
+treasures might be spent on a single meal, was surely not a person to be
+sniffed at. Betty therefore stumbled to her feet.
+
+"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am; and it's badly we does want some
+things here. I'll get what I can, although the notice is short, and the
+dook's nuptials, so to speak, at the door."
+
+"What!" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"I beg your pardon again, ma'am, but my head aches and I'm a bit
+confused. I'm reading a most wonderful account of the wedding of the Dook
+of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton."
+
+"I never heard of him."
+
+"He's marrying a young girl quite in my own station of life--one that was
+riz from the cottage to the governess-ship, and from the governess-ship
+to the ducal chair. My head is full of Her Grace, ma'am, and you'll
+excuse me if I didn't rightly know to whom I had the honor of talking.
+I'll do what I can. And perhaps you'd like to borrow one of my dip
+candles for the present night."
+
+"I should very much," said Miss Tredgold. "And please understand, Betty--I
+think you said your name was Betty--please understand that if you are on
+my side I shall be on your side. I have come here meaning to stay, and in
+future there will be a complete change in this establishment. You will
+receive good wages, paid on the day they are due. There will be plenty of
+money and plenty of food in the house, and the cook who pleases me stays,
+and the cook who displeases me goes. You understand?"
+
+"Sakes!" muttered Betty, "it's nearly as exciting as the doocal
+romance.--Well, ma'am, I'm of your way of thinking; and here's your
+candle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE STUDY.
+
+
+Miss Tredgold was the sort of woman who never let the grass grow under
+her feet. She felt, therefore, altogether out of place at The Dales, for
+at The Dales there was time for everything. "Time enough" was the motto
+of the establishment: time enough for breakfast, time enough for dinner,
+time enough for supper, time enough for bed, time enough for getting up,
+time enough for mending torn garments; surely, above all things, time
+enough for learning. To judge by the manner in which the family at The
+Dales went on, life was to last for ever and a day. They never hurried;
+they put things off when it pleased them; they stopped in the middle of
+one pursuit and turned to something else when the fancy took them; they
+were unruffled by the worries of life; they were, on the whole, gay,
+daring, indifferent. There was no money--or very little--for the future
+of these girls; they were absolutely uneducated; they were all but
+unclothed, and their food was poor and often insufficient. Nevertheless
+they were fairly happy. "Let well alone" was also their motto. "Never may
+care" was another. As to the rush and toil and strain of modern life,
+they could not even comprehend it. The idea of not being able to put off
+an engagement for a week, a month, or a year seemed to them too
+extraordinary to be believed. They were too young, too healthy, too happy
+to need to kill time; for time presented itself to them with an agreeable
+face, and the hours were never too long.
+
+But although they were so indifferent to weighty matters, they had their
+own enthusiasms, and in their idle way they were busy always and forever.
+To have, therefore, a person like Aunt Sophia put suddenly into the
+middle of their gay and butterfly lives was something which was enough to
+madden the eight healthy girls who lived at The Dales. Aunt Sophia was,
+in their opinion, all crotchets, all nervousness, all fads. She had no
+tact whatsoever; at least, such was their first opinion of her. She put
+her foot down on this little crotchet, and pressed this passing desire
+out of sight. She brought new rules of life into their everyday
+existence, and, what is more, she insisted on being obeyed. With all
+their cleverness they were not half so clever as Aunt Sophia; they were
+no match for this good lady, who was still young at heart, who had been
+highly educated, who was full of enthusiasm, full of method, and full of
+determination. Aunt Sophia brought two very strong essentials with her to
+The Dales, and there was certainly little chance of the girls getting the
+victory over her. One thing which she brought was determination, joined
+to authority; the other thing was money. With these two weapons in her
+hand, what chance had the girls?
+
+It might have been supposed that Miss Tredgold had done enough on the
+first night of her arrival. She had to a great extent vanquished the
+cook; and she had, further, told Verena and Pauline what lay before them.
+Surely she might have been contented, and have taken her dip candle in
+its tin candlestick and retired to her own room. But that was not Aunt
+Sophia's way. She discovered a light stealing from under another door,
+and she made for that door.
+
+Now, no one entered Mr. Dale's room without knocking. None of the girls
+would have ventured to do so. But Aunt Sophia was made of sterner stuff.
+She did not knock. She opened the door and entered. The scholar was
+seated at the far end of the room. A large reading-lamp stood on the
+table. It spread a wide circle of light on the papers and books, and on
+his own silvery head and thin aquiline features. The rest of the room was
+in shadow. Miss Tredgold entered and stood a few feet away from Mr. Dale.
+Mr. Dale had already forgotten that such a person as Miss Sophia existed.
+It was his habit to work for a great many hours each night. It was during
+the hours of darkness that he most thoroughly absorbed himself in his
+darling occupation. His dinner had been better than usual, and that
+delicious coffee had stimulated his brain. He had not tasted coffee like
+that for years. His brain, therefore, being better nourished, was keener
+than usual to go on with his accustomed work. As Miss Sophia advanced to
+his side he uttered one or two sighs of rapture, for again a fresh
+rendering of a much-disputed passage occurred to him. Light was, in
+short, flooding the pages of his translation.
+
+"The whole classical world will bless me," murmured Mr. Dale. "I am doing
+a vast service."
+
+"I am sorry to interrupt you, Henry," said the sharp, incisive tones of
+his sister-in-law.
+
+At Miss Tredgold's words he dropped his pen. It made a blot on the page,
+which further irritated him; for, untidy as he was in most things, his
+classical work was exquisitely neat.
+
+"Do go away," he said. "I am busy. Go away at once."
+
+"I am sorry, Henry, but I must stay. You know me, don't you? Your
+sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold."
+
+"Go away, Sophia. I don't want to be rude, but I never see any one at
+this hour."
+
+"Henry, you are forced to see me. I shall go when I choose, not before."
+
+"Madam!"
+
+Mr. Dale sprang to his feet.
+
+"Madam!" he repeated, almost sputtering out his words, "you surely don't
+wish me to expel you. You don't intend to stand there all night. I can't
+have it. I don't allow people in my study. I am sorry to be discourteous
+to a lady, but I state a fact; you must go immediately. You don't realize
+what it is to have a brain like mine, nor to have undertaken such a
+herculean task. Ah! the beautiful thought which meant so much has
+vanished. Madam, you are responsible."
+
+"Stop!" interrupted Miss Tredgold. "I will go the moment you do what I
+want."
+
+"Will you? I'll do anything--anything that keeps you out of this room."
+
+"That is precisely what I require. I don't wish to come into this
+room--that is, for the present. By-and-by it must be cleaned, for I
+decline to live in a dirty house; but I give you a fortnight's grace."
+
+"And the rendering of the passage is beyond doubt, according to
+Clericus---- I beg your pardon; are you still speaking?"
+
+"Yes, Henry. I am annoying you, I know; and, all things considered, I am
+glad, for you need rousing. I intend to sit or stand in this room, close
+to you, until morning if necessary. Ah! here is a chair."
+
+As Miss Tredgold spoke she drew forward an unwieldy arm-chair, which was
+piled up with books and papers. These she was calmly about to remove,
+when a shriek from the anguished scholar stopped her.
+
+"Don't touch them," he exclaimed. "You destroy the work of months. If you
+must have a chair, take mine."
+
+Miss Tredgold did take it. She now found herself seated within a few
+yards of the scholar's desk. The bright light from the lamp fell on her
+face; it looked pale, calm, and determined. Mr. Dale was in shadow; the
+agony on his face was therefore not perceptible.
+
+"Take anything you want; only go, woman," he said.
+
+"Henry, you are a difficult person to deal with, and I am sorry to have
+to speak to you as I do. I am sorry to have to take, as it were,
+advantage of you; but I intend to stay in this house."
+
+"You are not wanted, Sophia."
+
+"I am not wished for, Henry; but as to being wanted, no woman was ever
+more wanted."
+
+"That you are not."
+
+"I say I am; and, what is more, I intend to remain. We need not discuss
+this point, for it is settled. I take up my sojourn in this house for
+three months."
+
+"Three months!" said Mr. Dale. "Oh, my word! And this is only June. From
+June to July, from July to August, from August to September! It is very
+cruel of you, Sophia. I did not think my poor wife's sister would torture
+me like this."
+
+"For the sake of your family I intend to stay, Henry. You will have to
+submit. I do not leave this room until you submit. What is more, you have
+to do something further. I want you to give me authority over your
+children. The moment I have it--I want it in writing, remember--I will
+leave you; and I will trouble you in the future as little as woman can
+trouble man. You will have better meals; but that you won't care about."
+
+"The coffee," murmured Mr. Dale.
+
+"Yes, you will have plenty of that delicious coffee. You will also have
+cleaner rooms."
+
+"This room is not to be touched; you understand?"
+
+"For the present we will let that matter lie in abeyance. Come, give me
+your authority in writing, and I leave the room; but if you don't, I stay
+in this chair--your chair, Henry Dale--all night if necessary."
+
+If ever there was a poor, bewildered man, it was Mr. Dale at that moment.
+He did not give many thoughts to anything on earth but his beloved
+studies; but, all the same, when he had time for a momentary reflection
+that he possessed girls, he felt that he quite liked them. In his own
+fashion he was fond of Verena; and once when Briar had a very bad cold he
+sat with her for a very few minutes, and recommended her to try snuff. He
+did not wish to make his children unhappy, and he thought that the advent
+of Miss Tredgold would have that effect on them. But, after all, a
+determined woman like her must be humored; and what were the children
+compared to his own most valuable work? In the days to come they would be
+proud to own him. He would be spoken of as the very great English scholar
+whose rendering of Virgil was the most perfect that had ever been put
+into English prose. Oh! it was impossible to hesitate another moment. The
+woman was in his chair, and his thoughts were leaving him.
+
+"Madam," he said, "you have taken me at a cruel disadvantage. I am
+seriously sorry for my poor children."
+
+"Never mind about that now, Henry. You are, I perceive, a wise man. You
+can rest assured that I will do what is best both for you and for them."
+
+"Very well, madam, I yield."
+
+"You give me absolute authority to do what I think best for your
+children?"
+
+"Ye--s."
+
+"To reorganize this household?"
+
+"Not this room."
+
+"With the exception of this room."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"You will uphold my authority when the girls come to you, as perhaps they
+will, and ask you to interfere?"
+
+"Oh, Sophia, you won't be hard on the poor children?"
+
+"I will be just to them. You will uphold my authority?"
+
+"Ye--s."
+
+"If I think it necessary to punish them, you won't condemn the
+punishment?"
+
+"Oh, please, Sophia, do go away! The night is passing quickly. I never
+think well by daylight."
+
+"Put it on paper, Henry. Or stay! that will take too long. Give me a
+sheet of paper; I will write what I require. I only want your signature."
+
+Poor Mr. Dale had to search among his papers for a blank sheet. Miss
+Sophia seized his special stylographic pen, pressed very hard on the nib,
+and wrote what she required. Mr. Dale felt certain he would find it quite
+spoilt when he came to use it again. But at last all her requirements
+were on paper, and Henry Dale wrote his signature at the end.
+
+"Thank you, Henry; you have acted wisely. You have your study now to
+yourself."
+
+Miss Tredgold bowed as she left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TOPSY-TURVYDOM.
+
+
+The fortnight that followed was not likely to be forgotten by the young
+Dales. It would live in the remembrance of each child old enough to
+notice. Even Penelope found the course of events interesting--sometimes
+irritating, it is true; sometimes also delightful; but at least always
+exciting. Miss Tredgold never did things by halves. She had got the
+absolute authority which she required from the master of the house, and
+having got it she refrained from annoying him, in any way whatsoever. His
+meals were served with punctuality, and were far more comfortable than
+they had ever been before. He was always presented with a cup of strong,
+fragrant, delicious coffee after his dinner. This coffee enabled him to
+pursue his translation with great clearness and accuracy. His study up to
+the present was left undisturbed. His papers were allowed to remain thick
+with dust; his chairs were allowed to be laden with books and papers; the
+carpet was allowed to remain full of holes; the windows were left exactly
+as the scholar liked them--namely, tightly screwed down so that not even
+the faintest breath of heaven's air could come in and disarrange the
+terrible disorder.
+
+But the rest of the house was truly turned topsy-turvy. It was necessary,
+Miss Tredgold assured the girls, to have topsy-turvydom before the reign
+of order could begin.
+
+At first the young Dales were very angry. For the whole of the first day
+Verena wept at intervals. Pauline sulked. Briar wept one minute and
+laughed the next. The other children followed in the footsteps of their
+elders. Penelope was now openly and defiantly a grown-up child. She
+belonged to the schoolroom, although no schoolroom as yet existed at The
+Dales. She defied nurse; she took her meals with her sisters, and pinched
+baby whenever she found her alone. Miss Tredgold, however, took no notice
+of the tears or smiles or groans or discontented looks. She had a great
+deal to do, and she performed her tasks with rectitude and skill and
+despatch. New furniture was ordered from Southampton. She drove to
+Lyndhurst Road with Verena in the shabby trap which had first brought her
+to The Dales. She went from there to Southampton and chose new furniture.
+Verena could not help opening her eyes in amazement. Such very pretty
+white bedsteads; such charming chests of drawers; such nice,
+clean-looking carpets!
+
+"Surely, Aunt Sophia," she said, "these things are not for us?"
+
+"They certainly are, my dear," replied her aunt; "for in future I hope
+you will live as a lady and a Christian, and no longer as a savage."
+
+The furniture arrived, and was put into the rooms. Pretty white curtains
+were placed at the windows; the paint was washed, and the paper rubbed
+down with bread.
+
+"Fresh decoration and repainting must wait until I get the children to
+London for the winter," thought Aunt Sophia.
+
+But notwithstanding the fact that paint and paper were almost
+non-existent by this time at The Dales, the house assumed quite a new
+air. As to Betty, she was in the most extraordinary way brought over
+absolutely to Miss Tredgold's part of the establishment. Miss Tredgold
+not only raised her wages on the spot, but paid her every farthing that
+was due in the past. She spoke to her a good deal about her duty, and of
+what she owed to the family, and of what she, Miss Tredgold, would do for
+her if she proved equal to the present emergency. Betty began to regard
+Miss Tredgold as a sort of marchioness in disguise. So interested was she
+in her, and so sure that one of the real "haristocrats" resided on the
+premises, that she ceased to read the _Family Paper_ except at long
+intervals. She served up quite good dinners, and by the end of the
+fortnight few people would have known The Dales. For not only was the
+house clean and sweet--the drawing-room quite a charming old room, with
+its long Gothic windows, its tracery of ivy outside, and its peep into
+the distant rose-garden; the hall bright with great pots of flowers
+standing about--but the girls themselves were no longer in rags. The
+furniture dealer's was not the only shop which Miss Tredgold had visited
+at Southampton. She had also gone to a linen draper's, and had bought
+many nice clothes for the young folks.
+
+The house being so much improved, and the girls being clothed afresh, a
+sufficient staff of servants arrived from a neighboring town. Betty was
+helped in the kitchen by a neat kitchen-maid; there were two housemaids
+and a parlor-maid; and John had a boy to help in the garden.
+
+"Now, Verena," said Miss Tredgold on the evening of the day when the new
+servants were pronounced a great success, "what do you think of
+everything?"
+
+"You have made the place quite pretty, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"And you like it?"
+
+"I think you mean to be very kind."
+
+"My dear Verena, do talk sense. Don't tell me that you don't feel more
+comfortable in that pale-gray, nicely fitting dress, with the blush-rose
+in your belt, and that exceedingly pretty white hat on your head, than
+you did when you rushed up to welcome me, little savage that you were, a
+fortnight ago."
+
+"I was so happy as a savage!"
+
+"And you are not happy now?"
+
+"I think you are kind, Aunt Sophia, and perhaps--I shall get accustomed
+to it."
+
+Her aunt whisked round with some impatience.
+
+"I hope so," she said; "for, whether you like it or not, you will have to
+put up with it. I fully intend to be kind, but I also mean to be very
+firm. I have now got the home in which you live into decent order, and
+you yourselves are respectably clothed. But I have not yet tackled the
+most important part of my duties, my dear Verena."
+
+"Oh, please, Aunt Sophia, what else is necessary?"
+
+Miss Tredgold threw up her hands.
+
+"A great, great deal more," she cried. "I have not yet touched your
+minds; and I fear, from the way you speak, that I have scarcely touched
+your hearts. Well, your bodies at least are attended to, and now come
+your minds. Lastly, I hope to reach the most important of all--your
+hearts. Verena, I must probe your ignorance in order to stimulate you to
+learn. You, my dear, will be grown up in three years, so that you in
+particular have a vast lot to do."
+
+"But I hate learning, and I shouldn't like to be a learned woman," said
+Verena. "Mother knew a lot of things, but she wasn't learned like
+father."
+
+"Good gracious, child! I don't want you to be like your father. To tell
+the truth, a bookworm such as he is is one of the most irritating persons
+in existence. But there! What am I saying? I oughtn't to speak against
+him in your presence. And your poor mother loved him, oh, so much! Now
+then, dear, to return to yourself and your sisters. I presume that you
+would like to be a useful and valuable member of society--a woman who has
+been trained to do her best, and to exercise the highest influence over
+all those with whom she comes in contact. Influence, which springs from
+character, my dear Verena, is the highest power that any one can get.
+Now, an ignorant person has little or no influence; therefore, to be kind
+and sympathetic and useful in the future, you must know many things. You
+have not a minute to lose. I appeal to you for your mother's sake; for my
+dear, dear sister would have liked her eldest child to be--ah,
+Verena!--so good and so true!"
+
+"You touch me, Aunt Sophy," said Verena, "when you talk of mother. You
+touch me more than words can say. Yes, I will try to be good; but you
+must bear with me if I don't take the yoke too kindly at first."
+
+"Poor child! I will try to make it light for you. Now what is the matter,
+Penelope?"
+
+"Please, please, Aunt Sophy," said that young person, rushing up at the
+moment.
+
+"Hold yourself erect, my dear; don't run quite so fast. There! you have
+got a rent already in your new frock. Now what do you want?"
+
+"May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?"
+
+"What are you now?"
+
+"Nursey says I'm nursery. But I don't want to be nursery; I want to stay
+always with my own good Aunty Sophy. That is what I want. May I be a
+schoolroom child?"
+
+"In the first place, you are not to call me 'aunty.' I am Aunt Sophia to
+you. I dislike abbreviations."
+
+"What's them?"
+
+"Say, 'What are they?'"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"I will tell you another time. How old are you, Penelope?"
+
+"I wor seven my last birthday, one month agone."
+
+"Your grammar is disgraceful, child. Please understand that the
+schoolroom has its penalties."
+
+"What's them?"
+
+"Again I shall have to correct you. 'What are they?' is the sentence you
+ought to use. But now, my dear, I don't approve of little girls learning
+much when they are only seven years old; but if you wish to be a
+schoolroom girl you will have to take your place in the schoolroom, and
+you will have to learn to submit. You will have to be under more
+discipline than you are now with nurse."
+
+"All the same, I'll be with my own aunt," said Penelope, raising her bold
+black eyes and fixing them on Miss Sophia's face.
+
+But Miss Tredgold was not the sort of person to be influenced by soft
+words. "Deeds, not words," was her motto.
+
+"You have said enough, Penelope," she said. "Take your choice; you may be
+a schoolroom child for a month if you like."
+
+"I wouldn't if I were you, Pen," said Josephine.
+
+"But I will," said Penelope.
+
+In her heart of hearts she was terrified at the thought of the
+schoolroom, but even more did she fear the knowledge that nurse would
+laugh at her if she returned to the nursery.
+
+"I will stay," she said. "I am a schoolroom child;" and she pirouetted
+round and round Aunt Sophia.
+
+"But, please, Aunt Sophia," said Verena, "who is going to teach us?"
+
+"I intend to have that honor," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+If there were no outward groans among her assembled nieces at these
+words, there were certainly spirit groans, for the girls did not look
+forward to lessons with Aunt Sophia.
+
+"You are all displeased," she said; "and I am scarcely surprised. The
+fact is, I have not got any efficient teacher to come here just yet. The
+person I should wish for is not easy to find. I myself know a great deal
+more than you do, and I have my own ideas with regard to instruction. I
+may as well tell you at once that I am a very severe teacher, and
+somewhat cranky, too. A girl who does not know her lessons is apt to find
+herself seated at my left side. Now, my right side is sunshiny and
+pleasant; but my left side faces due northeast. I think that will explain
+everything to you. We will meet in the schoolroom to-morrow at nine
+o'clock sharp. Now I must go."
+
+When Miss Tredgold had vanished the girls looked at each other.
+
+"Her northeast side!" said Pauline. "It makes me shudder even to think of
+it."
+
+But notwithstanding these remarks the girls did feel a certain amount of
+interest at the thought of the new life that lay before them. Everything
+had changed from that sunny, languorous, _dolce far niente_ time a
+fortnight back. Now the girls felt keen and brisk, and they knew well
+that each moment in the future would be spent in active employment.
+
+The next day, sharp at nine o'clock, the young people who were to form
+Miss Tredgold's school entered the new schoolroom. It was suitably and
+prettily furnished, and had a charming appearance. Large maps were hung
+on the walls; there was a long line of bookshelves filled partly with
+story books, partly with history books, and partly with ordinary lesson
+books. The windows were draped with white muslin, and stood wide open. As
+the girls took their seats at the baize-covered table they could see out
+into the garden. A moment after they had arrived in the schoolroom Miss
+Tredgold made her appearance.
+
+"We will begin with prayers," she said.
+
+She read a portion from the Bible, made a few remarks, and then they all
+knelt as she repeated the Lord's prayer.
+
+"Now, my dears," said their new governess as they rose from their knees,
+"lessons will begin. I hope we shall proceed happily and quietly. It will
+be uphill work at first; but if we each help the other, uphill work will
+prove to have its own pleasures. It's a long pull, and a strong pull, and
+a pull all together that masters difficulties. If we are all united we
+can accomplish anything; but if there is mutiny in the camp, then things
+may be difficult. I warn you all, however, that under any circumstances I
+mean to win the victory. It will be much easier, therefore, to submit at
+first. There will be no use in sulkiness, in laziness, in inattention.
+Make a brave effort now, all of you, and you will never regret this day.
+Now, Verena, you and I will have some conversation together. The rest of
+you children will read this page in the History of England, and tell me
+afterwards what you can remember about it."
+
+Here Miss Tredgold placed a primer before each child, and she and Verena
+retired into the bay-window. They came out again at the end of ten
+minutes. Verena's cheeks were crimson, and Miss Tredgold decidedly wore a
+little of her northeast air. Pauline, on the whole, had a more successful
+interview with her new governess than her sister. She was smarter and
+brighter than Verena in many ways. But before the morning was over Miss
+Tredgold announced that all her pupils were shamefully ignorant.
+
+"I know more about you now than I did," she said. "You will all have to
+work hard. Verena, you cannot even read properly. As to your writing, it
+is straggling, uneven, and faulty in spelling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+NANCY KING.
+
+
+The rest of the day passed in a subdued state. The girls hardly knew
+themselves. They felt as though tiny and invisible chains were
+surrounding them. These chains pulled them whenever they moved. They made
+their presence felt when they spoke, when they sat down, and when they
+rose up. They were with them at dinner; they were with them whenever Miss
+Tredgold put in an appearance. Perhaps they were silken chains, but, all
+the same, they were intensely annoying. Verena was the most patient of
+the nine. She said to her sisters:
+
+"We have never had any discipline. I was reading the other day in one of
+mother's books that discipline is good. It is the same thing as when you
+prune the fruit trees. Don't you remember the time when John got a very
+good gardener from Southampton to come and look over our trees? The
+gardener said, 'These trees have all run to wood; you must prune them.'
+And he showed John how, and we watched him. Don't you remember, girls?"
+
+"Oh, don't I!" said Pauline. "And he cut away a lot of the little apples,
+and hundreds of tiny pears, and a lot of lovely branches; and I began to
+cry, and I told him he was a horrid, horrid man, and that I hated him."
+
+"And what did he answer?"
+
+"Oh, he got ruder than ever! He said, 'If I was your pa I'd do a little
+pruning on you.' Oh, wasn't I angry!"
+
+Verena laughed.
+
+"But think a little more," she said. "Don't you remember the following
+year how splendid the pears were? And we had such heaps of apples; and
+the gooseberries and raspberries were equally fine. We didn't hate the
+man when we were eating our delicious fruit."
+
+Pauline made a slight grimace.
+
+"Look here, Renny," she said suddenly; "for goodness' sake don't begin to
+point morals. It's bad enough to have an old aunt here without your
+turning into a mentor. We all know what you want to say, but please don't
+say it. Haven't we been scolded and directed and ordered about all day
+long? We don't want you to do it, too."
+
+"Very well, I won't," said Verena.
+
+"Hullo!" suddenly cried Briar; "if this isn't Nancy King! Oh, welcome,
+Nancy--welcome! We are glad to see you."
+
+Nancy King was a spirited and bright-looking girl who lived about a mile
+away. Her father had a large farm which was known as The Hollies. He had
+held this land for many years, and was supposed to be in flourishing
+circumstances. Nancy was his only child. She had been sent to a
+fashionable school at Brighton, and considered herself quite a young
+lady. She came whenever she liked to The Dales, and the girls often met
+her in the Forest, and enjoyed her society vastly. Now in the most
+fashionable London attire, Nancy sailed across the lawn, calling out as
+she did so:
+
+"Hullo, you nine! You look like the Muses. What's up now? I have heard
+most wonderful, astounding whispers."
+
+"Oh, Nancy, we're all so glad to see you!" said Briar. She left her seat,
+ran up to the girl, and took her hand. "Come and sit here--here in the
+midst of our circle. We have such a lot to say to you!"
+
+"And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how grand we are!"
+
+Nancy's twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval at Verena's plain
+but very neat gray dress, and at the equally neat costumes of the other
+girls. Then finally she gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an
+ugly dress of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black
+and defiant as her own.
+
+"May I ask," said Nancy slowly, "what has this nursery baby to do in the
+midst of the grown-ups?"
+
+"I'm not nursery," said Penelope, her face growing crimson; "I'm
+schoolroom. Don't tell me I'm nursery, because I'm not. We're all
+schoolroom, and we're having a right good time."
+
+"Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don't look like it. You look,
+the whole nine of you, awfully changed, and as prim as prim can be.
+'Prunes and prisms' wouldn't melt in your mouths. You're not half, nor
+quarter, as nice as you were when I saw you last. I've just come home for
+good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by. And oh!
+my boy cousins and my two greatest chums at school are staying with me
+now at The Hollies. The girls' names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh,
+they're fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls. You are
+frightfully stand-off and prim."
+
+"Sit close to me, Nancy," said Verena. "We're not a bit changed to you,"
+she added.
+
+"Well, that's all right, honey, for I'm not changed to you. Even if I am
+a very rich girl, I'm the sort to always cling to my old friends; and
+although you are as poor as church mice, you are quite a good sort. I
+have always said so--always. I've been talking a lot about you to Amelia
+and Rebecca, and they'd give their eyes to see you. I thought you might
+ask us all over."
+
+"Oh! I daren't, Nancy," said Verena. "We are not our own mistresses now."
+
+"Well, that's exactly what I heard," said Nancy. "Oh, how hot it is! Pen,
+for goodness' sake run and fetch me a cabbage-leaf to fan my face."
+
+Penelope ran off willingly enough. Nancy turned to the others.
+
+"I sent her off on purpose," she said. "If we can't come to you, you must
+come to us. We three girls at The Hollies, and my two boy cousins, Tom
+and Jack, have the most daring, delightful scheme to propose. We want to
+have a midnight picnic."
+
+"Midnight picnic!" cried Verena. "But we can't possibly come, Nancy."
+
+"My good girl, why not? You know I talked about it last year. We want to
+have one on a very grand scale; and there are a few friends at
+Southampton that I would ask to join us. You won't have any expense
+whatever. I'll stump up for the whole. Father gives me so much money that
+I have at the present moment over five pounds in the savings-bank. We
+will light fires in a clearing not far from here, and we will have tea
+and supper afterwards; and we shall dance--dance by the light of the
+moon--and I will bring my guitar to make music. Can you imagine anything
+in all the world more fascinating?"
+
+"Oh, Nancy, it does sound too lovely!" said Briar. "I'd just give the
+world to go."
+
+"Well, then, you shall come."
+
+"But Aunt Sophy would not hear of it," said Verena.
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Briar; "we must go. It would be such a jolly treat!"
+
+Nancy favored the eight girls with a sharp glance.
+
+"I have heard of that dreadful old body," she said. "Father told me. He
+said you'd be frumped up like anything, and all the gay life taken out of
+you. I came over on purpose. I pity you from the very bottom of my
+heart."
+
+"But, Nancy, you can't think how things are changed," said Pauline. "All
+our time is occupied. Lessons began to-day. They are going to take hours
+and hours."
+
+"But these are holiday times," said Nancy. "All the world has a holiday
+in the middle of the summer."
+
+"That's true enough," said Verena; "but then we had holidays for over a
+year, and Aunt Sophia says we must begin at once. She is quite right, I'm
+sure; although of course we scarcely like it. And anyhow, Nancy, she
+won't allow us to go to a midnight picnic; there's no use thinking about
+it."
+
+"But suppose you don't ask her. Of course, if she's an old maid she'll
+refuse. Old maids are the queerest, dumpiest things on the earth. I'm
+really thankful I'm not bothered with any of them. Oh! here comes Pen.
+It's nonsense to have a child like that out of the nursery. We'd best not
+say anything before her. Verena and Briar, will you walk down to the gate
+with me? I thought perhaps we might have the picnic in a week. It could
+be easily managed; you know it could."
+
+"Oh, we must go!" said Pauline.
+
+"I'm going," said Josephine.
+
+But Verena was silent.
+
+"Here's your cabbage-leaf. How red your face looks!" said Penelope.
+
+Nancy turned and gazed at her. She was a bold-looking girl, and by no
+means pretty. She snatched the leaf angrily from Penelope's hand, saying:
+
+"Oh, my dear, go away! How you do worry, jumping and dancing about! And
+what a stupid, good-for-nothing leaf you've brought! Fetch me one that's
+not completely riddled with caterpillar holes."
+
+Penelope's black eyes flashed fire, and her face flushed.
+
+"If I could, I would just," she said.
+
+"If you could you would what?" said Nancy.
+
+"I know--I know! And I'll do it, too."
+
+A provoking smile visited the lips of the child. She danced backwards and
+forwards in an ecstasy of glee.
+
+"I can punish you all fine," said Penelope; "and I'll do it, too."
+
+She vanished out of sight. Now, it must be admitted that Penelope was not
+a nice child. She had her good points, for few children are without them;
+but in addition to being thoroughly untrained, to never having exercised
+self-control, she had by nature certain peculiarities which the other
+children had not. It had been from her earliest days her earnest desire
+to curry favor with those in authority, and yet to act quite as naughtily
+as any one else when she thought no one was looking. Even when quite a
+tiny child Penelope was wont to sit as still as a mouse in nurse's
+presence. If nurse said, "Miss Penelope, you are not to move or you will
+wake baby," then nurse knew that Penelope would not stir. But if this
+same child happened to be left with baby, so strong would be her jealousy
+that she would give the infant a sharp pinch and set it howling, and then
+run from the room.
+
+These peculiarities continued with her growth. Nurse was fond of her
+because she was quiet and useful in the nursery, fairly tidy in her
+habits, and fairly helpful. But even nurse was wont to say, "You never
+can get at Miss Penelope. You can never see through what is brewing in
+her mind."
+
+Now, when Aunt Sophia appeared on the scene, Penelope instantly
+determined to carry out the darling wish of her heart. This was no less
+than to be removed from the dullness of the nursery to the fascinating
+life that she supposed the elder children led. To accomplish this she
+thought it would be only necessary to make a great fuss about Aunt
+Sophia, to attend to her fads, and to give her numerous little
+attentions. In short, to show that she, Penelope, cared very much for her
+new aunt. But Aunt Sophia did not care for Penelope's fusses, and
+disliked her small attentions. Nevertheless, the small girl persevered,
+and in the end she did win a triumph, for she was promoted to the
+schoolroom, with its superior privileges and--alas! alas!--also its
+undoubted drawbacks. She, who hated lessons, must now try to read; she
+must also try to write, and must make valiant efforts to spell. Above and
+beyond all these things, she had to do one yet harder--she had to sit
+mute as a mouse for a couple of hours daily, with her hands neatly folded
+in her lap; and by-and-by she had to struggle with her clumsy little
+fingers to make hideous noises on the cracked old piano. These things
+were not agreeable to the wild child, and so uncomfortable and restrained
+had she felt during the first morning's lessons that she almost resolved
+to humble her pride and return to the nursery. But the thought of her
+sisters' withering, sarcastic remarks, and of nurse's bitterly cold
+reception, and nurse's words, "I told you so," being repeated for ever in
+her ears, was too much for Penelope, and she determined to give a further
+trial to the schoolroom life. Now it occurred to her that a moment of
+triumph was before her. In the old days she had secretly adored Nancy
+King, for Nancy had given her more than one lollypop; but when Nancy
+asked what the nursery child was doing with the schoolroom folk, and
+showed that she did not appreciate Penelope's society, the little girl's
+heart became full of anger.
+
+"I'll tell about her. I'll get her into trouble. I'll get them all into
+trouble," she thought.
+
+She ran into the shrubbery, and stood there thinking for a time. She was
+a queer-looking little figure as she stood thus in her short holland
+overall, her stout bare legs, brown as berries, slightly apart, her head
+thrown back, her hair awry, a smudge on her cheek, her black eyes
+twinkling.
+
+"I will do it," she said to herself. "Aunt Sophy shall find out that I am
+the good one of the family."
+
+Penelope ran wildly across the shrubbery, invaded the kitchen-garden,
+invaded the yard, and presently invaded the house. She found Miss Sophia
+sitting by her writing-table. Miss Sophia had a headache; teaching was
+not her vocation. She had worked harder that day than ever in her life
+before, and she had a great many letters to write.
+
+It was therefore a very busy and a slightly cross person who turned round
+and faced Penelope.
+
+"Don't slam the door, Penelope," she said; "and don't run into the room
+in that breathless sort of way."
+
+"Well, I thought you ought for to know. I done it 'cos of you."
+
+"'I did it because of you,' you should say."
+
+"I did it because of you. I am very fond of you, aunt."
+
+"I hope so; and I trust you will prove your affection by your deeds."
+
+"Bovver deeds!" remarked Penelope.
+
+"What is that you said, my dear?"
+
+"I say, bovver deeds!"
+
+"I confess I do not understand. Run away, now, Penelope; I am busy."
+
+"But you ought for to know. Nancy King has come."
+
+"Who is Nancy King?"
+
+"A girl. She's squatting up close to Renny on the lawn, and her arm is
+twisted round Pauline's waist. She's big, and dressed awful grand. She
+has gold bangles on her arms, and tinkling gold things round her neck,
+and she's here, and I thought course you ought for to know. I thought so
+'cos I love you. Aren't you pleased? Aren't I the sort of little girl you
+could perhaps give a lollypop to?"
+
+"No, you are not, Penelope. I do not wish you to tell tales of your
+sisters. Go away, my dear; go away."
+
+Penelope, in some wonder, and with a sense of disgust, not only with
+Nancy King and Miss Tredgold, but also with herself, left the room.
+
+"I won't tell her any more," she thought. "She never seems to like what I
+do for her. She'd be pretty lonesome if it wasn't for me; but she don't
+seem to care for anybody. I'll just rush away to nursey this very minute
+and tell her how I love being a schoolroom girl. I'll tell her I dote on
+my lessons, and that I never for the big, big, wide world would be a
+nursery child again."
+
+"Queer little child, Penelope," thought Miss Tredgold when her small
+niece had left her.
+
+She sat with her pen suspended, lost in thought.
+
+"Very queer child," she soliloquized; "not the least like the others. I
+can't say that I specially care for her. At present I am not in love with
+any of my nieces; but of all of them, Penelope is the child I like the
+least. She tells tales; she tries to curry favor with me. Is she
+truthful? Is she sincere? I have a terrible fear within me that occasions
+may arise when Penelope would prove deceitful. There! what am I saying? A
+motherless child--my own niece--surely I ought to love her. Yes, I do
+love her. I will try to love them all. What did she say about a girl
+sitting on the lawn with my girls? It is nice to talk of the Dales as my
+girls; it gives me a sort of family feeling, just as though I were not an
+old maid. I wonder what friends my girls have made for themselves round
+here. Nancy King. I don't know any people of the name of King who live
+about here. If Henry were any one else he would probably be able to tell
+me. I will go and see the girl for myself."
+
+Miss Tredgold left the room. She had a very stately walk. The girls
+always spoke of her movements as "sailing." Miss Tredgold now sailed
+across the lawn, and in the same dignified fashion came up to the
+secluded nook where the girls, with Nancy King in their midst, were
+enjoying themselves. They were all talking eagerly. Nancy King was seated
+almost in the center of the group; the other girls were bending towards
+her. As Miss Tredgold appeared in view Josephine was exclaiming in her
+high-pitched, girlish voice:
+
+"Oh, I say, Nancy! What screaming fun!"
+
+When Josephine spoke Lucy clapped her hands, Helen laughed, Verena looked
+puzzled, and Pauline's expression seemed to say she longed for something
+very badly indeed.
+
+"My dears, what are you all doing?" suddenly cried Aunt Sophia.
+
+She had come up quietly, and they had none of them heard her. It was just
+as if a pistol had gone off in their ears. The whole nine jumped to their
+feet. Nancy's red face became redder. She pushed her gaily trimmed hat
+forward over her heated brows. She had an instinctive feeling that she
+had never before seen any one so dignified and magnificent as Miss Sophia
+Tredgold. She knew that this was the case, although Miss Sophia's dress
+was almost dowdy, and the little brown slipper which peeped out from
+under the folds of her gray dress was decidedly the worse for wear. Nancy
+felt at the same time the greatest admiration for Miss Tredgold, the
+greatest dislike to her, and the greatest terror of her.
+
+"Aunt Sophia," said Verena, who could be a lady if she chose, "may I
+introduce our special friend----"
+
+"And crony," interrupted Nancy.
+
+"Our special friend, Nancy King," repeated Verena. "We have known her all
+our lives, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"How do you do, Miss King?" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She favored "the young person," as she termed Miss King, with a very
+distant bow.
+
+"Girls," she said, turning to the others, "are you aware that preparation
+hour has arrived? Will you all go quietly indoors?--Miss King, my nieces
+are beginning their studies in earnest, and I do not allow the hour of
+preparation to be interfered with by any one."
+
+"I know all about that," said Nancy in a glib voice. "I was at a
+first-rate school myself for years. Weren't we kept strict, just! My
+word! we couldn't call our noses our own. The only language was
+_parlez-vous_. But it was a select school--very; and now that I have
+left, I like to feel that I am accomplished. None of you girls can beat
+me on the piano. I know nearly all the girls' songs in _San Toy_ and the
+_Belle of New York_. Father loves to hear me when I sing 'Rhoda Pagoda.'
+Perhaps, Miss Tredgold, you'd like to hear me play on the pianoforte. I
+dote on dance music; don't you, Miss Tredgold? Dance music is so lively;
+it warms the cockles of the heart--don't it, Miss Tredgold?"
+
+"I don't dance, so it is impossible for me to answer," said Miss
+Tredgold. "I am sorry, Miss King, to disturb a pleasant meeting, but my
+girls are under discipline, and the hour for preparation has arrived."
+
+Nancy shrugged her capacious shoulders.
+
+"I suppose that means _congé_ for poor Nancy King," she said. "Very
+sorry, I'm sure. Good-day, madam.--Good-bye, Renny. I'll look you up
+another day.--Good-bye to all. I'm off to have a bit of fun with my boy
+cousins."
+
+Nancy swung round and left the group. She walked awkwardly, switching her
+shoulders and swaying from side to side, a dirty train trailing after
+her.
+
+"May I ask who your friend really is?" said Miss Tredgold when she had
+watched the departure of this most undesirable acquaintance.
+
+"She is Nancy King, Aunt Sophia. We have known her all our lives," said
+Verena.
+
+"My dear Verena, I have heard that statement before. Nevertheless, the
+fact that you have known that young person since you were little children
+does not reply to my question. Who is she? Where does she come from? Who
+is her father? I don't remember to have heard of any gentlefolks of the
+name of King residing in this part of the New Forest."
+
+"She is not gentlefolk," said Pauline.
+
+Pauline came a step nearer as she spoke. Her eyes were bright, and there
+was a red spot on each cheek.
+
+"But although she is not born a lady, she is our friend," she continued.
+"She is the daughter of Farmer King, who keeps a very jolly house; and
+they have plenty of money. We have often and often been at The Hollies."
+
+"Oh! we get delicious apples there," interposed Adelaide; "the juiciest
+you ever tasted--the cherry-and-brandy sort."
+
+"I have never heard of that special apple, and I dislike its name," said
+Miss Sophia.--"Now come into the house, all of you."
+
+She did not question them further. She walked on in front.
+
+"I can't stand too much of this," whispered Briar to Verena.
+
+But Verena said "Hush!" and clasped Briar's little hand as it lay on her
+arm.
+
+They entered the house and proceeded to the pleasant schoolroom.
+
+"It is now four o'clock," said Miss Tredgold. "At five tea is served. As
+the evening is so fine, I have ordered it to be laid under the cedar-tree
+on the lawn. For the next hour I expect close attention to lessons. I
+shall not stay in the room, but you, Verena, are monitress during my
+absence. Please understand that I expect honor. Honor requires that you
+should study, and that you should be silent. Here are your books. Prepare
+the lessons I shall require you to know to-morrow morning. Those girls
+who have not made due preparation will enter into Punishment Land."
+
+"What in the world is that?" burst from the lips of the irrepressible
+Briar.
+
+"Don't ask me," answered Miss Tredgold. "I hope you may never have a
+personal acquaintance with that gloomy country. Now farewell. For an hour
+fix your attention on your tasks; and adieu."
+
+Never before had the Dale girls found themselves in such a quandary. For
+a whole long hour they were prohibited by a code of honor from speaking.
+They were all just bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery
+torrent, but they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as
+monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some things that even
+untrained girls, provided they are ladies, understand by intuition. The
+Dales were ladies by birth. Their home had belonged to their father's
+family for generations. There was a time in the past when to be a Dale of
+The Dales meant to be rich, honored, and respected. But, alas! the Dales,
+like many other old families, had gone under. Money had failed; purses
+had become empty; lands had been sold; the house had dwindled down to its
+present shabby dimensions; and if Miss Tredgold had not appeared on the
+scene, there would have been little chance of Mr. Dale's ten daughters
+ever taking the position to which their birth entitled them. But there
+are some things which an ancient race confers. _Noblesse oblige_, for one
+thing. These girls were naughty, rebellious, and angry; their hearts were
+very sore; their silken chains seemed at this moment to assume the
+strength of iron fetters; but during the hour that was before them they
+would not disobey Miss Tredgold. Accordingly their dreary books were
+opened. Oh, how ugly and dull they looked!
+
+"What does it matter whether a girl knows how to spell, and what happened
+long, long ago in the history-books?" thought Briar.
+
+"Aunt Sophia was downright horrid about poor Nancy," was Pauline's angry
+thought. "Oh! must I really work out these odious sums, when I am
+thinking all the time of poor Nancy?"
+
+"I shall never keep my head if this sort of thing goes on for long,"
+thought Verena as she bent over her page of English history. "Oh, dear!
+that midnight picnic, and Nancy's face, and the dancing in the glades of
+the Forest. It would have been fun. If there is one thing more than
+another that I love, it is dancing. I think I could dance for ever."
+
+Verena could not keep her pretty little feet still. They moved restlessly
+under her chair. Pauline saw the movement, and a wave of sympathy flashed
+between the sisters. Pauline's eyes spoke volumes as they encountered the
+soft brown ones of pretty Verena.
+
+But an hour--even the longest--is quickly over. Five o'clock struck, and
+quick to the minute each girl sprang to her feet. Books were put away,
+and they all streamed out into the open air. Now they could talk as much
+as they liked. How their tongues wagged! They flew at each other in their
+delight and embraced violently. Never before, too, had they been so
+hungry for tea; and certainly never before had they seen such a
+delightful and tempting meal as that which was now laid for them on the
+lawn. The new parlor-maid had brought it out and placed it on various
+little tables. A silver teapot reposed on a silver tray; the cups and
+saucers were of fine china; the teaspoons were old, thin, and bright as a
+looking-glass. The table-linen was also snowy white; but what the girls
+far more appreciated were the piles of fruit, the quantities of cakes,
+the stacks of sandwiches, and the great plates of bread-and-butter that
+waited for them on the festive board.
+
+"Well!" said Briar. "Did you ever? It looks just like a party, or a
+birthday treat, or something of that sort. I will say there are some nice
+things about Aunt Sophia. This is certainly better than squatting on the
+ground with a basket of gooseberries and a hunch of bread."
+
+"I liked the gooseberries," said Pauline, "but, as you say, Briar, this
+is nice. Ah! here comes the aunt."
+
+Miss Tredgold sailed into view. She took her seat opposite the hissing
+urn and began to pour out cups of tea.
+
+"For a week," she said, "I take this place. At the end of that time
+Verena occupies my throne."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't!" said Verena.
+
+"Why in the world not, Renny? You aren't quite a goose."
+
+"Don't use those expressions, Pauline; they are distinctly vulgar," said
+Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Bother!" said Pauline.
+
+She frowned, and the thought of the gooseberries and the hard crusts that
+used to constitute tea on many days when there was no Aunt Sophia came
+back to her with a sense of longing and appreciation of the golden past.
+
+Nevertheless the girls were hungry, and the tea was excellent; and when
+Miss Tredgold had seen that each plate was piled with good things, and
+that every girl had her cup of tea made exactly as she liked it, she
+began to speak.
+
+"You know little or nothing of the world, my dear girls, so during tea I
+intend to give you some pleasant information. I attended a tea-party last
+year in a house not far from London. You would like to hear all about it,
+would you not?"
+
+"If you are sure it is not lessons," said Briar.
+
+"It is not lessons in the ordinary acception of the word. Now listen.
+This garden to which I went led down to the Thames. It was the property
+of a very great friend of mine, and she had invited what I might call a
+select company. Now will you all listen, and I will tell you how things
+were done?"
+
+Miss Tredgold then proceeded to tell her story. No one could tell a story
+better. She made her narrative quite absorbing. For these girls, who had
+never known anything of life, she drew so vivid and fascinating a picture
+that they almost wished to be present at such a scene as she described.
+She spoke of the girls of the London world in their pretty dresses, and
+the matrons in their richer garments; of the men who moved about with
+polite deference. She spoke of the summer air, the beautiful appearance
+of the river, the charming punts and boats which disported themselves on
+the bosom of the waters.
+
+"It must have been pretty; but rather stiff, wasn't it?" said Verena.
+
+"To you, my dear, it would have been stiff, for you are not yet
+accustomed to self-restraint, but to those who belong to that world it
+was nothing short of enchantment."
+
+"But you were in fetters," said Pauline; "and I should hate fetters
+however jolly they looked."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, you know you are putting them on us."
+
+"Hush, Paulie!" said Verena.
+
+"You are, Aunt Sophy; and you can't be angry with me if I speak. I can't
+imagine any one getting accustomed to fetters; it is quite beyond me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and looked with her downright face full at
+Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Never mind," said that lady after a pause. "I can't expect you to
+understand everything all at once; but my description of a real bit of
+the world can do you no harm. The world has its good points; you will
+find that out presently. Perhaps you may not like it, but some people do.
+In your case there is no saying. To-morrow I will tell you another story,
+but it shall be of the graver and sadder side of life. That story will
+also introduce the nobler side of life. But now the time has come for me
+to ask you a question, and I expect an answer. The time has come for me
+to ask a very straight question.--Verena, you are the eldest; I shall
+speak to you."
+
+"Yes?" said Verena.
+
+She felt herself coloring. She said afterwards she knew exactly what was
+coming. Pauline must have known also, for she pinched Verena's arm.
+
+"Yes?" repeated the young girl.
+
+"You are surprised at the story I have just related to you," continued
+Miss Tredgold. "You think that the courtly grace, the sweet refinement,
+the elegant manners, the words that speak of due knowledge of life and
+men and women, represent a state of fetterdom; but you must also have
+felt their charm."
+
+"To a certain extent," said Verena slowly, "what you have said excited
+me."
+
+"You feel it possible that, under certain circumstances, you, too, could
+belong to such a group?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Verena.
+
+"There is not a doubt of it, my dear. A few years' training, a little of
+that discipline which you call fetters, pretty manners, and suitable
+dress would make you quite the sort of girl who would appear amongst my
+cultivated friends in the garden by the River Thames. But now for my
+question: Could your friend, Nancy King, ever figure in such an
+assembly?"
+
+"It would not perhaps be her world," said Verena.
+
+"You have answered me. Now I am going to say something that may annoy
+you; nevertheless I must say it. Your acquaintanceship with that girl as
+a friend must cease, and absolutely. She is not your equal. You are not
+to know her as a friend. If you meet her, there is no reason why you
+should not be civil, but civility and friendship are different things. If
+the time comes when she is in need or in trouble, I should be deeply
+sorry to think you would not help her, but as a friend she is to cease to
+exist for you. This is my firm command to all of you girls. There are to
+be no two voices on the subject. You may not agree with me now, and you
+may think me hard, but I insist on having my own way. You cease to know
+Nancy King as a friend. I shall myself write to that young person and
+forbid her to visit here. I will try not to hurt her; but there are
+certain distinctions of class which I for one must insist upon
+preserving. She is not a lady, she was not born a lady, and she never can
+be a lady; therefore, my dear nieces, you are not to know her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
+
+
+The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of routine had
+fatigued them; although, of course, it would soon cease to do so.
+Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold's startling announcement with
+regard to Nancy King, they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine
+o'clock struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons neat,
+their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes beaming with
+intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very best in a clean brown holland
+frock, and she went quite creditably through her alphabet, and did not
+squiggle her pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous day.
+
+Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the girls, told them
+she was much pleased with their performances, and said further that, if
+only they would meet her half-way by being attentive and intelligent and
+earnest in their work, she on her part would do all in her power to make
+lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way which would be sure to
+arouse their interest, and she would vary the work with play, and give
+them as gay a time as the bright weather and their own happy hearts would
+permit.
+
+The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper one to another
+that Aunt Sophia was developing more and more good points as days went
+on.
+
+On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a beautiful new
+piano was to arrive from Broadwood's, and Aunt Sophia announced that she
+meant to play on it for the benefit of the entire household that evening.
+
+"For, my dears," said that good lady, "I have forgotten neither my
+playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned songs to-night, and
+I quite hope that I may lure your father from his retirement. There was a
+time when he was musical--very musical."
+
+"The dad musical!" cried Briar. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?"
+
+"It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother and he and I
+spent happy times together, he played his violin better than any other
+amateur that I happen to know."
+
+"There is an old violin in one of the attics," said Verena. "We have
+never touched it. It is in a case all covered with dust."
+
+"His Stradivarius," murmured Miss Tredgold. "Oh dear! How are the mighty
+fallen! My dears, you had better say no more to me about that or I shall
+lose my temper."
+
+The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold's eyes grew full of a
+certain mistiness and her cheeks were very pink with color. The next
+moment she looked full at her nieces.
+
+"When your mother died she took a great deal away with her," she said.
+"What would you have done, poor children! if I had not been able to come
+to the rescue? It does seem almost impossible that your father, my
+brother-in-law, has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius."
+
+"Well, aren't you glad you comed?" said Penelope, marching up and
+standing before the good lady. "Don't you like to feel you are so useful,
+the grand piano coming, and all the rest? Then you has us under your
+thumb. Don't you like that?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Penny. You are talking in a very naughty way."
+
+"I aren't. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey said last night,
+'Well, well, drat it all! They are under her thumb by this time.' I asked
+nursey what it meant, and she said, 'Miss Penny, little girls should be
+seen, and not heard.' Nursey always says that when I ask her questions
+that I want special to know. But when I comed down this morning I asked
+Betty what being under your thumb meant, and she said, 'Oh, lor', Miss
+Penny! You had better look out, miss. It means what you don't like,
+miss.' Then she said, Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of
+having little girls under their thumbs. So I 'spect you like it; and I
+hope you won't squeeze us flat afore you have done."
+
+Miss Tredgold had turned very red.
+
+"How old are you, Pen?" she said when the loquacious child became silent.
+
+Penelope tossed her head. "You knows of my age quite well."
+
+"Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent nurse--'Little
+girls should be seen, and not heard.' I will add to that remark by saying
+that little girls are sometimes impertinent. I shall not say anything
+more to-day; but another time, if you address me as you have just done, I
+shall be obliged to punish you."
+
+"And if I don't dress you," said Penelope--"if I'm awful good--will you
+give me sugar-plums?"
+
+"That is a treat in the very far distance," said Miss Tredgold.--"But
+now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better."
+
+They did all enjoy it; after their hard work--for lessons were hard to
+them--freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully occupied,
+leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the
+wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep
+and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry
+appetites.
+
+The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no
+longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appetites to enjoy tea.
+And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came
+slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at
+the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and
+John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big
+drawing-room.
+
+Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.
+
+"I will play to you to-night when it is dusk," she said to the girls.
+
+After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely
+eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He
+took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt
+Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve
+the joint which was set before him.
+
+"Wake up, Henry," said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; "the children are
+hungry, and so am I."
+
+Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make
+frantic dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned
+that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then
+she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table
+where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont to progress
+very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to
+her aunt.
+
+"Now, Aunt Sophy," she said, "the gloaming has come, and music is waiting
+to make us all happy in the drawing-room."
+
+"I will play for you, my dears," said Aunt Sophia.
+
+She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:
+
+"You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has
+got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love
+music."
+
+"Indeed, I do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Dale.
+
+He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at
+Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight just by the open door.
+
+"You remind me, Sophia----" said Mr. Dale.
+
+He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.
+
+"I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never
+listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children;
+she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the
+present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the
+original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast
+reputation. Music! I hate music. Don't disturb me, any of you."
+
+When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His
+lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself
+trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion
+by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen.
+Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies;
+the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be
+impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his
+children, to the home in which he lived.
+
+"I could have sworn," he muttered to himself, "that Alice had come back.
+As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart.
+She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved--the only woman I
+could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women
+yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not
+stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to
+forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed."
+
+The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could
+shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the
+scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door
+which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet
+masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that
+seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear,
+Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He
+lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on
+the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his
+ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be
+detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there
+was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.
+
+"I might have known that Alice----" he began; but then he remembered that
+Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her,
+or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole
+along the passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like
+lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his
+left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might
+never have existed.
+
+Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the
+door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the passage. In
+the old days this passage was always dark; no one ever thought of
+lighting the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the house
+wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of
+comfort.
+
+Suddenly a voice began to sing:
+
+             "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."
+
+The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"I am coming, Alice," he said aloud. "Yes, I am coming. Don't call me
+with such insistence. I come, I tell you; I come."
+
+He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall; he burst into the
+drawing-room. His eyes were full of excitement. He strode across the room
+and sank into a chair close to the singer.
+
+Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.
+
+"Ah, Henry!" she said; "so you are there. I hoped that this would draw
+you. Now I am going to sing again."
+
+"A song of the past," he said in a husky voice.
+
+"Will this do?" she said, and began "Annie Laurie."
+
+Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet. "Annie Laurie"
+melted into "Home, Sweet Home"; "Home, Sweet Home" into "Ye Banks and
+Braes o' Bonny Doon"; "Ye Banks and Braes" wandered into the delicious
+notes of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano, and then turned
+and faced her audience.
+
+"No more to-night," she said. "By-and-by you girls shall all play on this
+piano. You shall also sing, for I have not the slightest doubt that most
+of you have got voices. You ought to be musical, for music belongs to
+both sides of your house. There was once a time when your father played
+the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By the way,
+Henry, is that violin still in existence?"
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Dale; "I never touch it now. I have not touched it
+for years. I would not touch it for the world."
+
+"You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no more music
+to-night. Those who are tired had better go to bed."
+
+The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold then went up to Mr.
+Dale.
+
+"Go back to your study and your Virgil," she said. "Don't waste your
+precious time."
+
+He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him, but he took her at
+her word and returned to his study.
+
+The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment. Miss
+Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary in regard to it. She only
+played as a special treat. She would by no means give them the great
+pleasure of her singing and playing every night.
+
+"When you have all had a good day I will sing and play to you," she said
+to the girls; "but when you neglect your work, or are idle and careless,
+or cross and sulky, I don't intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was
+brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I
+mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to
+the lax way in which young people are now reared."
+
+For a time Miss Tredgold's plans went well. Then there came a day of
+rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly rebel against Aunt Sophia.
+There came a morning when Pauline absolutely refused to learn her
+lessons. She was a stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very
+dark in complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a handsome
+woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a somewhat sallow face,
+heavy black brows, and eyes that could scowl when anything annoyed her.
+She was the next eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her
+birthday would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays were
+considered auspicious events. There was always some sort of present, even
+though it was worth very little in itself, given by each member of the
+family to the possessor of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this
+happy person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with great pomp,
+and invariably made the same speech:
+
+"God bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns of the day. And
+now for goodness' sake don't detain me any longer."
+
+A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as a sovereign
+would be to girls in happier circumstances. It was eked out to its
+furthest dimensions, and was as a rule spent on good things to eat. Now,
+under Miss Tredgold's reign, Pauline's birthday would be a much more
+important event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar, Patty,
+Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline knew quite well that
+she was talked about. She knew when, the girls retired into corners that
+she was the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most
+agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a
+corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager
+whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if
+they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the
+fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that
+on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts
+came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great
+deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy
+time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been
+fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.
+
+There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had
+got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly
+excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.
+
+"After all," thought Pauline, "Aunt Sophia has done something for us. How
+horrid it would be to go back to the old shilling birthdays now!"
+
+As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and
+talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first,
+and their words reached Pauline's ears.
+
+"I know she'd rather have pink than blue," said Patty's voice.
+
+"Well, mine will be trimmed with blue," was Josephine's answer.
+
+Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and
+disappeared down a shady walk.
+
+"Something with pink and something with blue," thought Pauline. "The
+excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they're talking about my
+birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don't know how
+I shall exist for a whole week."
+
+At that moment Miss Tredgold's sharp voice fell on her ears:
+
+"You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of
+punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom."
+
+To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful
+reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she
+expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one
+of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she
+lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on
+her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late
+when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished
+morning prayers.
+
+"You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline," she said. "There was no
+reason for this inattention. I shall be obliged to punish you. You cannot
+have your usual hour of recreation before dinner. You will have to write
+out the first page of Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_; and you must do
+it without making any mistake either in spelling or punctuation. On this
+occasion you can copy from the book. Now, no words, my dear--no words.
+Sit down immediately to your work."
+
+Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger. Was she, an
+important person who was soon to be queen of a birthday, one about whom
+her sisters talked and whispered and made presents for, to be treated in
+this scant and ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it.
+Accordingly she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to listen
+when she should, played atrociously on the piano, could not manage her
+sums, and, in short, got more and more each moment into Miss Tredgold's
+black books.
+
+When recreation hour arrived she felt tired and headachy. The other girls
+now went out into the pleasant sunshine. Pauline looked after them with
+longing. They would sit under the overhanging trees; they would eat fruit
+and talk nonsense and laugh. Doubtless they would talk about her and the
+birthday so near at hand. At noon the schoolroom was hot, too, for the
+sun beat hard upon the windows, and Pauline felt more stifled and more
+headachy and sulky than ever.
+
+"Oh! please," she said, as Miss Tredgold was leaving the room, "I can't
+do this horrid writing to-day. Please forgive me. Do let me go out."
+
+"No, Pauline; you must take your punishment. You were late this morning;
+you disobeyed my rules. Take the punishment which I am obliged to give
+you as a lady should, and make no more excuses."
+
+The door was shut upon the angry girl. She sat for a time absolutely
+still, pressing her hand to her aching brow; then she strolled across the
+schoolroom, fetched some paper, and sat down to her unwelcome task. She
+wrote very badly, and when the hour was over she had not half copied the
+task assigned to her. This bad beginning went on to a worse end. Pauline
+declined to learn any lessons in preparation hour, and accordingly next
+morning she was absolutely unprepared for her tasks.
+
+Miss Tredgold was now thoroughly roused.
+
+"I must make an example," she said to herself. "I shall have no influence
+over these girls if I let them think I am all softness and yielding. The
+fact is, I have shown them the south side of my character too long; a
+little touch of the northeast will do them no harm."
+
+Accordingly she called the obstinate and sulky Pauline before her.
+
+"I am very much displeased with you. You have done wrong, and you must be
+punished. I have told you and your sisters that there is such a place as
+Punishment Land. You enter it now, and live there until after breakfast
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"But what do you mean?" said Pauline.
+
+"I mean exactly what I say. You have been for the last twenty-four hours
+extremely naughty. You will therefore be punished for the next
+twenty-four hours. You are a very naughty girl. Naughty girls must be
+punished, and you, Pauline, are now under punishment. You enter
+Punishment Land immediately."
+
+"But where is it? What is it? I don't understand."
+
+"You will soon. Girls, I forbid you to speak to your sister while she is
+under punishment. Pauline, your meals will be sent to you in this room.
+You will be expected to work up your neglected tasks and learn them
+thoroughly. You must neither play with nor speak to your sisters. You
+will have no indulgence of any sort. When you walk, I wish you to keep in
+the north walk, just beyond the vegetable garden. Finally, you will go to
+bed at seven o'clock. Now leave the room. I am in earnest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PUNISHMENT LAND.
+
+
+Pauline did leave the room. She passed her sisters, who stared at her in
+horrified amazement. She knew that their eyes were fixed upon her, but
+she was doubtful if they pitied her or not. Just at that moment, however,
+she did not care what their feelings were. She had a momentary sense of
+pleasure on getting into the soft air. A gentle breeze fanned her hot
+cheeks. She took her old sailor hat from a peg and ran fast into a
+distant shrubbery. Miss Tredgold had said that she might take exercise in
+the north walk. If there was a dreary, ugly part of the grounds, it might
+be summed up in the north walk. The old garden wall was on one side of
+it, and a tattered, ugly box-hedge on the other. Nothing was to be seen
+as you walked between the hedge and the wall but the ground beneath your
+feet and the sky above your head. There was no distant view of any sort.
+In addition to this disadvantage, it was in winter an intensely cold
+place, and in summer, notwithstanding its name, an intensely hot place.
+No, Pauline would not go there. She would disobey. She would walk where
+she liked; she would also talk to whom she liked.
+
+She stood for a time leaning against a tree, her face scarlet with
+emotion, her sailor hat flung on the ground. Presently she saw Penelope
+coming towards her. She felt quite glad of this, for Penelope might
+always be bribed. Pauline made up her mind to disobey thoroughly; she
+would walk where she pleased; she would do what she liked; she would talk
+to any one to whom she wished to talk. What was Penelope doing? She was
+bending down and peering on the ground. Beyond doubt she was looking for
+something.
+
+"What is it, Pen?" called out her sister.
+
+Penelope had not seen Pauline until now. She stood upright with a start,
+gazed tranquilly at the girl in disgrace, and then, without uttering a
+word, resumed her occupation of searching diligently on the ground.
+Pauline's face put on its darkest scowl. Her heart gave a thump of wild
+indignation. She went up to Penelope and shook her by the arm. Penelope,
+still without speaking, managed to extricate herself. She moved a few
+feet away. She then again looked full at Pauline, and, to the amazement
+of the elder girl, her bold black eyes filled with tears. She took one
+dirty, chubby hand and blew a kiss to Pauline.
+
+Pauline felt suddenly deeply touched. She very nearly wept herself.
+
+"Oh, dear Penny," she said, "how good you are! I didn't know you'd feel
+for me. I can bear things better if I know you feel for me. You needn't
+obey her, need you? See, I've got three-ha'pence in my pocket. I'll give
+you the money and you can buy lollypops. I will really if only you will
+say a few words to me now."
+
+"I daren't," burst from Penelope's lips. "You have no right to tempt me.
+I can't; I daren't. I am looking now for Aunt Sophy's thimble. She was
+working here yesterday and she dropped it, she doesn't know where. She's
+awful fond of it. She'll give me a penny if I find it. Don't ask me any
+more. I've done very wrong to speak to you."
+
+"So you have," said Pauline, who felt as angry as ever. "You have broken
+Aunt Sophia's word--not your own, for you never said you wouldn't speak
+to me. But go, if you are so honorable. Only please understand that I
+hate every one of you, and I'm never going to obey Aunt Sophia."
+
+Penelope only shook her little person, and presently wandered away into a
+more distant part of the shrubbery. She went on searching and searching.
+Pauline could see her bobbing her little fat person up and down.
+
+"Even Penny," she thought, "is incorruptible. Well, I don't care. I won't
+put up with this unjust punishment."
+
+The dinner-gong sounded, and Pauline, notwithstanding her state of
+disgrace, discovered that she was hungry.
+
+"Why should I eat?" she said to herself. "I won't eat. Then perhaps I'll
+die, and she'll be sorry. She'll be had up for manslaughter; she'll have
+starved a girl to death. No, I won't eat a single thing. And even if I
+don't die I shall be awfully ill, and she'll be in misery. Oh dear! why
+did mother die and leave us? And why did dreadful Aunt Sophy come? Mother
+was never cross; she was never hard. Oh mother! Oh mother!"
+
+Pauline was now so miserable that she flung herself on the ground and
+burst into passionate weeping. Her tears relieved the tension of her
+heart, and she felt slightly better. Presently she raised her head, and
+taking out her handkerchief, prepared to mop her eyes. As she did so she
+was attracted by something that glittered not far off. She stretched out
+her hand and drew Miss Tredgold's thimble from where it had rolled under
+a tuft of dock-leaves. A sudden burst of pleasure escaped her lips as she
+glanced at the thimble. She had not seen it before. It certainly was the
+most beautiful thimble she had ever looked at. She put it on the tip of
+her second finger and turned it round and round. The thimble itself was
+made of solid gold; its base was formed of one beautifully cut sapphire,
+and round the margin of the top of the thimble was a row of turquoises.
+The gold was curiously and wonderfully chased, and the sapphire, which
+formed the entire base of the thimble, shone in a way that dazzled
+Pauline. She was much interested; she forgot that she was hungry, and
+that she had entered into Punishment Land. It seemed to her that in her
+possession of the thimble she had found the means of punishing Aunt
+Sophia. This knowledge soothed her inexpressibly. She slipped the lovely
+thimble into her pocket, and again a keen pang of downright healthy
+hunger seized her. She knew that food would be awaiting her in the
+schoolroom. Should she eat it, or should she go through the wicket-gate
+and lose herself in the surrounding Forest?
+
+Just at this moment a girl, who whistled as she walked, approached the
+wicket-gate, opened it, and came in. She was dressed in smart summer
+clothes; her hat was of a fashionable make, and a heavy fringe lay low on
+her forehead. Pauline looked at her, and her heart gave a thump of
+pleasure. Now, indeed, she could bear her punishment, and her revenge on
+Miss Tredgold lay even at the door. For Nancy King, the girl whom she was
+not allowed to speak to, had entered the grounds.
+
+"Hullo, Paulie!" called out that young lady. "There you are! Well, I must
+say you do look doleful. What's the matter now? Is the dear aristocrat
+more aristocratic than ever?"
+
+"Oh, don't, Nancy! I ought not to speak to you at all."
+
+"So I've been told by the sweet soul herself," responded Nancy. "She
+wrote me a letter which would have put another girl in such a rage that
+she would never have touched any one of you again with a pair of tongs.
+But that's not Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that
+person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I came to-day to try
+to find one of you dear girls. I have found you. What is the matter with
+you, Paulie? You do look bad."
+
+"I'm very unhappy," said Pauline. "Oh Nancy! we sort of promised that we
+wouldn't have anything more to do with you."
+
+"But you can't keep your promise, can you, darling? So don't say any more
+about it. Anyhow, promise or not, I'm going to kiss you now."
+
+Nancy flung her arms tightly round Pauline's neck and printed several
+loud, resounding kisses on each cheek; then she seated herself under an
+oak tree, and motioned to Pauline to do likewise.
+
+Pauline hesitated just for a moment; then scruples were forgotten, and
+she sat on the ground close to Nancy's side.
+
+"Tell me all about it," said Nancy. "Wipe your eyes and talk. Don't be
+frightened; it's only poor old Nancy, the girl you have known since you
+were that high. And I'm rich, Paulie pet, and although we're only
+farmer-folk, we live in a much finer house than The Dales. And I'm going
+to have a pony soon--a pony of my very own--and my habit is being made
+for me at Southampton. I intend to follow the hounds next winter. Think
+of that, little Paulie. You'll see me as I ride past. I'm supposed to
+have a very good figure, and I shall look ripping in my habit. Well, but
+that's not to the point, is it? You are in trouble, you poor little dear,
+and your old Nancy must try and make matters better for you. I love you,
+little Paulie. I'm fond of you all, but you are my special favorite. You
+were always considered something like me--dark and dour when you liked,
+but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie? Tell your own
+Nancy."
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Nancy," replied Pauline. "And I think," she
+continued, "that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt Sophia to say that we are
+not to know you."
+
+"It's snobbish and mean and unlady-like," retorted Nancy; "but her saying
+it doesn't make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have
+to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I'm going to put up
+with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she's fine and mistaken. I'm not,
+and that's flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn't mind telling her so
+to her face."
+
+"But, on the whole, she has been kind to us," said Pauline, who had some
+sense of justice in her composition, angry as she felt at the moment.
+
+"Has she?" said Nancy. "Then let me tell you she has not a very nice way
+of showing it. Now, Paulie, no more beating about the bush. What's up?
+Your eyes are red; you have a great smear of ink on your forehead; and
+your hands--my word! for so grand a young lady your hands aren't up to
+much, my dear."
+
+"I have got into trouble," said Pauline. "I didn't do my lessons properly
+yesterday; I couldn't--I had a headache, and everything went wrong. So
+this morning I could not say any of them when Aunt Sophia called me up,
+and she put me into Punishment Land. You know, don't you, that I am soon
+to have a birthday?"
+
+"Oh, don't I?" interrupted Nancy. "Didn't a little bird whisper it to me,
+and didn't that same little bird tell me exactly what somebody would like
+somebody else to give her? And didn't that somebody else put her hand
+into her pocket and send---- Oh, we won't say any more, but she did send
+for something for somebody's birthday. Oh, yes, I know. You needn't tell
+me about that birthday, Pauline Dale."
+
+"You are good," said Pauline, completely touched. She wondered what
+possible thing Nancy could have purchased for her. She had a wild desire
+to know what it was. She determined then and there, in her foolish little
+heart, that nothing would induce her to quarrel with Nancy.
+
+"It is something that you like, and something that will spite her," said
+the audacious Nancy. "I thought it all out, and I made up my mind to kill
+two birds with one stone. Now to go on with the pretty little story. We
+didn't please aunty, and we got into trouble. Proceed, Paulie pet."
+
+"I didn't learn my lessons. I was cross, as I said, and headachy, and
+Aunt Sophia said I was to be made an example of, and so she sent me to
+Punishment Land for twenty-four hours."
+
+"Oh, my dear! It sounds awful. What is it?"
+
+"Why, none of my sisters are to speak to me, and I am only to walk in the
+north walk."
+
+"Is this the north walk?" asked Nancy, with a merry twinkle in her black
+eyes.
+
+"Of course it isn't. She may say what she likes, but I'm not going to
+obey her. But the others won't speak to me. I can't make them. And I am
+to take my meals by myself in the schoolroom, and I am to go to bed at
+seven o'clock."
+
+Pauline told her sad narrative in a most lugubrious manner, and she felt
+almost offended at the conclusion when Nancy burst into a roar of
+laughter.
+
+"It's very unkind of you to laugh when I'm so unhappy," said Pauline.
+
+"My dear, how can I help it? It is so ridiculous to treat a girl who is
+practically almost grown up in such a baby fashion. Then I'd like to know
+what authority she has over you."
+
+"That's the worst of it, Nancy. Father has given her authority, and she
+has it in writing. She's awfully clever, and she came round poor father,
+and he had to do what she wanted because he couldn't help himself."
+
+"Jolly mean, I call it," said Nancy. "My dear, you are pretty mad, I
+suppose."
+
+"Wouldn't you be if your father treated you like that?"
+
+"My old dad! He knows better. I've had my swing since I was younger than
+you, Paulie. Of course, at school I had to obey just a little. I wasn't
+allowed to break all the rules, but I did smuggle in a good many
+relaxations. The thing is, you can do what you like at school if only you
+are not found out. Well, I was too clever to be found out. And now I am
+grown up, eighteen last birthday, and I have taken a fancy to cling to my
+old friends, even if they have a snobby, ridiculous old aunt to be rude
+to me. My dear, what nonsense she did write!--all about your being of
+such a good family, and that I wasn't in your station. I shall keep that
+letter. I wouldn't lose it for twenty shillings. What have you to boast
+of after all is said and done? A tumble-down house; horrid, shabby,
+old-fashioned, old-maidy clothes; and never a decent meal to be had."
+
+"But it isn't like that now," said Pauline, finding herself getting very
+red and angry.
+
+"Well, so much the better for you. And did I make the little mousy-pousy
+angry? I won't, then, any more, for Nancy loves little mousy-pousy, and
+would like to do what she could for her. You love me back, don't you,
+mousy?"
+
+"Yes, Nancy, I do love you, and I think it's a horrid shame that we're
+not allowed to be with you. But, all the same, I'd rather you didn't call
+me mousy."
+
+"Oh dear, how dignified we are! I shall begin to believe in the ancient
+family if this sort of thing continues. But now, my dear, the moment has
+come to help you. The hour has arrived when your own Nancy, vulgar as she
+is, can lend you a helping hand. Listen."
+
+"What?" said Pauline.
+
+"Jump up, Paulie; take my hand, and you and I together will walk out
+through that wicket-gate, and go back through the dear old Forest to The
+Hollies, and spend the day at my home. There are my boy cousins from
+London, and my two friends, Rebecca and Amelia Perkins--jolly girls, I
+can tell you. We shall have larks. What do you say, Paulie? A fine fright
+she'll be in when she misses you. Serve her right, though."
+
+"But I daren't come with you," said Pauline. "I'd love it more than
+anything in the world; but I daren't. You mustn't ask me. You mustn't try
+to tempt me, Nancy, for I daren't go."
+
+"I didn't know you were so nervous."
+
+"I am nervous about a thing like that. Wild as I have been, and untrained
+all my life, I do not think I am out-and-out wicked. It would be wicked
+to go away without leave. I'd be too wretched. Oh, I daren't think of
+it!"
+
+Nancy pursed up her lips while Pauline was speaking; then she gave vent
+to a low, almost incredulous whistle. Finally she sprang to her feet.
+
+"I am not the one to try and make you forget your scruples," she said.
+"Suppose you do this. Suppose you come at seven o'clock to-night. Then
+you will be safe. You may be wicked, but at least you will be safe.
+She'll never look for you, nor think of you again, when once you have
+gone up to bed. You have a room to yourself, have you not?"
+
+Pauline nodded.
+
+"I thought so. You will go to your room, lock the door, and she will
+think it is all right. The others won't care to disturb you. If they do
+they'll find the door locked."
+
+"But I am forbidden to lock my room door."
+
+"They will call to you, but you will not answer. They may be angry, but I
+don't suppose your sisters will tell on you, and they will only suppose you
+are sound asleep. Meanwhile you will be having a jolly good time; for I can
+tell you we are going to have sport to-night at The Hollies--fireworks,
+games, plans for the future, etc., etc. You can share my nice bed, and go
+back quite early in the morning. I have a lot to talk over with you. I want
+to arrange about our midnight picnic."
+
+"But, Nancy, we can't have a midnight picnic."
+
+"Can't we? I don't see that at all. I tell you what--we will have it; and
+we'll have it on your birthday. Your birthday is in a week. That will be
+just splendid. The moon will be at the full, and you must all of you
+come. Do you suppose I'm going to be balked of my fun by a stupid old
+woman? Ah! you little know me. My boy cousins, Jack and Tom, and my
+friends, Becky and Amy, have made all arrangements. We are going to have
+a time! Of course, if you are not there, you don't suppose our fun will
+be stopped! You'll hear us laughing in the glades. You won't like that,
+will you? But we needn't say any more until seven o'clock to-night."
+
+"I don't think I'm coming."
+
+"But you are, Paulie. No one will know, and you must have a bit of fun.
+Perhaps I'll show you the present I'm going to give you on your birthday;
+there's no saying what I may do; only you must come."
+
+Nancy had been standing all this time. Pauline had been reclining on the
+ground. Now she also rose to her feet.
+
+"You excite me," she said. "I long to go, and yet I am afraid; it would
+be so awfully wicked."
+
+"It would be wicked if she was your mother, but she's not. And she has no
+right to have any control over you. She just got round your silly old
+father----"
+
+"I won't have dad called silly!"
+
+"Well, your learned and abstracted father. It all comes to much the same.
+Now think the matter over. You needn't decide just this minute. I shall
+come to the wicket-gate at half-past seven, and if you like to meet me,
+why, you can; but if you are still too good, and your conscience is too
+troublesome, and your scruples too keen, you need not come. I shall quite
+understand. In that case, perhaps, I'd best not give you that lovely,
+lovely present that I saved up so much money to buy."
+
+Pauline clasped her hands and stepped away from Nancy. As she did so the
+breeze caught her full gray skirt and caused it to blow against Nancy.
+Nancy stretched out her hand and caught hold of Pauline's pocket.
+
+"What is this hard thing?" she cried. "Have you got a nut in your
+pocket?"
+
+"No," said Pauline, instantly smiling and dimpling. "Oh, Nancy, such
+fun!"
+
+She dived into her pocket and produced Miss Tredgold's thimble.
+
+"Oh, I say!" cried Nancy. "What a beauty! Who in the world gave you this
+treasure, Paulie?"
+
+"It isn't mine at all; it belongs to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"You sly little thing! You took it from her?"
+
+"No, I didn't. I'm not a thief. I saw it in the grass a few minutes ago
+and picked it up. It had rolled just under that dock-leaf. Isn't it
+sweet? I shall give it back to her after she has forgiven me to-morrow."
+
+"What a charming, return-good-for-evil character you have suddenly
+become, Pauline!"
+
+As Nancy spoke she poised the thimble on her second finger. Her fingers
+were small, white, and tapering. The thimble exactly fitted the narrow
+tip on which it rested.
+
+"I never saw anything so lovely," she cried. "Never mind, Paulie, about
+to-morrow. Lend it to me. I'd give my eyes to show it to Becky."
+
+"But why should I lend it to you? I must return it to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"You surely won't give it back to her to-day."
+
+"No, but to-morrow."
+
+"Let to-morrow take care of itself. I want to show this thimble to Becky
+and Amy. I have a reason. You won't refuse one who is so truly kind to
+you, will you, little Paulie? And I tell you what: I know you are
+starving, and you hate to go into the house for your food. I will bring
+you a basketful of apples, chocolates, and a peach or two. We have lovely
+peaches ripe in our garden now, although we are such common folk."
+
+Pauline felt thirsty. Her hunger, too, was getting worse. She would have
+given a good deal to have been able to refuse the horrid meals which
+would be served to her in the schoolroom. Perhaps she could manage
+without any other food if she had enough fruit.
+
+"I should like some very much," she said. "Aunt Sophia has, as she calls
+it, preserved the orchard. We are not allowed to go into it."
+
+"Mean cat!" cried Nancy.
+
+"So will you really send me a basket of fruit?"
+
+"I will send Tom with it the instant I get home. He runs like the wind.
+You may expect to find it waiting for you in half-an-hour."
+
+"Thank you. And you will take great care of the thimble, won't you?"
+
+"Of course I will, child. It is a beauty."
+
+Without more ado Nancy slipped the thimble into her pocket, and then
+nodding to Pauline, and telling her that she would wait for her at the
+wicket-gate at half-past seven, she left her.
+
+Nancy swung her body as she walked, and Pauline stood and watched her.
+She thought that Nancy looked very grown-up and very stylish. To look
+stylish seemed better than to look pretty in the eyes of the
+inexperienced little girl. She could not help having a great admiration
+for her friend.
+
+"She is very brave, and so generous; and she knows such a lot of the
+world!" thought poor Pauline. "It is a shame not to be allowed to see her
+whenever one likes. And it would be just heavenly to go to her to-night,
+instead of spending hungry hours awake in my horrid bedroom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+The other girls were miserable; but Miss Tredgold had already exercised
+such a very strong influence over them that they did not dare to disobey
+her orders. Much as they longed to do so, none of them ventured near poor
+Pauline. In the course of the afternoon Miss Tredgold called Verena
+aside.
+
+"I know well, my dear, what you are thinking," she said. "You believe
+that I am terribly hard on your sister."
+
+Verena's eyes sought the ground.
+
+"Yes, I quite know what you think," repeated Miss Tredgold. "But, Verena,
+you are wrong. At least, if I am hard, it is for her good."
+
+"But can it do any one good to be downright cruel to her?" said Verena.
+
+"I am not cruel, but I have given her a more severe punishment than she
+has ever received before in her life. We all, the best of us, need
+discipline. The first time we experience it when it comes from the hand
+of God we murmur and struggle and rebel. But there comes a time when we
+neither murmur nor struggle nor rebel. When that time arrives the
+discipline has done its perfect work, and God removes it. My dear Verena,
+I am a woman old enough to be your mother. You must trust me, and believe
+that I am treating Pauline in the manner I am to-day out of the
+experience of life that God has given me. We are so made, my dear, that
+we none of us are any good until our wills are broken to the will of our
+Divine Master."
+
+"But this is not God's will, is it?" said Verena. "It is your will."
+
+"Consider for a moment, my child. It is, I believe, both God's will and
+mine. Don't you want Pauline to be a cultivated woman? Don't you want her
+character to be balanced? Don't you want her to be educated? There is a
+great deal that is good in her. She has plenty of natural talent. Her
+character, too, is strong and sturdy. But at present she is like a flower
+run to weed. In such a case what would the gardener do?"
+
+"I suppose he would prune the flower."
+
+"If it was a hopeless weed he would cast it out of his garden; but if it
+really was a flower that had degenerated into a weed, he would take it up
+and put it to some pain, and plant it again in fresh soil. The poor
+little plant might say it was badly treated when it was taken from its
+surroundings and its old life. This is very much the case with Pauline.
+Now, I do not wish her to associate with Nancy King. I do not wish her to
+be idle or inattentive. I want her to be energetic, full of purpose,
+resolved to do her best, and to take advantage of those opportunities
+which have come to you all, my dear, when I, your mother's sister, took
+up my abode at The Dales. Sometime, dear, it is quite possible that,
+owing to what will be begun in Pauline's character to-day, people will
+stop and admire the lovely flower. They will know that the gardener who
+put it to some pain and trouble was wise and right. Now, my dear girl,
+you will remember my little lecture. Pauline needs discipline. For that
+matter, you all need discipline. At first such treatment is hard, but in
+the end it is salutary."
+
+"Thank you, Aunt Sophy," said Verena. "But perhaps," she added, "you will
+try and remember, too, that kindness goes a long way. Pauline is perhaps
+the most affectionate of us all. In some ways she has the deepest
+feelings. But she can be awfully sulky, and only kindness can move her."
+
+"I quite understand, my dear; and when the time comes kindness will not
+be wanting. Now go away and amuse yourself with your sisters."
+
+Verena went away. She wondered as she did so where Pauline was hiding
+herself. The others had all settled down to their various amusements and
+occupations. They were sorry for Pauline, but the pleasant time they were
+enjoying in the middle of this lovely summer's day was not to be
+despised, even if their sister was under punishment. But Verena herself
+could not rest. She went into the schoolroom. On a tray stood poor
+Pauline's neglected dinner. Verena lifted the cover from the plate, and
+felt as though she must cry.
+
+"Pauline is taking it hardly," thought the elder girl.
+
+Tea-time came, and Pauline's tea was also sent to the schoolroom. At
+preparation hour, when the rest of the girls went into the room,
+Pauline's tea remained just where it had been placed an hour before.
+Verena could scarcely bear herself. There must be something terribly
+wrong with her sister. They had often been hungry in the old days, but in
+the case of a hearty, healthy girl, to do without any food from
+breakfast-time when there was plenty to eat was something to regard with
+uneasiness.
+
+Presently, however, to her relief, Pauline came in. She looked rough and
+untidy in appearance. She slipped into the nearest chair in a sulky,
+ungainly fashion, and taking up a battered spelling-book, she held it
+upside down.
+
+Verena gave her a quick glance and looked away. Pauline would not meet
+Verena's anxious gaze. She kept on looking down. Occasionally her lips
+moved. There was a red stain on her cheek. Penelope with one of her
+sharpest glances perceived this.
+
+"It is caused by fruit," thought the youngest of the schoolroom children.
+"I wonder who has given Pauline fruit. Did she climb the garden wall or
+get over the gate into the orchard?"
+
+Nobody else noticed this stain. Miss Tredgold came in presently, but she
+took no more notice of Pauline than if that young lady did not exist.
+
+The hour of preparation was over. It was now six o'clock. In an hour
+Pauline was expected to go to bed. Now, Pauline and Verena had bedrooms
+to themselves. These were attic rooms at the top of the house. They had
+sloping roofs, and would have been much too hot in summer but for the
+presence of a big beech tree, which grew to within a few feet of the
+windows. More than once the girls in their emancipated days, as they now
+considered them, used to climb down the beech tree from their attic
+windows, and on a few occasions had even managed to climb up the same
+way. They loved their rooms, having slept in them during the greater part
+of their lives.
+
+Pauline, as she now went in the direction of the north walk, thought with
+a sense of satisfaction of the bedroom she had to herself.
+
+"It will make things easier," she thought. "They will all be on the lawn
+doing their needlework, and Aunt Sophia will be reading to them. I will
+go past them quite quietly to my room, and then----"
+
+These thoughts made Pauline comparatively happy. Once or twice she
+smiled, and a vindictive, ugly expression visited her small face.
+
+"She little knows," thought the girl. "Oh, she little knows! She thinks
+that she is so clever--so terribly clever; but, after all, she has not
+the least idea of the right way to treat me. No, she has not the least
+idea. And perhaps by-and-by she will be sorry for what she has done."
+
+Seven o'clock was heard to strike in the house. Pauline, retracing her
+steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss Tredgold. Miss Tredgold
+slightly raised her voice as the culprit appeared. She read aloud with
+more determination than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was
+hemming and watched Pauline.
+
+"I a'most wish I wor her," thought the ex-nursery child. "Anything is
+better than this horrid sewing. How it pricks my fingers! That reminds
+me; I wonder where Aunt Sophy's thimble has got to. I did look hard for
+it. I wish I could find it. I do want that penny so much! It was a beauty
+thimble, too, and she loves it. I don't want to give it back to her 'cos
+she loves it, but I should like my penny."
+
+Pauline had now nearly disappeared from view.
+
+"Paulie is up to a lark," thought Penelope, who was the sharpest of all
+the children, and read motives as though she was reading an open book.
+"She doesn't walk as though she was tur'ble unhappy. I wonder what she's
+up to. And that red stain on her cheek was fruit; course it was fruit.
+How did she get it? I wish I knew. I'll try and find out."
+
+Pauline had now reached her bedroom. There she hastily put on her best
+clothes. They were very simple, but, under Miss Tredgold's regime, fairly
+nice. She was soon attired in a neat white frock; and an old yellow sash
+of doubtful cleanliness and a bunch of frowsy red poppies were folded in
+a piece of tissue paper. Pauline then slipped on her sailor hat. She had
+a great love for the old sash; and as to the poppies, she thought them
+far more beautiful than any real flowers that ever grew. She meant to tie
+the yellow sash round her waist when she reached the shrubbery, and to
+pin the poppies into her hat. The fact that Miss Tredgold had forbidden
+her to wear this sash, and had herself removed the poppies from her
+Sunday hat, gave her now a sense of satisfaction.
+
+"Young ladies don't wear things of that sort," Miss Tredgold had said.
+
+"A young lady shall wear things of this sort to-night," thought Pauline.
+
+Having finished her toilet, she locked her door from the outside and put
+the key into her pocket; but before she left the room she drew down the
+dark-green blind. She then slipped downstairs and went out through the
+back way. She had to go through the yard, but no one saw her except
+Betty, who, as she afterwards remarked, did observe the flutter of a
+white dress with the tail of her eye. But Betty at that moment was
+immersed in a fresh installment of the wonderful adventures of the Duke
+of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton and his bride, and what did it matter to her
+if the young ladies chose to run out in their best frocks?
+
+Pauline reached the shrubbery without further adventure. There she put on
+her extra finery. Her yellow sash was tied in a large bow, and her
+poppies nodded over her forehead.
+
+It was a very excited dark-eyed girl who presently met Nancy King on the
+other side of the wicket-gate.
+
+"Here I am," said Pauline. "I expect I shall never have any luck again
+all my life; but I want to spite her at any cost, so here I am."
+
+"Delicious!" said Nancy. "Isn't it good to spite the old cat? Now then,
+let's be off, or we may be caught. But I say, how fine we are!"
+
+"You always admired this bunch of poppies, didn't you, Nancy? Do you
+remember? Before you went to that grand school at Brighton you used to
+envy me my poppies. I found them among mother's old things, and Verena
+gave them to me. I love them like anything. Don't you like them very
+much, placed so in front of my hat?"
+
+"Didn't I say, 'How fine we are'?"
+
+"Yes; but somehow your tone----"
+
+"My dear Paulie, you are getting much too learned for my taste. Now come
+along. Take my hand. Let us run. Let me tell you, you look charming. The
+girls will admire you wonderfully. Amy and Becky are keen to make your
+acquaintance. You can call them by their Christian names; they're not at
+all stiff. Surname, Perkins. Nice girls--brought up at my school--father
+in the pork line; jolly girls--very. And, of course, you met Jack and Tom
+last year. They're out fishing at present. They'll bring in beautiful
+trout for supper. Why, you poor little thing, you must be starved."
+
+"Ravenous. You know I had only your fruit to-day."
+
+"You shall have a downright jolly meal, and afterwards we'll have
+fireworks; and then by-and-by you will share my bed. Amy and Becky will
+be in the same room. They think there's a ghost at the other side of the
+passage, so they came along to my chamber. But you won't mind."
+
+"I won't mind anything after my lonely day. You are quite sure that I'll
+get back in time in the morning, Nancy?"
+
+"Trust me for that. Haven't you got the key of your room?"
+
+"Yes; it's in my pocket. I left the window on the latch, and I can climb
+up the beech tree quite well. Oh! that reminds me, Nancy; you must let me
+have that thimble before I return to The Dales."
+
+"To be sure I will, dear. But you needn't think of returning yet, for you
+have not even arrived. Your fun is only beginning. Oh! you have done a
+splendid, spirited thing running off in this fashion. I only hope she'll
+go to your room and tap and tap, and knock and knock, and shout and
+shout, and get, oh, so frightened! and have the door burst open; and then
+she'll see for herself that the bird has flown. Won't she be in a tantrum
+and a fright! Horrid old thing! She'll think that you have run off
+forever. Serve her right. Oh! I almost wish she would do it--that I do."
+
+"But I don't," said Pauline. "If she did such a thing it would almost
+kill me. It's all very well for you to talk in that fashion; you haven't
+got to live with her; but I have, and I couldn't stand her anger and her
+contempt. I'd be put into Punishment Land for a year. And as one day has
+very nearly killed me, what would a year of it do? If there is any fear
+of what you wish for, I'd best go back at once."
+
+"What! and lose the trout, and the game pie, and the steak and onions,
+and the fried potatoes, and the apple turnovers, and the plum puffs, to
+say nothing of the most delicious lollypops you have ever tasted in your
+life? And afterwards fireworks; for Jack and Tom have bought a lot of
+Catherine-wheels and rockets to let off in your honor. And then a cosy,
+warm hug in my bed, with Amy and Becky telling ghost stories in the bed
+opposite. You don't mean to tell me you'd rather have your lonely room
+and starvation than a program of that sort?"
+
+"No, no. Of course I'll go on with you. I've done it now, so I'll stick
+to it. Oh, I'm madly hungry! I hope you'll have supper the moment we get
+in."
+
+"Supper will be delayed as short a time as possible. It rather depends
+upon the boys and when they bring the trout home. But here is a queen
+cake. I stuffed it into my pocket for you. Eat it as we go along."
+
+So Pauline ate it and felt better. Her courage returned. She no longer
+thought of going back. Had she done so, she knew well that she would not
+sleep. People never slept well if they were hungry.
+
+"No," she said to herself; "I will go on with it now. I'll just trust to
+my good luck, and I'll enjoy the time with Nancy. For, after all, she's
+twice as kind as Aunt Sophia. Why should I make myself miserable on
+account of a woman who is not my mother?"
+
+The Hollies was a very snug, old-fashioned sort of farm. It had been in
+the King family for generations, and Mr. Josiah King was a very fine
+specimen of the British farmer. He was a big man with a red face, bushy
+whiskers, grizzled hair, and a loud laugh. The expression of his broad,
+square face was somewhat fierce, and the servants at the farm were afraid
+to anger him. He was a just enough master, however, and was always served
+well by his people. To only one person was he completely mild and gentle,
+and that person, it is needless to say, was his daughter Nancy. Nancy was
+his only child. Her mother was dead, and from her earliest days she had
+been able to twist her father round her little finger. He sent her to a
+smart boarding school, and no money was spared in order to give her
+pleasure. It was the dream of Farmer King, and Nancy's dearest ambition
+also, that she should be turned into a lady. But, alas and alack! Miss
+Nancy could not overcome the stout yeoman blood in her veins. She was no
+aristocrat, and nothing could make her one. She was just a hearty,
+healthy happy-minded English girl; vulgar in voice and loud in speech,
+but fairly well-intentioned at heart. She was the sort of farmer's
+daughter who would marry a farmer, and look after the dairy, and rear
+stalwart sons and hearty girls in her turn. Nature never intended her for
+a fine lady; but silly Nancy had learnt a great deal more at school than
+how to talk a little French very badly and how to recite a poem with
+false action and sentiment. She had learnt to esteem the world for the
+world's own sake, and had become a little ashamed of the farmer and the
+farmer's ways; and, finally, when she returned from school she insisted
+on the best parlor being turned into a sort of drawing-room, on her
+friends being regaled with late dinners, and on herself being provided
+with servants, so that she need not touch household work. She was
+playing, therefore, the game of being a lady, and was failing as she
+played it. She knew that she was failing, and this knowledge made her
+feel very cross. She tried hard to stifle it, and clung more than ever to
+her acquaintanceship with the Dale girls.
+
+In her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she would very much like to milk
+the cows, and superintend the dairy, and churn the butter. In her heart
+of hearts she would have adored getting up early in the morning and
+searching for the warm, pink eggs, and riding barebacked over the farm
+with her father, consulting him on the tilling of the land and the best
+way to make the old place profitable; for one day it would be her own,
+and she would be, for her class in life, a rich girl. Just at present,
+however, she was passing through a phase, and not a very pleasant one.
+She thought herself quite good enough to go into any society; and fine
+dress, loud-voiced friends, and the hollow, empty nothings which she and
+her acquaintances called conversation seemed the best things possible
+that could come into life. She was, therefore, not at all in the mood to
+give up her friendship with the Dale girls.
+
+Now, there never was a girl less likely to please Miss Tredgold than this
+vulgarly dressed, loud-voiced, and unlady-like girl. Nancy was desired to
+abstain from visiting at The Dales, and the Dale girls were told that
+they were not to talk to Nancy. Nancy's rapture, therefore, when she was
+able to bring Pauline to The Hollies could scarcely be suppressed.
+
+Amy and Becky Perkins were standing in the old porch when the two girls
+appeared. Nancy called out to her friends, and they ran to meet her.
+
+"This is Paulie," said Nancy; "in other words, Pauline Dale--Pauline
+Dale, the aristocrat. We ought to be proud to know her, girls. Pauline,
+let me introduce my special friend, Becky Perkins. She's in pork, but
+that don't matter. And my other special friend, Amy Perkins; also in
+pork, but at your service. Girls, you didn't happen to notice if supper
+was being put on the table, did you?"
+
+"I should think we did," said Becky. "I smelt fish. The boys brought in a
+lot of trout. I'm as hungry as hungry can be."
+
+"Let's run upstairs first," said Nancy, turning to Pauline. "You'd like
+to take off your hat and wash your hands, wouldn't you, my fine friend of
+aristocratic circles?"
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Nancy," said Pauline, flushing
+angrily, while the two Perkins girls looked at her with admiration.
+
+"Well, then, I won't," said Nancy; "but I'm always one for my joke. I
+meant no harm. And you know you are aristocratic, Paulie, and nothing
+will ever take it out of you. And I'm terribly afraid that nothing will
+take the other thing out of me. I only talk to you like this because I'm
+so jealous. So now come along and let's be friends."
+
+The two girls scampered up the old oak stairs. They ran down an uneven
+passage, and reached a door of black oak, which was opened with an
+old-fashioned latch. At the other side of the door they found themselves
+in a long and very low room, with a black oak floor and black oak walls.
+The floor of the room was extremely uneven, being up in one part and down
+in another, and the whole appearance of the room, although fascinating,
+was decidedly patchy. In an alcove at one end stood a four-post bedstead,
+with a gaudily colored quilt flung over it; and in the alcove at the
+other end was another four-post bedstead, also boasting of a colored
+quilt. There were two washstands in the room, and one dressing-table. The
+whole place was scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean, for the white
+dimity curtains rivalled the snow in winter, and the deal washstands and
+the deal dressing-table were as white as the scrubbing of honest hands
+could make them. The whole room smelt of a curious mixture of turpentine,
+soap, and fresh flowers.
+
+"I had the lavender sheets put on the bed for you and me," said Nancy.
+"They are of the finest linen. My mother spun them herself, and she put
+them in lavender years and years ago. I am heartily glad to welcome you,
+little Paulie. This is the very first time you have ever slept under our
+humble roof. So kiss me, dear."
+
+"How snug and sweet it all is!" said Pauline. "I am glad that I came."
+
+"This is better than lying down hungry in your own little room," said
+Nancy.
+
+"Oh, much better!"
+
+Pauline skipped about. Her high spirits had returned; she was charmed
+with the room in which she was to repose. Through the lattice window the
+sweetest summer air was entering, and roses peeped all round the frame,
+and their sweet scent added to the charm of the old-fashioned chamber.
+
+"I hope you won't mind having supper in the kitchen," said Nancy. "I know
+it's what a Dale is not expected to submit to; but, nevertheless, in Rome
+we do as the Romans do--don't we?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Nancy. As if I cared.
+Whether I am a lady or not, I am never too fine for my company; and it
+was when Aunt Sophia wanted us to give you up that I really got mad with
+her."
+
+"You are a darling and a duck, and I love you like anything," said Nancy.
+"Now come downstairs. We are all hungry, and the boys are mad to be at
+the fireworks."
+
+"I have never seen fireworks in my life," said Pauline.
+
+"You poor little innocent! What a lot the world has to show you! Now
+then, come along."
+
+Pauline, deprived of her hideous hat, looked pretty and refined in her
+white dress. She made a contrast to the showy Nancy and the Perkins
+girls. The boys, Jack and Tom Watson, looked at her with admiration, and
+Jack put a seat for Pauline between himself and his brother.
+
+The farmer nodded to her, and said in his bluff voice:
+
+"Glad to welcome you under my humble roof, Miss Pauline Dale. 'Eartily
+welcome you be. Now then, young folks, fall to."
+
+The meal proceeded to the accompaniment of loud jokes, gay laughter, and
+hearty talking. The farmer's voice topped the others. Each remark called
+forth fresh shouts of laughter; and when a number of dogs rushed in in
+the middle of supper, the din almost rose to an uproar.
+
+Pauline enjoyed it all very much. She laughed with the others; her cheeks
+grew rosy. Nancy piled her plate with every available dainty. Soon her
+hunger left her, and she believed that she was intensely happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE BURNT ARM.
+
+
+After supper the excitement waxed fast and furious. The boys, aided by
+the farmer and one of his men, proceeded to send off the fireworks. This
+was done on a little plateau of smoothly cut lawn just in front of the
+best sitting-room windows. The girls pressed their faces against the
+glass, and for a time were satisfied with this way of looking at the fun.
+But soon Nancy could bear it no longer.
+
+"It is stupid to be mewed up in the close air," she said. "Let's go out."
+
+No sooner had she given utterance to the words than all four girls were
+helping the boys to let off the squibs, Catherine-wheels, rockets, and
+other fireworks. Pauline now became nearly mad with delight. Her shouts
+were the loudest of any. When the rockets went high into the air and
+burst into a thousand stars, she did not believe that the world itself
+could contain a more lovely sight. But presently her happiness came to a
+rude conclusion, for a bit of burning squib struck her arm, causing her
+fine muslin dress to catch fire, and the little girl's arm was somewhat
+severely hurt. She put out the fire at once, and determined to hide the
+fact that she was rather badly burnt.
+
+By-and-by they all returned to the house. Nancy sat down to the piano and
+began to sing some of her most rollicking songs. Then she played dance
+music, and the boys and girls danced with all their might. Pauline,
+however, had never learned to dance. She stood silent, watching the
+others. Her high spirits had gone down to zero. She now began to wish
+that she had never come. She wondered if she could possibly get home
+again without being discovered. At last Nancy noticed her grave looks.
+
+"You are tired, Paulie," she said; "and for that matter, so are we. I
+say, it's full time for bed. Good-night, boys. Put out the lamps when you
+are tired of amusing yourselves. Dad has shut up the house already. Come,
+Paulie; come, Amy; come, Becky."
+
+The four girls ran upstairs, but as they were going down the passage
+which led to their pretty bedroom, Pauline's pain was so great that she
+stumbled against Becky and nearly fell.
+
+"What is it?" said Becky. "Are you faint?"
+
+She put her arm around the little girl and helped her into the bedroom.
+
+"Whatever can be wrong?" she said. "You seemed so lively out in the open
+air."
+
+"Oh, you do look bad, Paulie!" said Nancy. "It is that terrible fasting
+you went through to-day. My dear girls, what do you think? This poor
+little aristocrat, far and away too good to talk to the likes of
+us"--here Nancy put her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh
+at the prostrate Pauline--"far too grand, girls--fact, I assure you--was
+kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water
+at supper. All these things are owing to an aunt--one of the tip-top of
+the nobility. This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor
+internal arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the poor child into
+a place she calls Punishment Land, and kept her without food."
+
+"That isn't true," said Pauline. "I could have had plenty to eat if I had
+liked."
+
+"That means that if you were destitute of one little spark of spirit
+you'd have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold
+plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? Hungry again?"
+
+"No; it is my arm. Please don't touch it."
+
+"Do look!" cried Amy Perkins. "Oh, Nancy, she has got an awful burn!
+There's quite a hole through the sleeve of her dress. Oh, do see this
+great blister!"
+
+"It was a bit of one of the squibs," said Pauline. "It lit right on my
+arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don't suppose it's much hurt, only
+I feel a little faint."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Nancy. "What is to be done now? I don't know a thing
+about burns, or about any sort of illness. Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps
+she can tell us something."
+
+"Let's put on a bandage," said one of the other girls. "Then when you lie
+down in bed, Pauline, you will drop asleep and be all right in the
+morning."
+
+Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep into bed. Her arm
+was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless it felt slightly more
+comfortable. Presently she dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that
+doze she awoke soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her
+side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming from the
+other end of the long room, and to observe also that there was not a
+chink of light anywhere; and, finally, to be all too terribly conscious
+of a great burning pain in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor
+Pauline's slumbering conscience.
+
+"Why did I come?" she said to herself. "I am a wretched, most miserable
+girl. And how am I ever to get back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree
+with this bad arm. Oh, how it does hurt me! I feel so sick and faint I
+scarcely care what happens."
+
+Pauline stretched out her uninjured arm and touched Nancy.
+
+"What is it?" said Nancy. "Oh, dear! I'd forgotten. It's you, Paulie. How
+is your arm, my little dear? Any better?"
+
+"It hurts me very badly indeed; but never mind about that now. How am I
+to get home?"
+
+"I'll manage that. Betty, our dairymaid, is to throw gravel up at the
+window at four o'clock. You shall have a cup of tea before you start, and
+I will walk with you as far as the wicket-gate."
+
+"Oh, thank you! But how am I to get into my room when I do arrive at The
+Dales? I don't believe I shall be able to use this arm at all."
+
+"Of course you will," said Nancy. "You will be miles better when cook has
+looked to it. I know she's grand about burns, and has a famous ointment
+she uses for the purpose. Only, for goodness' sake, Paulie, don't let
+that burn in the sleeve of your dress be seen; that would lead to
+consequences, and I don't want my midnight picnic to be spoilt."
+
+"I don't seem to care about that or anything else any more."
+
+"What nonsense! You don't suppose I should like this little escapade of
+yours and mine to be known. You must take care. Why, you know, there's
+father. He's very crotchety over some things. He likes all of you, but
+over and over again he has said:
+
+"'I'm as proud of being an honest farmer as I should be to be a lord. My
+grandfather paid his way, and my father paid his way, and I am paying my
+way. There's no nonsense about me, and I shall leave you, Nancy, a tidy
+fortune. You like those young ladies at The Dales, and you shall have
+them come here if they wish to come, but not otherwise. I won't have them
+here thinking themselves too grand to talk to us. Let them keep to their
+own station, say I. I don't want them.'
+
+"Now you see, Paulie, what that means. If father found out that your aunt
+had written to me and desired me to have nothing further to do with you,
+I believe he'd pack me out of the country to-morrow. I don't want to
+leave my home; why should I? So, you see, for my sake you must keep it
+the closest of close secrets."
+
+"You should have thought of that before you tempted me to come," said
+Pauline.
+
+"That is just like you. You come here and enjoy yourself, and have a
+great hearty meal, and when you are likely to get into a scrape you throw
+the blame on me."
+
+"You can understand that I am very miserable, Nancy."
+
+"Yes; and I'm as sorry as I can be about that burn; but if you'll be
+brave and plucky now, I'll help you all I can. We'll get up as soon as
+ever the day dawns, and cook shall put your arm straight."
+
+As Nancy uttered the last words her voice dwindled to a whisper, and a
+minute later she was again sound asleep. But Pauline could not sleep. Her
+pain was too great. The summer light stole in by degrees, and by-and-by
+the sharp noise made by a shower of gravel was heard on the window.
+
+Pauline sprang into a sitting posture, and Nancy rubbed her eyes.
+
+"I'm dead with sleep," she said. "I could almost wish I hadn't brought
+you. Not but that I'm fond of you, as I think I've proved. We haven't yet
+made all our arrangements about the midnight picnic, but I have the most
+daring scheme in my head. You are every single one of you--bar Penelope,
+whom I can't bear--to come to that picnic. I'll make my final plans
+to-day, and I'll walk in the Forest to-morrow at six o'clock, just
+outside your wicket-gate. You will meet me, won't you?"
+
+"But---- Oh! by the way, Nancy, please give me back that beautiful
+thimble. I'm so glad I remembered it! It belongs to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"I can't," said Nancy, coloring, "I lent it to Becky, and I don't know
+where she has put it. I'll bring it with me to-morrow, so don't fuss. Now
+jump up, Paulie; we have no time to lose."
+
+Accordingly Pauline got up, dressed herself--very awkwardly, it is
+true--and went downstairs, leaning on Nancy's sympathetic arm. Nancy
+consulted the cook, who was good-natured and red-faced.
+
+"You have got a bad burn, miss," she said when she had examined Pauline's
+arm; "but I have got a famous plaster that heals up burns like anything.
+I'll make your arm quite comfortable in a twinkling, miss."
+
+This she proceeded to do, and before the treatment had been applied for
+half an hour a good deal of Pauline's acute pain had vanished.
+
+"I feel better," she said, turning to Nancy. "I feel stronger and
+braver."
+
+"You will feel still braver when you have had your cup of tea. And here's
+a nice hunch of cake. Put it into your pocket if you can't eat it now. We
+had best be going; the farm people may be about, and there's no
+saying--it's wonderful how secrets get into the air."
+
+Pauline looked startled. She again took Nancy's hand, and they left the
+house together.
+
+Now, it so happened that the the morning was by no means as fine as those
+lovely mornings that had preceded it. There was quite a cold wind
+blowing, and the sky was laden with clouds.
+
+"We'll have rain to-day," said Nancy; "rain, and perhaps thunder. I feel
+thunder in the air, and I never was mistaken yet. We must be quick, or
+we'll both be drenched to the skin."
+
+Accordingly the two walked quickly through the Forest path. But before
+they reached the wicket-gate the first mutterings of thunder were
+audible, and heavy drops of rain were falling.
+
+"I must leave you now, Paulie," said Nancy, "for if I go any farther I'll
+be drenched to the skin. Climb up your tree, get into your bedroom, and
+go to bed. If you can manage to send that white dress over to me, I will
+put on a patch that even your aunt will not see. Put on another dress, of
+course, this morning, and say nothing about the burn. Good-bye, and good
+luck! I'll be over about six o'clock to-morrow evening to talk over our
+midnight picnic."
+
+"And the thimble," said Pauline. "You won't forget the thimble."
+
+"Not I. Good gracious, what a flash! You had best get home at once; and I
+must run for my life or I may be struck down under all these trees."
+
+Pauline stood still for a minute, watching Nancy as she disappeared from
+view; then slowly and sadly she went up to the house.
+
+She was too tired and depressed to mind very much that the rain was
+falling in showers, soaking her thin white muslin dress, and chilling her
+already tired and exhausted little frame. The rattle of the thunder, the
+bright flash of the lightning, and the heavy fall of the tempest could
+not reach the graver trouble which filled her heart. The way of
+transgressors had proved itself very hard for poor Pauline. She disliked
+the discomfort and misery she was enduring; but even now she was scarcely
+sorry that she had defied and disobeyed Aunt Sophia.
+
+After a great deal of difficulty, and with some injury to her already
+injured arm, she managed to climb the beech-tree and so reach the gabled
+roof just under her attic window. She pushed the window wide open and got
+inside. How dear and sweet and fresh the little chamber appeared! How
+innocent and good was that little white bed, with its sheets still
+smoothly folded down! It took Pauline scarcely a minute to get into her
+night-dress, sweep her offending white dress into a neighboring cupboard,
+unlock the door, and put her head on her pillow. Oh, there was no place
+like home! It was better to be hungry at home, it was better to be in
+punishment at home, than to go away to however grand a place and however
+luxuriant a feast.
+
+"And Nancy's home isn't grand," thought Pauline. "And the food was rough.
+Aunt Sophia would even call it coarse. But, oh, I was hungry! And if I
+hadn't been so naughty I'd have been very happy. All the same," she
+continued, thinking aloud, as was her fashion. "I won't go to that
+midnight picnic; and Renny must not go either. Of course, I can't tell
+Aunt Sophia what I did last night. I promised Nancy I wouldn't tell, and
+it wouldn't be fair; but see if I do anything wrong again! I'll work like
+a Briton at my lessons to-day. Oh, how badly my arm hurts! And what an
+awful noise the storm is making! The thunder rattles as though it would
+come through the roof. My arm does ache! Oh, what lightning! I think I'll
+put my head under the sheet."
+
+Pauline did so, and notwithstanding the tempest, she had scarcely got
+down into the real warmth of her bed before sleep visited her.
+
+When she awoke the storm was over, the sun was shining, and Verena was
+standing at the foot of her bed.
+
+"Do get up, Paulie," she said. "How soundly you have slept! And your face
+is so flushed! And, oh, aren't you just starving? We only discovered last
+night that you hadn't touched any of your food."
+
+"I'm all right," said Pauline.
+
+"You will try to be good to-day, won't you, Paulie? You don't know how
+miserable I was without you, for you are my own special most darling
+chum. You will try, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I will try, of course," said Pauline. "Truly--truly, I will try."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHANGED LIVES.
+
+
+After the mental storm of the day before, Pauline would never forget the
+peace of the day that followed. For Miss Tredgold, having punished, and
+the hours of punishment being over, said nothing further to signify her
+displeasure. She received Pauline kindly when she appeared in the
+schoolroom. She took her hand and drew the little girl toward her. It was
+with a great effort that the poor girl could suppress the shriek that
+nearly rose to her lips as the unconscious Miss Tredgold touched her
+burnt arm.
+
+"We will forget about yesterday, Pauline," said her aunt. "We will go
+back to work this morning just as though there never had been any
+yesterday. Do you understand?"
+
+"I think so," said Pauline.
+
+"Do you happen to know your lessons?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't."
+
+"Well, my dear, as this is practically your first transgression, I am the
+last person to be over-hard. You can listen to your sisters this morning.
+At preparation to-day you will doubtless do your best. Now go to your
+seat."
+
+Pauline sat between Briar and Adelaide. Adelaide nestled up close to her,
+and Briar took the first opportunity to whisper:
+
+"I am so glad you are back again, dear old Pauline! We had a horrid time
+without you yesterday."
+
+"They none of them know what I did," thought Pauline; "and, of course, I
+meant to tell them. Not Aunt Sophia, but the girls. Yes, I meant to
+confide in the girls; but the atmosphere of peace is so nice that I do
+not care to disturb it. I will put off saying anything for the present.
+It certainly is delightful to feel good again."
+
+Lessons went on tranquilly. The girls had a time of delightful rest
+afterwards in the garden, and immediately after early dinner there came a
+surprise. Miss Tredgold said:
+
+"My dear girls, there are several things you ought to learn besides mere
+book knowledge. I propose that you should be young country ladies whom no
+one will be ashamed to know. You must learn to dance properly, and to
+skate properly if there ever is any skating here. If not, we will go
+abroad for the purpose. But while you are in the Forest I intend you to
+have riding lessons and also driving lessons. A wagonette will be here at
+two o'clock, and we will all go for a long and delightful drive through
+the Forest. I am going to some stables about six or seven miles away,
+where I hear I can purchase some good horses and also some Forest ponies.
+Don't look so excited, dears. I should be ashamed of any nieces of mine
+brought up in the New Forest of England who did not know how to manage
+horses."
+
+"Oh, she really is a darling!" said Verena. "I never did for a single
+moment suppose that we should have had the chance of learning to drive."
+
+"And to ride," said Pauline.
+
+She began to skip about the lawn. Her spirits, naturally very high,
+returned.
+
+"I feel quite happy again," she said.
+
+"Why, of course you are happy," said Verena; "but you must never get into
+Punishment Land again as long as you live, Paulie, for I wouldn't go
+through another day like yesterday for anything."
+
+The wagonette arrived all in good time. It drew up at the front door, and
+Mr. Dale, attracted by the sound of wheels, rose from his accustomed seat
+in his musty, fusty study, and looked out of the window. The window was
+so dusty and dirty that he could not see anything plainly; but, true to
+his determination, he would not open it. A breeze might come in and
+disturb some of his papers. He was busy with an enthralling portion of
+his work just then; nevertheless, the smart wagonette and nicely
+harnessed horses, and the gay sound of young voices, attracted him.
+
+"I could almost believe myself back in the days when I courted my dearly
+beloved Alice," he whispered to himself. "I do sincerely trust that
+visitors are not beginning to arrive at The Dales; that would be the
+final straw."
+
+The carriage, however, did not stop long at the front door. It was
+presently seen bowling away down the avenue. Mr. Dale, who still stood
+and watched it, observed that it was quite packed with bright-looking
+young girls. Blue ribbons streamed on the breeze, and the girls laughed
+gaily.
+
+"I am glad those visitors are going," thought the good man, who did not
+in the least recognize his own family. "A noisy, vulgar crowd they
+seemed. I hope my own girls will never become like that. Thank goodness
+they did not stay long! Sophia is a person of discernment; she knows that
+I can't possibly receive incidental visitors at The Dales."
+
+He returned to his work and soon was lost to all external things.
+
+Meanwhile the girls had a lovely and exciting drive. Aunt Sophia was in
+her most agreeable mood. The children themselves were quite unaccustomed
+to carriage exercise. It was a wonderful luxury to lean back on the
+softly cushioned seats and dash swiftly under the noble beech-trees and
+the giant oaks of the primeval forest. By-and-by they drove up to some
+white gates. Verena was desired to get out and open them. The carriage
+passed through. She remounted into her seat, and a few minutes later they
+all found themselves in a great cobble-stoned yard surrounded by stables
+and coach-houses. The melodious cry of a pack of fox-hounds filled the
+air. The girls were almost beside themselves with excitement. Presently a
+red-faced man appeared, and he and Miss Tredgold had a long and
+mysterious talk together. She got out of the wagonette and went with the
+man into the stables. Soon out of the stables there issued, led by two
+grooms, as perfect a pair of Forest ponies as were ever seen. They were
+well groomed and in excellent order, and when they arched their necks and
+pawed the ground with their feet, Pauline uttered an irrepressible shout.
+
+"Those ponies are coming to The Dale in a fortnight," said Miss Tredgold.
+"Their names are Peas-blossom and Lavender."
+
+"I believe I'll die if much more of this goes on," gasped Briar. "I'm too
+happy. I can't stand anything further."
+
+"Hush, Briar!" said Verena, almost giving her sister a shake in her
+excitement, and yet at the same time trying to appear calm.
+
+"Now, my dear children, we will go home," said their aunt. "The wagonette
+will come any day that I send for it, and Mr. Judson informs me he hopes
+by-and-by to have a pair of carriage horses that I may think it worth
+while to purchase."
+
+"Aren't these good enough?" asked Verena, as they drove back to The
+Dales.
+
+"They are very fair horses, but I don't care to buy them. Judson knows
+just the sort I want. I am pleased with the ponies, however. They will
+give you all a great deal of amusement. To-morrow we must go to
+Southampton and order your habits."
+
+"I wonder I _ever_ thought her cross and nasty and disagreeable," thought
+Pauline. "I wonder I ever could hate her. I hope she'll let me ride
+Peas-blossom. I liked his bright eyes so much. I never rode anything in
+my life, but I feel I could ride barebacked on Peas-blossom. I love him
+already. Oh, dear! I don't hate Aunt Sophia now. On the contrary, I feel
+rather bad when I look at her. If she ever knows what I did yesterday,
+will she forgive me? I suppose I ought to tell her; but I can't. It would
+get poor Nancy into trouble. Besides--I may as well be frank with
+myself--I should not have the courage."
+
+As soon as the girls got home Penelope ran up to Pauline.
+
+"You stayed for a long time in the shrubbery yesterday, didn't you,
+Pauline?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Pauline.
+
+"You didn't by any chance find Aunt Sophy's thimble?"
+
+"I! Why should I?"
+
+Pauline felt herself turning red. Penelope fixed her exceedingly sharp
+eyes on her sister's face.
+
+"You did find it; you know you did. Where is it? Give it to me. I want my
+penny. Think of all the fun you are going to have. She doesn't mean me to
+ride, 'cos I asked her. I must have my penny. Give me the thimble at
+once, Paulie."
+
+"I haven't got it. Don't talk nonsense, child. Let me go. Oh! you have
+hurt me."
+
+Pauline could not suppress a short scream, and the next minute she felt
+herself turning very faint and sick, for Penelope had laid her
+exceedingly hard little hand on Pauline's burnt arm.
+
+"What is it, Paulie? I know you are not well," said Verena, running up.
+
+"It is 'cos of her bad conscience," said Penelope, turning away with a
+snort of indignation.
+
+"Really," said Verena, as Pauline leaned against her and tried hard to
+repress the shivers of pain that ran through her frame, "Penelope gets
+worse and worse. Only that I hate telling tales out of school, I should
+ask Aunt Sophia to send her back to the nursery for at least another
+year. But what is it, Paulie dear? You look quite ill."
+
+"I feel rather bad. I have hurt my arm. You must not ask me how, Renny.
+You must trust me. Oh dear! I must tell you what has happened, for you
+will have to help me. Oh, Renny, I am in such pain!"
+
+Poor Pauline burst into a torrent of tears. Where was her happiness of an
+hour ago? Where were her rapturous thoughts of riding Peas-blossom
+through the Forest? Her arm hurt her terribly; she knew that Penelope was
+quite capable of making mischief, she was terrified about the thimble.
+Altogether her brief interval of sunshine was completely blotted out.
+
+Verena, for her years, was a wonderfully wise girl. She had since her
+mother's death been more or less a little mother to the younger children.
+It is true, she had looked after them in a somewhat rough-and-ready
+style; but nevertheless she was a sympathetic and affectionate girl, and
+they all clung to her. Now it seemed only natural that Pauline should
+lean on her and confide her troubles to her. Accordingly Verena led her
+sister to a rustic seat and said:
+
+"Sit down near me and tell me everything."
+
+"It is this," said Pauline. "I have burned my arm badly, and Aunt Sophia
+must not know."
+
+"You have burnt your arm? How?"
+
+"I would rather not tell."
+
+"But why should you conceal it, Paulie?"
+
+"I'd rather conceal it; please don't ask me. All I want you to do is to
+ask me no questions, but to help me to get my arm well; the pain is
+almost past bearing. But, Renny, whatever happens, Aunt Sophia must not
+know."
+
+"You are fearfully mysterious," said Verena, who looked much alarmed.
+"You used not to be like this, Paulie. You were always very open, and you
+and I shared every thought Well, come into the house. Of course, whatever
+happens, I will help you; but I think you ought to tell me the whole
+truth."
+
+"I can't, so there! If you are to be a real, real sister to me, you will
+help me without asking questions."
+
+The girls entered the house and ran up to Pauline's bedroom. There the
+injured arm was exposed to view, and Verena was shocked to see the extent
+of the burn.
+
+"You ought to see a doctor. This is very wrong," she said.
+
+She made Pauline lie down, and dressed her arm as well as she could.
+Verena was quite a skilful little nurse in her own way, and as Pauline
+had some of the wonderful ointment which the Kings' cook had given her,
+and as Verena knew very nicely how to spread it on a piece of rag, the
+arm soon became more comfortable.
+
+Just before dinner Miss Tredgold called all the girls round her.
+
+"I have something to say," she remarked. "I want you all to go upstairs
+now; don't wait until five minutes before dinner. You will each find
+lying on your bed, ready for wearing, a suitable dinner-blouse. Put it on
+and come downstairs. You will wear dinner-dress every night in future, in
+order to accustom you to the manners of good society. Now go upstairs,
+tidy yourselves, and come down looking as nice as you can."
+
+The girls were all very much excited at the thought of the dinner-blouses.
+They found them, as Aunt Sophia had said, each ready to put on, on their
+little beds. Verena's was palest blue, trimmed daintily with a lot of
+fluffy lace. The sleeves were elbow-sleeves, and had ruffles round them.
+The blouse in itself was quite a girlish one, and suited its fair wearer
+to perfection. Pauline's blouse was cream-color; it also had
+elbow-sleeves, and was very slightly open at the neck.
+
+"Do be quick, Paulie," called out Briar. "I have got a sweet, darling,
+angel of a pink blouse. Get into yours, and I'll get into mine. Oh, what
+tremendous fun this is!"
+
+Briar ran whooping and singing down the corridor. She was met by nurse
+with baby in her arms.
+
+"Now, Miss Rose, what's up?" said the good woman. "You do look happy, to
+be sure. You don't seem to miss the old days much."
+
+"Of course I don't, nursey. I'm twice as happy as I used to be."
+
+"Twice as happy with all them lessons to learn?"
+
+"Yes; twice as happy, and twice as good. She doesn't scold us when we're
+good. In fact, she's just uncommonly nice. And to-night she says she'll
+play and sing to us; and it's so delicious to listen to her! Dad comes
+out of his study just as if she drew him by magic. And I like to learn
+things. I won't be a horrid pig of an ignorant girl any more. You will
+have to respect me in the future, nursey. And there's a darling little
+blouse lying on my bed--pink, like the leaf of a rose. I am to wear it
+to-night. I expect Aunt Sophia chose it because I'm like a rose myself. I
+shall look nice, shan't I, nursey?"
+
+"That's all very well," said nurse. "And for my part I don't object to
+civilized ways, and bringing you up like young ladies; but as to Miss
+Pen, she's just past bearing. New ways don't suit her--no, that they
+don't. She ain't come in yet--not a bit of her. Oh! there she is,
+marching down the corridor as if all the world belonged to her. What have
+you done to yourself, Miss Pen? A nice mess you are in!"
+
+"I thought I'd collect some fresh eggs for your tea, nursey," said the
+incorrigible child; "and I had three or four in my pinafore when I
+dropped them. I am a bit messy, I know; but you don't mind, do you,
+nursey?"
+
+"Indeed, then, I do. Just go straight to the nursery and get washed."
+
+Penelope glanced at Briar with a wry face, and ran away singing out in a
+shrill voice:
+
+                     "Cross patch, draw the latch,
+                     Sit by the fire and spin."
+
+She disappeared like a flash, and nurse followed her, murmuring angrily.
+
+Briar ran into her bedroom. This room she shared with Patty and Adelaide.
+They also were wildly delighted with their beautiful blouses, and had not
+begun to dress when Briar appeared.
+
+"I say, isn't it all jolly?" said Briar. "Oh, Patty, what a duck yours
+is!--white. And Adelaide's is white, too. But don't you love mine? I must
+be a very pretty girl to cause Aunt Sophia to choose such a lovely shade
+of rose. I wonder if I am really a pretty girl. Do stand out of the way;
+I want to stare at myself in the glass."
+
+Briar ran to the dressing-table. There she pushed the glass into such an
+angle that she could gaze contentedly at her features. She saw a small,
+rather round face, cheeks a little flushed, eyes very dark and bright,
+quantities of bright brown curling hair, dark pencilled eyebrows, a
+little nose, and a small pink mouth.
+
+"You are a charming girl, Briar Dale," she said, "worthy of a rose-pink
+blouse. Patty, don't you just love yourself awfully?"
+
+"I don't know," said Patty. "I suppose every one does."
+
+"The Bible says it is very wrong to love yourself," said Adelaide. "You
+ought to love other people and hate yourself."
+
+"Well, I am made the contrary," said Briar. "I hate other people and love
+myself. Who wouldn't love a darling little face like mine? Oh, I am just
+a duck! Help me into my new blouse, Patty."
+
+The three girls, each with the help of the other, managed to array
+themselves even to Briar's satisfaction. She was the neatest and also the
+vainest of the Dales. When she reached the outside corridor she met
+Verena, looking sweet, gentle, and charming in her pale-blue blouse. They
+all ran down to the drawing-room, where Miss Tredgold was waiting to
+receive them. She wore the old black lace dress, which suited her faded
+charms to perfection. She was standing by the open French window, and
+turned as her nieces came in. The girls expected her to make some remark
+with regard to their appearance, but the only thing she said was to ask
+them to observe the exquisite sunset.
+
+Presently Pauline appeared. She looked pale. There were black shadows
+under her eyes, and she was wearing a dirty white shirt decidedly the
+worse for wear. The other girls looked at her in astonishment. Verena
+gave her a quick glance of pain. Verena understood; the others were
+simply amazed. Miss Tredgold flashed one glance at her, and did not look
+again in her direction.
+
+Dinner was announced in quite the orthodox fashion, and the young people
+went into the dining-room. Mr. Dale was present. He was wearing quite a
+decent evening suit. He had not the faintest idea that he was not still
+in the old suit that had lain by unused and neglected for so many long
+years. He had not the most remote conception that Miss Tredgold had taken
+that suit and sent it to a tailor in London and desired him to make by
+its measurements a new suit according to the existing vogue. Mr. Dale put
+on the new suit when it came, and imagined that it was the old one. But,
+scholar as he was, he was learning to appreciate the excellent meals Miss
+Tredgold provided for him. On this occasion he was so human as to find
+fault with a certain entrée.
+
+"This curry is not hot enough," he said. "I like spicy things; don't you,
+Sophia?"
+
+Miss Tredgold thought this an enormous sign of mental improvement. She
+had already spoken to cook on the subject of Mr. Dale's tastes.
+
+"Why, drat him!" was Betty's somewhat indignant answer. "In the old days
+he didn't know sprats from salmon, nor butter from lard. Whatever have
+you done to him, ma'am?"
+
+"I am bringing him back to humanity," was Miss Tredgold's quiet answer.
+
+Betty raised her eyebrows. She looked at Miss Tredgold and said to
+herself:
+
+"So quiet in her ways, so gentle, and for all so determined! Looks as
+though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; yet you daren't so much as
+neglect the smallest little sauce for the poorest little _entrée_ or
+you'd catch it hot. She's a real haristocrat. It's a pleasure to have
+dealings with her. Yes, it's a downright pleasure. When I'm not thinking
+of my favorite 'ero of fiction, the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton, I
+feel that I'm doing the next best thing when I'm receiving the orders of
+her ladyship."
+
+Another of cook's ideas was that Miss Tredgold was a person of title, who
+chose for the present to disguise the fact. She certainly had a
+marvellous power over the erratic Betty, and was turning her into a
+first-rate cook.
+
+"Are you going to give us some of that exquisite music to-night, Sophia?"
+asked Mr. Dale when he had finished his dinner. He looked languidly at
+his sister-in-law.
+
+"On one condition I will," she said. "The condition is this: you are to
+accompany my piano on the violin."
+
+Mr. Dale's face became pale. He did not speak for a minute; then he rose
+and went nimbly on tiptoe out of the room.
+
+There was silence for a short time. The girls and their aunt had migrated
+into the drawing-room. The drawing-room looked sweetly pretty with its
+open windows, its softly shaded lamps, its piano wide open, and the
+graceful figures of the girls flitting about. Even Pauline's ugly blouse
+was forgotten. There was a sense of mystery in the air. Presently in the
+distance came the sound of a fiddle. It was the sound of a fiddle being
+tuned. The notes were discordant; but soon rich, sweeping melodies were
+heard. They came nearer and nearer, and Mr. Dale, still playing his
+fiddle, entered the room. He entered with a sort of dancing measure,
+playing an old minuet as he did so.
+
+Miss Tredgold stepped straight to the piano and without any music, played
+an accompaniment.
+
+"I have won," she thought. "I shall send him away for change of air; then
+the study must be cleaned. I shall be able to breathe then."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NANCY SHOWS HER HAND.
+
+
+It was not until after breakfast on the following morning that Miss
+Tredgold said anything to Pauline about the ugly shirt she had chosen to
+wear on the previous evening.
+
+"My dear," she said then, very gently, "I did not remark on your dress
+last night; but for the future remember that when I say a thing is to be
+done, it is to be done. I had a pretty, suitable blouse put into your
+room for you to appear in last night. Why did you wear that ugly torn
+shirt?"
+
+"I couldn't help myself," said Pauline.
+
+"That is no reason."
+
+Pauline was silent. She looked on the ground. Miss Tredgold also was
+silent for a minute; then she said decisively:
+
+"You will wear the new blouse to-night. Remember, I expect to be obeyed.
+I will say nothing more now about your forgetting my orders last evening.
+Do better in the future and all will be well."
+
+It was with great difficulty that Pauline could keep the tears from her
+eyes. What was to become of her. She did not dare expose her burnt arm;
+she could not possibly wear a blouse with sleeves that reached only to
+the elbow without showing the great burn she had received. If Miss
+Tredgold found out, might she not also find out more? What was she to do?
+
+"What am I to do, Verena?" she said on the afternoon of that same day.
+
+"What do you mean, Paulie? Your arm is better, is it not?"
+
+"Yes; it doesn't hurt quite so much. But how can I wear the new blouse
+to-night?"
+
+"Would it not be wiser," said Verena, "if you were to tell Aunt Sophy
+that you have burnt your arm? It is silly to make a mystery of it."
+
+"But she will make me tell her how I did it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I daren't tell her that. I daren't even tell you."
+
+"What am I to think, Paulie?"
+
+"Anything you like. You are my own sister, and you must not betray me.
+But she must never know. Can't you think of something to get me out of
+this? Oh, dear! what is to be done?"
+
+Verena shook her head.
+
+"I don't know what is to be done," she said, "if you haven't the courage
+to speak the truth. You have probably got into some scrape."
+
+"Oh! I----"
+
+"I am sure you have, Paulie; and the sooner you tell the better. The
+longer you conceal whatever it is, the worse matters will grow."
+
+Pauline's face grew crimson.
+
+"I am exceedingly sorry I told you," she said. "You are not half, nor
+quarter, as nice a sister as you used to be. Don't keep me. I am going
+into the shrubbery to help Penelope to look for Aunt Sophy's thimble."
+
+Verena said nothing further, and Pauline went into the shrubbery.
+
+"I seem to be getting worse," she said to herself. "Of course, I don't
+really want to help Penelope. How should I, when I know where the thimble
+is? There she is, hunting, hunting, as usual. What a queer, unpleasant
+child she is growing!"
+
+Penelope saw Pauline, and ran up to her.
+
+"You might tell me everything to-day," said the child. "Where did you put
+it?"
+
+"I have come to help you to look for it, Pen."
+
+"Don't be silly," was Penelope's answer.
+
+She instantly stood bolt upright.
+
+"There's no use in my fussing any longer," she said. "I've gone round and
+round here, and picked up leaves, and looked under all the weeds. There
+isn't a corner I've left unpoked into. Where's the good of troubling when
+you have it? You know you have it."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind. There! I will tell you the simple truth. I
+have not got the thimble. You may believe me as much as you like."
+
+"Then I'll believe just as much as nothing at all. If you haven't got the
+thimble, you know where it is. I'll give you until this time to-morrow to
+let me have it, and if you don't I'll go straight to Aunt Sophy."
+
+"Now, Pen, you are talking nonsense. You have no proof whatever that I
+have touched the thimble; and what will Aunt Sophia say to a little child
+who trumps up stories about her elder sister?"
+
+"Perhaps she'll be very glad," said Penelope. "I have often thought that
+with such a lot of you grown-up girls, and all of you so very rampagious
+and not a bit inclined to obey or do your lessons nicely, poor Aunt
+Sophy, what is really a dear old duck of a thing, wants some one like me
+to spy round corners and find out what goes on ahind her back. Don't you
+think so? Don't you think her'll love me if I tell her always what goes
+on ahind of her back?"
+
+"If she's a bit decent she'll hate you," said Pauline. "Oh, Pen, how were
+you made? What a queer, queer sort of child you are! You haven't ideas
+like the rest of us."
+
+"Maybe 'cos I'm nicer," said Penelope, not at all impressed by Pauline's
+contempt. "Maybe I shouldn't like to be made same as all you others are.
+There is something wrong about Aunt Sophy's thimble, and if I don't get
+it soon I'll be 'bliged to tell her."
+
+Penelope's eyes looked like needles. She walked away. Pauline gazed after
+her; then she went into the house.
+
+"That thimble is really a very trifling matter," she said to herself,
+"but even that at the present moment annoys me. Nancy has promised to
+bring it back to me this evening, and I will just put it somewhere where
+Pen is sure to find it. Then she'll be in raptures; she'll have her
+penny, and that matter will be set at rest. Oh, dear! it is almost time
+to go and meet Nancy. She must not keep me long, for now that that horrid
+dressing for dinner has begun, it takes quite half an hour to get
+properly tidy. But what am I to do? How can I wear that blouse?"
+
+Pauline waited her chance, and slipped out at the wicket-gate without
+even Penelope's sharp eyes watching her. She found Nancy pacing up and
+down at the other side. Nancy was decidedly cross.
+
+"Why did you keep me waiting?" she said. "It is five minutes past six,
+and I have barely another five minutes to stay with you, and there's a
+lot to talk over."
+
+"I'm in great luck to be able to come at all, Nancy. I didn't think I
+could ever slip away from the others. As to the midnight picnic, we must
+give it up. It is quite impossible for me to come. And I know the others
+won't; they're all getting so fond of Aunt Sophy. What do you think? She
+has given us ponies, and we're to have carriage-horses presently; and we
+are obliged to dress for dinner every evening."
+
+"Oh, you are turning aristocratic, and I hate you," said Nancy, with a
+toss of the head.
+
+She looked intensely jealous and annoyed. She herself was to ride soon,
+and her habit was already being made. She had hoped against hope that
+Miss Tredgold would be impressed by seeing her gallop past in an elegant
+habit on a smart horse.
+
+"Oh, Nancy!" said Pauline, "don't let us talk about ponies and things of
+that sort now; I am in great, great trouble."
+
+"I must say I'm rather glad," said Nancy. "You know, Paulie, you are in
+some ways perfectly horrid. I did a great deal for you the other night,
+and this is all the thanks I get. You won't come to the midnight picnic,
+forsooth! And you won't have anything more to do with me, forsooth!
+You'll ride past me, I suppose, and cut me dead."
+
+"I shall never do anything unkind, for I really do love you, Nancy. I
+have always loved you, but I can't get into fresh scrapes. They're not
+worth while."
+
+"You didn't talk like that when you were mad and starving the other day."
+
+"No, I didn't; but I do now. I have been miserable ever since I came
+back; and, oh, my arm has pained me so badly! You can imagine what I felt
+last evening when we were desired to wear pretty new blouses with
+elbow-sleeves; such sweet little dears as they all were. Mine was
+cream-color--just what suits me best--but of course I couldn't appear in
+it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"With my burnt arm! How could I, Nancy?"
+
+Nancy burst out into a roar of laughter.
+
+"What a lark!" she cried. "Well, and what did the poor little Miss Misery
+do?"
+
+"I had to put on an old dirty shirt, the only one I could find. Aunt
+Sophia gave me no end of a lecture this morning. She says I am to wear my
+new blouse to-night or she'll know the reason why. Of course, I can't
+wear it."
+
+"Then you can't have any dinner?"
+
+"I am absolutely beside myself to know what to do," said Pauline.
+"Sometimes I think I'll go to bed and pretend I have got a headache. Oh,
+dear, what a bad girl I am turning into!"
+
+Nancy laughed again.
+
+"It is sometimes very tiresome to develop a conscience," she said. "You
+were a much nicer girl before that grand aunt of yours arrived to turn
+things topsy-turvy. As to the midnight picnic, you must come. I have made
+a bet on the subject. Jack and Tom say you won't come--that you will be
+afraid. 'Pauline Dale afraid! That's all you know about her,' says I. I
+have assured them that you will come whatever happens, and they have said
+you won't. So the end of it is that Tom, Jack, and I have made a bet
+about it. It is ten shillings' worth either way. If you come, I get three
+beautiful pairs of gloves. If you don't come, I give the boys ten
+shillings. Now you see how important it is. Why, Paulie, of course you
+will come! We are going to have a right-down jolly time, for father is so
+tickled with the notion that he is coming, too; and he says he will give
+us a real good lark. And we are going to Friar's Oak, eight miles away;
+and we are to take hampers full of dainties. And Fiddler Joe will come
+with us to play for us; and there's a beautiful green-sward just under
+the beech-trees by Friar's Oak, and there we'll dance by the full light
+of the moon. Oh, you must come! I told father you were coming, and he was
+awfully pleased--as pleased as Punch--and he said:
+
+"'That's right, my girl; that's right, Nancy. If the Dales stick to me
+through thick and thin, I'll stick to them.'
+
+"You know, Pauline, you have always been at our fun before; so, aunt or
+no aunt, you can't fail us now."
+
+"I'd like to go beyond anything," said Pauline, who felt intensely
+tempted by this description. "It is so horrible to be pulled up short.
+But I know I can't, so there's no use thinking about it."
+
+"You needn't answer me now. I'll come back again. This is Friday night.
+I'll come back on Monday night. The picnic is arranged for Wednesday
+night. Listen, Paulie; you will have to change your mind, for if you
+don't--well!"
+
+"If I don't?"
+
+"I can make it very hot for you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'll come and have a talk with your aunt. There!"
+
+"Oh, Nancy. What about?"
+
+"Such an interesting story, darling! All about our fun that night when
+you burnt your arm--all about our gaiety, and the fireworks, and your
+stealing away as you did, and your stealing back as you did. Oh! I shall
+have a jolly story to tell; and I will tell it, too. She'll turn me away,
+and tell me she'll never see me any more; but what of that? She's done
+that already. I will have my fun; you will have your punishment. That's
+fair enough, isn't it? You don't desert Nancy King for nothing, remember
+that, Pauline, so you had better say at once that you will come. Now, my
+love, I think that is about all."
+
+Nancy's face was very red. She was feeling thoroughly angry. Pauline's
+manner annoyed her past description. She really imagined herself to be
+extremely kind and good-natured to Pauline, and could not endure the
+little girl taking her present high stand.
+
+"I must be going now," she said.
+
+She gave Pauline a nod which was scarcely friendly, but was, at the same
+time, very determined, and was about to run home, when Pauline called
+her.
+
+"Don't go for a minute, Nancy. There's something else. Have you brought
+me back Aunt Sophia's thimble?"
+
+"No, I have not. I have a story to tell you about that, and I was just
+forgetting it. I do hope and trust you won't really mind."
+
+"Oh, what is it? You know I am quite likely to get into a scrape about
+that horrid thimble as well as everything else. What is the story? The
+thimble isn't yours. You surely haven't lost it!"
+
+"Nothing of the kind. You look as though you thought I had stolen it.
+Mean as I am, I am not quite so bad as that. Now let me tell you. Becky,
+poor old girl! saw it. She's always mad about finery of any sort, and her
+people are rich as rich. I had the thimble in my pocket, and she was
+snuggling up close to me in her nice, engaging little fashion, and she
+felt the thimble hard against my side, much as I felt it when it was in
+your pocket. In she slipped her little bit of a white hand and drew it
+out. I never saw any one so delighted over a toy of the sort in all my
+life. It fitted her little finger just to a nicety.
+
+"'Why,' she exclaimed, 'I never, never saw a thimble like this before;
+did you, Nancy?'
+
+"'Guess not,' I answered. 'It's a cunning one, isn't it?'
+
+"She kept turning it round and round, and looking at it, and pressing it
+up to her cheek, and trying to see her own reflection in that wonderful
+sapphire at the bottom of the thimble. Then what do you think happened? I
+own it was a little sharp of her, but of course you can't be so
+unfriendly as to mind. She took the precious little toy and put it into a
+dear, most precious little box, and covered it over with soft, soft
+cotton-wool, and placed a sweet little lid on the top. Dear me, Pauline!
+you needn't open your eyes any wider. And when she had secured the little
+box, she wrapped it in brown paper, and twined it, and sealed it, and
+addressed it to her sister Josephine in London."
+
+"Then she stole it," said Pauline.
+
+"Not a bit of it. What a narrow-minded girl you are! Just hear my story
+out. Becky sent the thimble to Josephine to their house in Bayswater,
+with directions that Josephine was to take it to their jeweller, Paxton,
+and ask him to make another in all particulars precise ditto the same.
+You understand? Precise ditto the same--sapphire, gold, turquoise, and
+all. And this beautiful thimble is to be worn on the dear little middle
+finger of Becky's dear little white hand. When it is faithfully copied
+you will have the original thimble back, my love, but not before. Now,
+then, ta-ta for the present."
+
+Nancy ran off before Pauline had time to reply. She felt stunned. What
+did everything mean? How queer of Nancy to have suddenly turned into a
+perfectly awful girl--a sort of fiend--a girl who had another girl
+completely in her power; who could, and would if she liked, make that
+other girl wretched; who could and would ruin that other girl's life.
+There was a time when the midnight picnic seemed the most delightful
+thing on earth; but it scarcely appeared delightful now to poor Pauline,
+whose head ached, whose arm ached, and whose whole body ached. What was
+she to do?
+
+When she re-entered the shrubbery, her unhappy feelings were by no means
+lightened to see that Penelope was waiting for her. Penelope stood a
+little way off, her feet firmly planted a little apart, her straw hat
+pushed back from her sunburned face, her hands dropped straight to her
+sides.
+
+"I didn't eavesdrop," she said. "I could have easy. There was a
+blackberry briar, and I could have stole under it and not minded the
+scratches, and I could have heard every single word; but I didn't, 'cos
+I'm not mean. But I saw you talking to Nancy, what kind Aunt Sophy says
+you're not to talk to. Perhaps, seeing you has done what is awful wrong,
+you'll give me a penny instead of Aunt Sophy; then I needn't tell her
+that you were talking to Nancy when you oughtn't, and that I think you
+have got the thimble. Will you give me a penny or will you not?"
+
+Pauline put her hand into her pocket.
+
+"You are a most detestable child," she said.
+
+"Think so if you like," said Penelope. "Oh, here's my penny!"
+
+She snatched at the penny which was reposing on Pauline's palm.
+
+"Now I'll go straight off and get John to bring me in some cookies," she
+exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+PAULINE CONFESSES.
+
+
+Pauline was in such a strait that she made up her mind to tell a lie. She
+had never, so far as she could remember, told an actual and premeditated
+lie before. Now matters were so difficult, and there seemed such a
+certainty of there being no other way out, that she resolved to brave the
+consequences and add to her former sin by a desperate, downright black
+lie. Accordingly, just before dinner she ran into Verena's room.
+
+"Renny," she said, "I have made up my mind."
+
+"What about?" asked Verena. "Why, Pauline, you do look bad. Your face is
+as white as a sheet."
+
+"I shall have to explain," continued Pauline. "I am going to tell how I
+got the burn on my arm."
+
+Verena gave a great sigh of relief.
+
+"I am glad," she cried. "It is far better to tell."
+
+"So I think," said Pauline in an airy fashion. "Give me a kiss, Verena; I
+must dress for dinner, and I haven't a moment to lose."
+
+"You will wear your pretty blouse?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Pauline dashed out of the room, banging the door noisily after her.
+
+"I wonder what she means," thought Verena. "She is certainly getting
+rather queer. I am afraid she has a terrible secret on her mind. I am
+glad she means to confess, poor darling! I seem to have less influence
+over her than I used to have, and yet I love no one like Paulie. She is
+all the world to me. I love her far better than the others."
+
+Meanwhile Pauline, with great difficulty, put on her pretty evening-blouse.
+How she hated those elbow-sleeves! How she wished the little soft chiffon
+frills were longer! At another time she would have been delighted with her
+own reflection in the glass, for a cream-colored silk blouse suited her.
+She would have liked to see how well she looked in this new and fashionable
+little garment. She would have been pleased, too, with the size and
+brilliancy of her black eyes. She would have admired that flush which so
+seldom visited her sallow cheeks; she would even have gazed with
+approbation at her pearly-white teeth. Oh, yes, she would have liked
+herself. Now she felt that she hated herself. She turned from the glass
+with a heavy sigh.
+
+Having finished her toilet, she wrapped a soft muslin handkerchief round
+her wounded arm and ran downstairs. Her aunt was already in the
+drawing-room, but to Pauline's relief no one else was present. The little
+girl ran up to her aunt, dropped a curtsy, and looked somewhat
+impertinently into her face.
+
+"Here I am," she said; "and how do I look?"
+
+"You have put on your blouse, Pauline. It suits you. Turn round and let
+me see how it fits at the back. Oh! quite nicely. I told Miss Judson to
+make the blouses in a simple fashion, so that they could be washed again
+and again. But what is the matter, my dear? Your face is very white.
+And--why, my dear Pauline, what is wrong with your arm?"
+
+"I have something to confess, Aunt Sophy. I hope you won't be terribly
+angry."
+
+"Something to confess, my dear child? Well, I am glad you have the
+courage to confess when you do wrong. There is nothing like owning up
+one's faults, Pauline. There is nothing else that really strengthens the
+soul. Well, I am listening, dear. Now, what is it?"
+
+Pauline slowly unfastened the handkerchief which she had bound round her
+arm, and showed the great burn to Miss Tredgold.
+
+Miss Tredgold started, uttered an exclamation, took the little arm in her
+hand, and looked tenderly at the ugly place.
+
+"My poor little girl," she said. "Do you mean that you have been
+suffering from this all this time? But how in the world did it happen?"
+
+"That is what I want to confess. I did something extremely naughty the
+day you kept me in Punishment Land."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"You sent me to bed at seven o'clock."
+
+"Yes; that was part of the punishment."
+
+"Well, I didn't like it. Oh! here comes Verena. Renny, I am confessing my
+sins."
+
+Verena ran up, her face full of anxiety. She put her arm round Pauline's
+waist.
+
+"See how bad her poor arm is," she said, glancing at Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Tredgold, "it is badly hurt; but don't interrupt,
+Verena. I am listening to the story of how Pauline burnt her arm."
+
+"You sent me to bed at seven o'clock," said Pauline, who, now that she
+had embarked on her narrative, felt emboldened and, strange to say,
+almost enjoyed herself. "I could not possibly sleep at seven o'clock, you
+know; so, to amuse myself, I tried on my new white dress; and then I lit
+a candle, drew down the blinds, and looked at myself in the glass. I was
+so pleased! I did look nice; I felt quite conceited."
+
+"You needn't tell me how you felt, Pauline. I want to hear facts, not
+accounts of your feelings. You did wrong to put on your white dress, for
+it had already been fitted on by the dressmaker, and it was being
+carefully kept for Sunday wear. But proceed. After you lit the candle and
+drew down the blinds what happened?"
+
+"A great puff of wind came in through the window, and it blew the blind
+against the candle, and the flame of the candle came towards me, and I
+had my hand up to arrange my hair. I was fastening it up with hairpins to
+make myself look quite grown-up."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And the candle caught my sleeve and set it on fire."
+
+Miss Tredgold now began to look so pale that Verena vaguely wondered if
+she were going to faint. The little culprit, however, stood bolt upright
+and gazed with defiant black eyes at her aunt.
+
+"Yes," said Pauline, "I suffered awful pain, and the sleeve blazed up
+like anything; but I ran to the basin of water and put it out. I was
+afraid to tell you. I had to tell Renny that I had burnt my arm, but I
+didn't tell her how it happened, and I wouldn't allow her to breathe to
+you that I was in pain. That was the reason I could not wear my pretty
+blouse last night, and you were angry with me. I hope you won't be angry
+any more; but the sleeve of the dress is burnt badly. Perhaps you won't
+give me any birthday present because the sleeve of my new dress is so
+much injured."
+
+"I will see about that. The thing is to cure your arm. The doctor must
+come immediately."
+
+"But it is getting better."
+
+"You must see the doctor," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She went out of the room as she spoke. Pauline sank into a chair; Verena
+looked down at her.
+
+"Have you told the truth?" asked Verena suddenly.
+
+Pauline nodded with such a savage quickness that it made her sister
+positively certain that she had not heard the right story.
+
+Miss Tredgold came back in a minute.
+
+"I have sent for Dr. Moffat," she said. "I hope he will be here after
+dinner. My dear child, why didn't you tell me before?"
+
+"Are you going to forgive me?" faltered Pauline. "I--I almost think I'd
+rather you didn't."
+
+"You are a very queer child, and I may as well tell you frankly you are
+talking nonsense. You did wrong, of course, to put on the white dress;
+but I think, my dear, your sufferings have been your punishment. We will
+say no more now about the burnt sleeve. Fortunately I have plenty of the
+same muslin in the house, and the mischief can be quickly repaired. Now,
+dear, lie back in that chair. No; you are not to come in to dinner. It
+shall be sent to you here on a tray."
+
+For the rest of the evening Pauline was so pitied and fussed over, and
+made so thoroughly comfortable, that she began to think the black, black
+lie she had uttered quite a good thing.
+
+"Here am I half out of my scrape," she thought. "Now, if I can only
+persuade Nancy not to force us to go to that midnight picnic, and not to
+tell if we don't go, and if I can get the thimble back, I shall be once
+more as happy as the day is long. This wicked black lie shall not
+frighten me. There is no other way out. I cannot possibly tell the truth.
+What would Nancy think if I did?"
+
+The doctor came. He ordered a healing lotion for the arm; he also felt
+the pulse of the little patient. He declared her to be slightly feverish,
+and ordered her to bed.
+
+Half the next day Pauline stayed in her comfortable bed. She was fed with
+dainties by Aunt Sophia, was not expected to learn any lessons, and was
+given a fascinating story-book to wile away the time. During the morning,
+when she was not engaged in the schoolroom, Miss Tredgold stayed by the
+little girl's side, and mended the burnt dress, cutting out a new sleeve
+and putting it in with deft, clever fingers.
+
+Pauline watched her as one fascinated. As she looked and observed the
+graceful figure, the kindly expression of the eyes, and the noble pose of
+the head, there stole over her desolate little heart a warm glow. She
+began to love Aunt Sophia. When she began to love her she began also to
+hate herself.
+
+"I don't want to love her a bit," thought the child. "I want quite to
+detest her. If I love her badly--and perhaps I may--it will make things
+that must happen much more difficult."
+
+Aunt Sophia left the room. She came back presently with a dainty jelly
+and some home-made biscuits. She put an extra pillow at Pauline's back,
+and placed the little tray containing the tempting food in front of her.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Paulie?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"About how nice you are," answered the child; and then she added, "I
+don't want you to be nice."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I don't. I can't tell you more than just I don't."
+
+Miss Tredgold said nothing more. She resumed her work, and Pauline ate
+her jelly.
+
+"Aunt Sophy," she said presently, "I want to be awfully good at my
+lessons next week. I want to learn real desperate hard. I want to turn
+into a very clever girl. You'd like me to be clever, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Provided you are not conceited with it," said Aunt Sophia in her abrupt
+way.
+
+"Perhaps I should be," said Pauline. "I was always thought rather smart.
+I like people to call me smart. You don't want me to turn stupid because
+I may get conceited."
+
+"No, dear; I want you to be natural. I want you to try very hard to be
+learned, to be good, to be a lady. I want you to be the sort of woman
+your mother would have wished you to be had she lived. I want you to grow
+up strong in mind and strong in body. I want you to be unselfish. I want
+you to look upon life as a great gift which you must not abuse, which you
+must make use of. I want you, Paulie, and your sisters to be the best in
+every sense of that great word. You will fail. We all fail at times; but
+there is forgiveness for each failure if you go to the right and only
+source. Have I said enough?"
+
+"Yes," said Pauline in a low voice.
+
+Her conscience was pricking her. She lowered her eyes; the long black
+lashes trembled with tears. Miss Tredgold stooped and kissed her.
+
+"I hear Briar in the garden," she said. "I will send her up to you. Be as
+merry as you please with her, and forget my words for the present."
+
+Pauline got up in time for late dinner. She was, of course, excused
+wearing her dinner-blouse, and was still treated somewhat as an invalid.
+But on Sunday morning she was so much better that she was able to wear
+her white dress, and able also to join her sisters in the garden.
+
+They all went to the pretty little church in the next village, and Miss
+Tredgold accompanied them.
+
+Looking back on it afterwards, that Sunday always seemed to Pauline like
+an exquisite dream of peace. Her lie did not press at all against her
+heart. The discomfort of it was for the time in abeyance. She tried to
+forget Miss Tredgold's ideal girl; she was happy without knowing why. She
+was happy, but at the same time she was quite well aware of the fact that
+her happiness would come to an end on Sunday night. She was quite certain
+that on Monday morning her grave and terrible troubles would begin. She
+would have to see Nancy. She would have to decide with regard to the
+midnight picnic. There was no joy for Pauline in the thought of that
+picnic now, but she dared not stay away from it, for if she did Nancy
+would have her way. Nancy's temper, quick and hot as a temper could be,
+would blaze up. She would come to Miss Tredgold and tell her everything.
+If it had been awful to Pauline's imagination to think of Miss Tredgold
+knowing the truth before, what would it be to her now after the lie she
+had told?
+
+"I must coax Nancy," thought the little girl to herself. "I must tell her
+that I can't go to the picnic, and I must implore her not to tell. Oh,
+what shall I do? How shall I persuade her?"
+
+On Sunday morning, therefore, notwithstanding her promises, Pauline was
+inattentive at lessons. But Miss Tredgold was not inclined to be
+over-severe. The doctor had said that the child had not only been badly
+burnt, but had also received a nervous shock. He had further added that
+the more liberty she was given, and the more fresh air just at present,
+the better.
+
+Accordingly Pauline was sent into the garden long before the others had
+finished their lessons. She presently sat down under the shade of a tree.
+She was not to meet Nancy till six o'clock.
+
+By-and-by Penelope came out, saw her sister, and ran towards her.
+
+"Have you got the thimble?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I haven't. I don't know anything about the thimble. What do
+you mean?"
+
+Alas for Pauline! Her first lie had made her second easy.
+
+Penelope looked at her in puzzled wonder.
+
+"I thought you did know about it," she said, disappointment stealing over
+her shrewd little face.
+
+"I don't know anything about it. Don't worry me."
+
+"You are so cross that I'm sure you have done something desperate
+naughty," said Penelope. "I want to find out what it is, and I don't want
+to stay with you. I think you are horrid."
+
+She marched away defiantly, her squat little figure and bare legs looking
+so comical that Pauline burst out laughing.
+
+"What am I coming to?" she said to herself. "This is lie number two. Oh,
+dear! I feel just as if a net were surrounding me, and the net was being
+drawn tighter each moment, and I was being dragged into a pit out of
+which there is no escape. What shall I do?"
+
+Just then Mr. Dale, who seldom left the house, appeared in view. He was
+walking slowly, his hands thrust into his pockets, his head bent forward;
+he was murmuring some sentences of his beloved Virgil to himself. He took
+no notice of Pauline. He did not even see her. Neither did he notice the
+chair in which she was sitting. He came bang up against her before he
+knew that she was there.
+
+"What have I done?" he exclaimed. "Oh, it is you, Pauline! How
+inconsiderate of you to sit like this on the lawn!"
+
+"But we always sit on the chairs, dad," said Pauline, springing to her
+feet.
+
+He forgot that he had made the remark. He laid his hand on her shoulder.
+
+"I have been having a delightful time," he said--"truly a delightful
+time. All this morning I have been in contact with noble thoughts. My
+child, can you realize, even dimly, what it is to dip into those mines of
+wealth--those mines of illimitable wisdom and greatness and strength and
+power? Oh, the massiveness of the intellects of the old classic writers!
+Their lofty ideas with regard to time and eternity--where can their like
+be found?"
+
+Pauline yawned.
+
+"Are you tired?" asked her father.
+
+"No--only worried," she answered.
+
+She did not know why she made the latter remark; but at the same time she
+was perfectly well aware that anything she said to her father was safe,
+as he would absolutely forget it in the course of the next minute. He was
+roused now from his visions of the past by a certain pathos in the little
+face. He put his arm round the child and drew her to him.
+
+"My dear, pretty little girl," he said.
+
+"Am I pretty?" asked Pauline.
+
+He gazed at her out of his short-sighted eyes.
+
+"I think not," he said slowly. "I was imagining you were Verena, or
+perhaps Briar. Briar is certainly very pretty. No, Pauline, you are not
+pretty; you are plain. But never mind; you have perhaps got"--he put a
+finger on each temple--"you have perhaps got something greater."
+
+"It doesn't matter if you are plain or not," said Pauline almost crossly,
+"when you are awfully worried."
+
+"But what worries you, my child? I would not have one so young subjected
+to worries. My dear, is it possible that you already are perplexed with
+the ways of this present life? Truly, I am scarcely surprised. The life
+we lead in these degenerate days is so poor; the giants have left the
+earth, and only the pigmies are left. Don't worry about life, child; it
+isn't worth while."
+
+"I am not," said Pauline bluntly. "I am worrying because----"
+
+"Because of what, dear?"
+
+"Because I am going to be desperately naughty."
+
+Mr. Dale shook his head slowly.
+
+"I wouldn't," he said. "It is very uncomfortable and wrong, and it
+sullies the conscience. When the conscience gets sullied the nature goes
+down--imperceptibly, perhaps, but still it goes down. If your worry is an
+affair of the conscience, take it to Him who alone can understand you."
+
+Pauline looked at her father with awed astonishment.
+
+"You mean God?" she said. "Will He help me?"
+
+"Certainly He will. He is the Great Deliverer, and His strength is as
+immeasurable as it ever was. He gave power to the martyrs to go through
+the flames. He will help a little, weak girl if she asks Him. Oh, my
+dear, it has struck twelve! I have lost a quarter of an hour. Don't keep
+me another moment."
+
+The scholar and dreamer hurried to the house. Long before he got there he
+had forgotten Pauline and her childish worries. She was going to be
+desperately naughty. He certainly no longer remembered those words.
+
+Meanwhile the child stayed behind with her hands clasped.
+
+"I wish he had told me more," she said to herself. "I don't believe God
+could put this straight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE NET.
+
+
+On Monday Pauline's troubles began over again. She ought to have been
+very happy on this special day, for the birthday--the great, important
+birthday, her very own, when she would reach the completion of her
+fourteenth year--was near at hand. But although Pauline was perplexed and
+unhappy, there was nevertheless a birthday feeling in the air. In the
+first place, there was a great and exciting sense of mystery. The girls
+were seen darting quickly here and there; in every imaginable corner
+there were whispered consultations. Aunt Sophia, in particular, never
+looked at Pauline without smiling. She was kindness itself. It seemed to
+the poor little girl that her aunt had taken a great fancy to her. This
+was the case. Miss Tredgold was interested in all her nieces, but even
+Verena with her daintiness and pretty face, and Briar with her most
+charming personality, did not attract Miss Tredgold as did the
+blunt-looking, almost plain child who called herself Pauline.
+
+"She has got character and independence," thought the good lady. "She
+will be something by-and-by. She will always be able to hold her own in
+the world. She is the kind of girl who could do much good. It hurt me
+very much to send her into Punishment Land, but she is all the better for
+it. Oh, yes, she must taste the rough as well as the smooth if she is to
+be worth anything. She will be worth a good deal; of that I am
+convinced."
+
+Miss Tredgold, therefore, had compassion on Pauline's late indisposition,
+and made lessons as easy as possible for her. Thus Pauline had very
+little to do, except to think of that mystery which was growing thicker
+and thicker. In one way it helped her own dilemma. With her sisters
+walking in twos and threes all over the place, it would not be at all
+remarkable for her to slip down at the appointed hour to the wicket-gate.
+Even Penelope would not notice her, so absorbed was she in assisting
+Adelaide to make a special present for Pauline.
+
+As the day advanced the little girl became terribly nervous. She felt a
+sense of irritation when one of her sisters looked at her, whispered to
+her companion, and then turned away. She would almost have preferred Miss
+Tredgold to be as stern as she was before. Her whole mind was in a state
+of tumult. She felt the net closing tighter and tighter around her. Even
+the birthday was scarcely interesting while such a weight rested on her
+heart. Miss Tredgold had said during the afternoon as they were all
+sitting together on the lawn:
+
+"This is to be a great birthday. This is the very first birthday I have
+spent under your roof. You must all remember it as long as you live."
+
+"Oh, can I ever forget it?" thought poor Pauline. "But Aunt Sophy little
+knows that I shall not remember it for its kindness and its sunshine and
+its presents; I shall remember it always because I am such a wicked
+girl."
+
+Now as evening approached she could not help whispering to herself:
+
+"The net is closing--closing round me. It is gathering me up into a heap.
+My legs and arms are tied. Soon the wicked, dreadful thing will press my
+head down, and I shall be powerless and lost."
+
+She thought out this metaphor, and it seemed to haunt her footsteps.
+
+"It is right that a girl who told a black lie should be cramped up in
+it," thought Pauline. "Oh, why hadn't I courage to tell Aunt Sophy the
+truth? She might have been angry, but in the end she would have forgiven
+me. I would far rather have no notice whatever taken of my birthday than
+be as miserable as I am now."
+
+"That child isn't well," said Miss Tredgold to Verena, as Pauline was
+seen slowly creeping in a subdued sort of way in the direction of the
+lower shrubbery. "Why is she always stealing off by herself? I have a
+good mind to call her back and take her for a drive. It is a lovely
+evening, and a drive would do her good."
+
+"So it would, Aunt Sophy. You know how busy all the rest of us are
+finishing her presents. I am sure she would love to drive with you, for I
+think she is getting very fond of you."
+
+"Perhaps, my dear; but I have made up my mind not to have favorites. As
+long as you are all good I shall love you all.--Pauline--yes, Verena, I
+shall offer her a drive--Pauline, come here."
+
+Pauline hated to be called back, but she could not do otherwise than
+obey. She approached lingeringly.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Sophy," she said.
+
+"Would you like to take a drive with me? We might go and find out how
+soon Peas-blossom and Lavender will be ready to come to their new home."
+
+At another time such a request on the part of Miss Tredgold would have
+enraptured Pauline; but she knew that it only wanted five minutes to six,
+and she doubted if Nancy would consent to be kept waiting long.
+
+"No," she answered slowly; "my head aches. Please, I would rather not
+take a drive."
+
+She did not wait for Miss Tredgold's response, but continued her slow
+walk.
+
+"The poor child is certainly ill," said the good lady. "If she continues
+to look as poorly and as sadly out of sorts next week I shall take her to
+the seaside."
+
+"Will you, Aunt Sophy? How lovely! Do you know that Paulie and I have
+never been to the sea? We do so long to see it!"
+
+"Well, my dear, I shall take you all presently, but I can't say when.
+Now, as Pauline does not want to drive with me, I shall go into the house
+and finish some of my arrangements."
+
+Miss Tredgold went indoors, and Verena joined Briar and Patty, who were
+in a great state of excitement.
+
+Meanwhile Pauline had reached the wicket-gate. She opened it and went
+out. Nancy was waiting for her. Nancy's cheeks were flushed and her eyes
+bright. She looked as if she had been quarreling with somebody. Pauline
+knew that look well. Nancy's two friends Becky and Amy were standing at a
+little distance. There was a small governess-cart drawn up not far away,
+and Becky was stroking the nose of a rough little Forest pony.
+
+"Father gave me the cart and pony this morning," said Nancy. "There's
+nothing he wouldn't do for me. The pony and cart aren't much, perhaps,
+but still it is fun to have them to fly over the place. Well, and how
+goes her little high-and-mightiness? Frumpy, I can see. Grumpy, I can
+guess. Now, is Pauline glad to see poor old Nance--eh?"
+
+"Of course, Nancy; but I have come to say----"
+
+"We'll have no 'buts,' darling, if you please."
+
+"I can't come to the picnic, Nancy; I really cannot."
+
+"How white poor little Dumpy looks! Wants some one to cheer her up, or
+she'll be dumped and frumped and grumped all in one. Now, darling, I'm
+going to put my arm round your waist. I am going to feel your little
+heart go pit-a-pat. You shall lean against me. Isn't that snug? Doesn't
+dear old Nancy count for something in your life?"
+
+"Of course you do, Nancy. I am fond of you. I have always said so,"
+replied Pauline.
+
+"Then you will yield, darling, to the inevitable."
+
+"I am yielding to it now," replied Pauline. "I am not going with you
+because I can't."
+
+"And you are going with me because you must," Nancy responded. "For
+listen, Pauline. Although I am affectionate, I can be--oh, yes--dangerous.
+And if you don't come, why, I can keep my word. Wednesday is your
+birthday. I wonder when the crown of the day will come?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, there always is a crown to a birthday. There is a time, either in
+the evening or in the morning, when the queen receives the homage of her
+subjects. She gets her presents, and there are pretty speeches made to
+her, and she has her dainty feast and her crown of flowers. Yes, that
+time is the crown of the day, and that is just the moment when the poor
+little queen shall topple down. The throne shall be knocked from under
+her; the presents will vanish; the sovereignty will cease to exist. Poor,
+poor little queen without a kingdom! How will you like it, Paulie? Do you
+think you could bear it? To have no kingdom and no crown and no presents
+and no love, and to be bitterly disgraced as well! How will you like it,
+Paulie?"
+
+"I know that you can do all that you say," answered Pauline. "I know you
+can be dreadful, and everything is against me. You can ruin me if you
+like, but I want you not to do it, Nancy."
+
+"And if you don't come with us I want to do it, dear; and I rather think
+that my will is stronger than yours."
+
+"But if it kills me?"
+
+"It won't do that, Paulie. You will feel bad, and, oh! as though somebody
+had crushed you; but you won't die. There's only one way out."
+
+Pauline was silent.
+
+"It is quite an easy way," continued Nancy. "It is easy and safe, and
+there's a deal of fun to be got out of it. You have got to come to the
+picnic. Once you are there you will enjoy yourself tremendously. I
+promise to get you home in the morning. You will come, and you will bring
+two of your sisters with you. Two will be enough. I have yielded that
+point. You will meet us here, at this very spot, at eleven o'clock on
+Wednesday night. We are going some distance away, so that no one in the
+neighborhood of The Dales need hear our singing and our fun and our
+jollity. We will come back before daybreak and deposit you just outside
+the wicket-gate. You may think it very unpleasant just now, and very mean
+and all the rest, but it is the only possible way to save yourself. You
+must come to the picnic, and bring two of your sisters."
+
+"But suppose they won't come?"
+
+"They will if you manage things properly. It needn't be Verena. I expect
+Verena, for all she is so soft and fair, is a tough nut to crack; but you
+can bring Briar and Patty. My father will be quite satisfied if three of
+you are present. The fact is, he is awfully hurt at the thought of your
+all thinking yourselves too good for us. He says that the Dales and the
+Kings were always friends. My father is a dear old man, but he has his
+cranks, and he has made up his mind that come you must, or he'll make
+mischief. It won't be only me; it will be my father as well. He will
+appear at The Dales, and if I go straight to Miss Tredgold, he will go
+straight to Mr. Dale. Now, what do you think of that? I am determined to
+have you for reasons of my own, and I shall poke up my father to do no
+end of mischief if you don't appear. Now don't be a goose. Get up a
+little dash of courage and a little dash of your old spirit and
+everything will be as straight as possible."
+
+Pauline stood quite still. Nancy danced in front of her. Nancy's face was
+almost malicious in its glee. Pauline looked at it as a child will look
+when despair clutches at her heart.
+
+"I didn't know--I couldn't guess--that you were like that," she said in a
+sort of whisper.
+
+"Couldn't you, dear little duckledoms? Well, you do know it now; and you
+know also how to act. Don't you see by the lines round my mouth and the
+expression in my eyes that I can be hard as hard when I please? I am
+going to be very hard now. My honor is involved in this. I promised that
+you would be there. There are presents being bought for you. Come you
+must; come you shall."
+
+Pauline stood quite silent; then she flung her arms to her sides and
+faced her tormentor.
+
+"There was a time," she said slowly, "when I loved you, Nancy. But I
+don't love you now. By-and-by, perhaps, you will be sorry that you have
+lost my love, for I think--yes, I think it is the sort that doesn't come
+back. I don't love you to-night because you are cruel, because you have
+already got me into a scrape, and you want to push me into a yet deeper
+one. I am not the sort of girl you think me. However grand and stately
+and like a lady Aunt Sophia is--and compared to you and me, Nancy, she is
+very stately and very grand and very noble--I would not give you up. Aunt
+Sophy is a lady with a great brave heart, and her ideas are up-in-the-air
+ideas, and she doesn't know anything about mean and low and vulgar
+things. I'd have clung to you, Nancy, and always owned you as my friend,
+even if Aunt Sophy had taken me into good society. Yes, I'd have stuck to
+you whatever happened; but now"--Pauline pressed her hand to her
+heart--"everything is altered. You are cruel, and I don't love you any
+more. But I am in such trouble, and so completely in despair, that I will
+come to the picnic; and if I can bring two of the girls, I will. There is
+nothing more to say. You may expect us at eleven o'clock on Wednesday
+night."
+
+"But there is more to say," cried Nancy.
+
+She flew at Pauline, and before she could stop her Nancy had lifted the
+younger girl into her strong arms. She had not only lifted her into her
+arms, but she was running with her in the direction where Becky and Amy
+were minding the pony.
+
+"Hurrah! I have won!" she cried. "She yields. Come and kiss her, the
+little duck.--Pauline, you silly, if you don't love me, I love you; and
+you will soon find out for yourself what a good time you are going to
+have, and what a goose you have made of yourself with all this ridiculous
+fuss. What a grand birthday you are going to have, Paulie! A birthday for
+a whole twenty-four hours--a whole day and a whole night! Remember, there
+will be presents, there will be surprises, there will be love, there will
+be sweetness. Trust us, you will never get into a scrape for this. Now
+run along home as fast as you can."
+
+Pauline did not run. She closed the wicket-gate and walked soberly to the
+house. Strange as it may seem, once she had made her decision, the fact
+that she was to deceive her aunt, and do the thing that of all others
+would fill Aunt Sophia with horror, did not pain her. The conflict was
+over; she must rest now until the time came to go. She was a clever
+child, and she thought out the situation with wonderful clearness. She
+must go. There was no help for it. The sin must be sinned. After all,
+perhaps, it was not such a very great sin. Aunt Sophia would be happier
+if she never knew anything at all about it.
+
+"If I go she will never know," thought the child. "Nancy is clever, and
+now that I have yielded to her she will not fail me. If I go it will
+never be discovered, and what has happened before will never be
+discovered; and Aunt Sophy will never have reason to distrust me, for she
+will never know. Yes," thought Pauline, "it is the only possible way."
+
+She saw Penelope coming to meet her. The other girls were still busy with
+their birthday surprises, but Penelope had just deposited her own small
+and somewhat shabby present in Verena's keeping, and was now, as she
+expressed it, taking the air. When she saw Pauline she ran to meet her.
+
+"I suppose you are feeling yourself monstrous 'portant, and all that sort
+of thing," she said.
+
+"No, I am not," said Pauline.
+
+Penelope gave her a quick glance out of her sharp eyes.
+
+"Does you like me to be nursery or schoolroom child?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, I like you to be just what you are, Pen; and I do beg of you not to
+worry me just now."
+
+"You is most ungrateful. I has been spending my teeny bit of money on
+you. You will know what I has done on your birthday. You are going to get
+a most 'licious present, and it will be I who has gived it to you.
+Sometimes I does wish I was two years older; but Aunt Sophy has got
+monstrous fond of me, Paulie, and of you, too. I know it. Shall I tell
+you how I know it?"
+
+"How?" asked Pauline.
+
+"I was standing near her when you said you wouldn't go for a drive, and
+she gave a big sigh, just as though she was hurted. I was hurted, too,
+for I thought I might perhaps sit on the little back-seat and hear more'n
+is good for me. People always say that little girls like me hear more'n
+is good for them. I love--I love hearing things of that wicked sort.
+Well, you didn't go, and I couldn't have my nice drive on the little
+back-seat. But Aunt Sophy did give a pained sigh. She loves you, does
+Aunt Sophy. She loves me, too."
+
+"Do you love me, Pen?" said Pauline suddenly, for it occurred to her that
+perhaps Penelope was the child who would have to accompany her to the
+midnight picnic. She knew enough of Penelope to be sure that she could be
+bribed. She was not so certain about the others.
+
+"Do you love me, Pen?" she repeated.
+
+"When you speak in that softy, sympathisy voice, I feel that I could just
+hug you," said Penelope.
+
+"Then would you really help me?"
+
+"Really and really. What am I to do? If you will whisper secrets to me, I
+will even forget that I am certain you know something most 'portant about
+that thimble, and I will cling to you like anything. You will be the oak,
+and I will be the ivy. It will be most lovely to be the close friend of
+the birthday queen. I do--oh, I do hope you are going to tell me a great
+secret!"
+
+"Perhaps I am, but I can't tell you now."
+
+"When will you tell me?"
+
+"If I ever tell you, it will be before midday on my birthday. Now run
+away. Don't whisper a word of this."
+
+"Not me," said Penelope. "I was borned to keep secrets."
+
+She marched away in her usual stalwart fashion.
+
+"I may have to take her with me," thought Pauline again. "If the others
+won't be bribed, I must fall back on her."
+
+She felt a curious sense of relief, for of course Penelope could be
+bribed. A shilling would do it. Penelope would go to the end of the earth
+for a shilling, particularly if it was given to her all in pence. Twelve
+separate pence would send Penelope off her head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CONFERENCE.
+
+
+It was late on the following evening when Pauline found herself alone
+with Briar and Patty. Both these little girls had plenty of character;
+but perhaps Patty had more of that estimable quality than her sister.
+They were both straightforward by nature, upright and noble, and were
+already benefiting by the discipline which had at last come into their
+lives. The glories of the birthday which was so near were already
+beginning to shed some of their rays over Pauline, and her sisters felt
+themselves quite honored by her company.
+
+"To think," said Briar, "that you are really only Paulie! I can scarcely
+bring myself to believe it."
+
+"Why so?" asked Pauline.
+
+"In twelve hours' time--in less--you will be a queen."
+
+"It is rather like the Lord Mayor," said Patty. "It's all very grand, but
+it lasts for a very short time. Aunt Sophy was telling us to-day about
+the Lord Mayor and the great, tremendous Show, and I began to think of
+Pauline and her birthday. I could not help myself. It is a pity that a
+birthday should only last such a very short time!"
+
+"Yes, that is the worst of it," said Pauline. "But then it comes every
+year. Perhaps it is all for the best that it should have a quick come and
+a quick go. Of course, I shall be very happy to-morrow, but I dare say I
+shall be glad when the next day arrives."
+
+"Not you," said Briar. "I have known what the next day meant, even when
+we had only shilling birthdays. The others used to cry out, 'Your
+birthday is the farthest off now.' I used to keep my head covered under
+the bedclothes rather than hear them say it. Adelaide and Josephine
+always said it. But don't let's get melancholy over it now," continued
+Briar in a sympathetic tone. "When you lie down to-night you won't be
+able to sleep much; but you will sleep like a top to-morrow night. I
+expect you will wake about every two minutes to-night. Oh, it is exciting
+the night before a birthday! Even when we had shilling birthdays I used
+to wake the night before every few minutes. Once I got up at four o'clock
+in the morning. I went out. I had a cold afterwards, and a bad sore
+throat, but I never told anybody how I got it. If I was excited about my
+poor little birthday, what will you be to-morrow?"
+
+"I don't know," said Pauline. "Listen, girls. I am so excited in one
+sense that I couldn't be any more so. I am so excited that I'm not
+excited. Can you understand what I mean?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I can't a bit," said Briar.
+
+"And it's quite likely," continued Pauline, "that I shall have no sleep
+at all the night after my birthday."
+
+"What do you mean now?" asked Briar.
+
+Pauline looked mysterious. The two girls glanced at her. Suddenly Pauline
+put one arm around Briar's neck and the other arm round Patty's neck.
+
+"You are the nicest of us all--that is, of course, except Verena," she
+said. "I have always been fonder of you two than of Adelaide or Josephine
+or Helen or Lucy. As to Pen, well, I don't suppose any of us feel to Pen
+as we do to the rest. She is so different. Yes, I love you two. I love
+you just awfully."
+
+"It is sweet of you to say that; and, seeing that you are to have a
+birthday so soon, it makes us feel sort of distinguished," said Briar.
+
+"How old are you, Briar?"
+
+"I'll be thirteen next May. That's a long time off. I do wish my birthday
+had waited until Aunt Sophy came on the scene."
+
+"And my birthday comes in the winter," said Patty--"near Christmas; but I
+dare say Aunt Sophy will give us a good time then, too."
+
+"I do like her awfully," said Pauline. "Now, girls, I want to ask you a
+question. I know you won't tell, for you are not the sort to tell."
+
+"Of course we won't tell, Paulie."
+
+"And you love me, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," echoed both little girls.
+
+"This is my question. If I do something that is not just exactly
+absolutely right, will you still love me?"
+
+"Why, of course. We're not so wonderfully good ourselves," said Briar.
+
+"I know what you are thinking of," said Patty. "You are thinking of
+Punishment Day. But we have forgotten all about that."
+
+"I was thinking of Punishment Day. And now I want to say something. I
+want to make the most tremendous confidence. I want to tell you the most
+tremendous secret."
+
+"Oh!" echoed both.
+
+"Light that candle, Briar," said Pauline.
+
+Briar crossed the room, struck a match, lit the candle, and then turned
+to see what her darling Paulie wished further.
+
+"Bring it right over here," said Pauline. "Put it on this table."
+
+Briar did so.
+
+"Kneel down, Briar, so that the light from the candle falls full on your
+face."
+
+Briar knelt. Her eyes were beaming with happiness.
+
+"Look at me," said Pauline.
+
+Briar raised two honest and pretty brown eyes to her sister's face.
+
+"I think," said Pauline slowly, "that you are the sort of girl to make a
+promise--a solemn, awfully solemn promise--and stick to it."
+
+"Yes; you are right. I am made that way," said Briar proudly.
+
+"I see you are. Patty, will you kneel so that the candle may shine on
+your face?"
+
+Patty hurried to obey.
+
+"I am made like that, too," she said. "I always was like that. When I
+said I wouldn't tell, you might pinch me black and blue, but it didn't
+change me. Pen has tried to run pins into me sometimes to make me tell.
+Pen is the only one who would tell when she promised not."
+
+"I think so," said Pauline decidedly. "Pen would not do at all. Girls, I
+shall come to you to-morrow evening. To-morrow evening, very late, I will
+come to you here. Perhaps you will have gone to bed, but that won't
+matter. I will come to you whether you are in bed or whether you are up;
+and I will claim your promise. You will do what I ask, and you will
+never, never, never tell. You must help me. You will--oh, you will!"
+
+"Of course," said Briar. "Darling Paulie, don't cry. Oh, how the pet is
+trembling! Patty, she's trembling like anything. Do kiss her and hug her,
+and tell her there's nothing we wouldn't do for her."
+
+"There's nothing in all the world we wouldn't do for you," said Patty.
+
+They both kissed her so often and with such deep affection that she found
+herself leaning on their innocent strength. She would not tell them yet;
+she would tell them just before the time to-morrow evening. Of course
+they would go with her. Pen would never do. It would be madness to
+confide in Pen.
+
+Notwithstanding her excitement Pauline did sleep soundly that night
+before her birthday. No sooner had her head touched the pillow than sweet
+unconsciousness visited her. She slept without dreaming, and was at last
+awakened by the shouts of her sisters.
+
+"Paulie, get up. It's your birthday. Oh, do dress yourself fast! There's
+such a lot of fun going on! We are to have a whole holiday, and Aunt
+Sophy is so delightful. And what do you think? She has dragged father out
+of his study, and he is standing in the very middle of the lawn. He has a
+huge, untidy-looking parcel in his hands, and he looks as if he didn't in
+the least know what to do with it. He is trying each moment to escape
+back into the house, but Aunt Sophy won't let him. She says he must not
+stir until you come down. Poor father does look in misery. Be quick and
+dress and come downstairs."
+
+At this moment there was a shout from below, and the three girls who had
+summoned Pauline from the land of dreams rushed off, dashing through the
+house with whoops of triumph.
+
+Pauline rose and dressed quickly. She put on the pretty pale lavender
+print frock that Aunt Sophia had decided she was to wear, and went
+downstairs. When she joined the others Mr. Dale greeted her with one of
+his slow, sweet smiles.
+
+"How are you, darling?" he said. "I have a sort of idea that I am kept
+standing here on this lawn, exposed to the heat of a very powerful sun,
+on your account."
+
+"Of course it is on Pauline's account, Henry," said Miss Sophia. "It is
+her birthday. Kiss me, Pauline, dear. Many happy returns of the day.
+Henry, give your daughter her present. She is fourteen to-day."
+
+"Fourteen! Ah!" said Mr. Dale, "a charming age. The ancients considered a
+woman grown-up at fourteen."
+
+"But no one is so silly in these days," said Miss Tredgold. "We know that
+a girl is never more childish than at fourteen. Henry, open that parcel
+and give Pauline what it contains."
+
+Mr. Dale dropped the brown-paper parcel at his feet. He looked at it in
+bewilderment.
+
+"It is heavy," he said. "I haven't the least idea what is in it."
+
+"It is your present to your daughter."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Dale, "I forgot; and I packed it myself last night. My
+child, I wonder if you are worthy of it."
+
+"I don't suppose I am, father," said Pauline.
+
+"For goodness' sake open it, Henry, and don't torture the child's
+feelings."
+
+"I put it in an old bandbox," said Mr. Dale. "I couldn't find anything
+else. Pauline, in giving you what I am about to give you, I show a high
+appreciation of your character. I remember now what my present is. I had
+an awful night in consequence of it. I felt as though one of my limbs was
+being severed from my body. Nevertheless, my dear, I don't retract nor go
+back, for that is not my way. I give you this most noble gift with a
+distinct object. I have lately been examining all your foreheads.
+Although I have appeared to take little notice of you, I have watched you
+as day by day I have enjoyed the excellent food provided by your most
+worthy aunt. While my body was feeding, my mind was occupying itself, and
+I have at last come to the decision that you, my child, are the only one
+of my young people who has been blessed with a classical brow. As yet you
+have not even begun to learn the language of the ancients; but now that
+you have reached the mature age of fourteen, I shall be pleased to
+instruct you myself for one hour daily, in both that Latin and Greek
+which delighted our forefathers."
+
+"But the Romans and Greeks were not our forefathers," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She snapped out the words quite angrily, and the look on her aunt's face
+caused Pauline to go closer to her father and take one of his long white
+hands and hold it close to her heart.
+
+"It doesn't matter whether we are descended from them or not, does it,
+Padre?" she said.
+
+"All that is noble in thought, all that is original, all that partakes of
+inspiration, has come down to us from the classics," said Mr. Dale. "But
+take your gift, Pauline. Now, my dear children, I beseech of you, don't
+keep me any longer from my important work."
+
+He was striding towards the house, when Verena got in front of him, Briar
+stood at his left hand, Patty at his right, and Adelaide, Josephine,
+Lucy, Helen, and Penelope came up in the rear.
+
+"You don't stir," they cried, "until Paulie opens her parcel."
+
+So Pauline knelt down on the grass, untied the clumsy cord, and removed
+the brown paper. She then lifted the lid from a broken-down bandbox and
+revealed a musty, fusty tome bound in old calf.
+
+"It is my precious annotated edition of Cicero," said Mr. Dale. "I have
+written your name in it--'Pauline Dale, from her affectionate father.' It
+is yours now, and it will be yours in the future. If you like to leave it
+on the shelf in my study, I shall not object, but it is yours to do what
+you like with."
+
+He sighed profoundly, and turned away with his lip trembling.
+
+"Good gracious!" Miss Tredgold was heard to exclaim. Then she spoke to
+Adelaide.
+
+"Run into the house and bring out a cup of coffee. The precious man gets
+queerer each moment. What a present to give the child!"
+
+Pauline raised the big book and clasped it against her neat lilac frock.
+
+"Thank you, father," she said. "I will learn to read it. Thank you very
+much."
+
+"And you don't object to its occupying its old place on my shelf?"
+
+"No. Shall I run and put it there now?"
+
+"Do. You are really a wise child. Sophia, as I have given Pauline her
+present, I presume I need not stay out any longer wasting my precious
+time and running the risk of sunstroke."
+
+Miss Tredgold nodded and laughed. Adelaide appeared with the coffee. Mr.
+Dale drank it off at a single draught. Pauline ran into the house with
+the treasure which was hers and yet not hers. For surely never during his
+lifetime would Mr. Dale allow that special edition of Cicero out of his
+study. She put it gravely and quietly into its accustomed place, kissed
+her father, told him she appreciated his present beyond words, and then
+went back to her sisters and aunt, who were waiting for her.
+
+What a day it was! What a wonderful, magnificent day! The weather was
+perfect; the air was sweet; the garden was full of perfume. And then the
+presents. Every imaginable thing that a little girl could want was poured
+at the feet of the birthday queen. The story-books she had longed for;
+the little writing-desk she had always coveted but never possessed; the
+workbox with its reels of colored silks, its matchless pair of scissors,
+its silver thimble, its odds and ends of every sort and description; the
+tennis-bat; the hockey-club; the new saddle that would exactly fit
+Peas-blossom: all these things and many more were given to Pauline. But
+besides the richer and more handsome presents, there were the sort of
+pretty things that only love could devise--that charming little
+pin-cushion for her dressing-table; that pen-wiper; that bag for her
+brush and comb; that case for her night-dress. Some of the gifts were
+clumsy, but all were prompted by love. Love had begun them, and gone on
+with them, and finished them, and Pauline laughed and had brighter eyes
+and more flushed cheeks each moment as the day progressed.
+
+After breakfast Miss Tredgold took her nieces for a drive. The little
+party were all packed into the wagonette, and then they went off. They
+drove for miles and miles under the trees of the Forest. Miss Tredgold
+told more interesting and fascinating stories of her own life than she
+had ever told before. The girls listened to her with the most absorbed
+attention. As a rule Miss Tredgold's stories carried a moral with them;
+but the birthday stories had no moral. Pauline waited for one. She waited
+with a sort of trembling dread. She expected it to intrude its sober face
+at each moment, but it did not put in an appearance anywhere. It stayed
+out of sight in the most delightful and graceful manner. Soon the girls,
+Pauline amongst them, forgot to look out for the moral. Then Verena began
+telling anecdotes of the past, and Pauline joined her; and the children
+laughed, and nearly cried with delight. That drive was the happiest they
+had ever enjoyed.
+
+But it was somewhat late in the afternoon when the birthday treat came to
+its culmination. They were having tea on the lawn, a most fascinating
+tea, with a frosted cake in the middle of the table, on which Pauline's
+name was inscribed in golden letters, and round which were lighted
+fourteen little wax candles, denoting that she had now come to that
+mature age. The candles were protected by tiny glass shades, so that the
+soft summer air could not blow them about, and all the girls thought they
+had never seen such a wonderful sight. Mr. Dale was abducted from his
+study--there was really no other word to describe the way in which he was
+carried off bodily--and requested to light the candles. He did so looking
+very confused, and as though he did not in the least comprehend what he
+was doing. Nevertheless he was there, and he was obliged to seat himself
+in the centre of the group; and then garlands and garlands of flowers
+suddenly made their appearance, and Pauline was conducted to her throne,
+and a crown of tiny roses was placed on her dark head, and wreaths of
+flowers were laid at her feet.
+
+"Now you are queen, Pauline," said Miss Tredgold. "Your father and I and
+your sisters are bound to obey you from now until ten o'clock to-night.
+This is your reign. It is short, but full of possibilities. What are we
+to do for you, fair queen? In what way do you wish to employ us?"
+
+"May I wish for anything?" asked Pauline eagerly.
+
+She had a flashing thought as she uttered the words--a quick, terrible,
+agonized thought. Oh, if only she might claim her birthright! If only she
+might put into use her grand privilege and ask for the one thing she
+really wanted--a free, absolute pardon! If she might confess her sin
+without confessing it, and get her aunt and father to say that, whatever
+she had done in the past, she was forgiven now! Just for an instant her
+black eyes looked almost wild; then they fixed themselves on Miss
+Tredgold, who was looking at her attentively. She glanced beyond her, and
+met the great black eyes of Penelope. Penelope seemed to be reading
+Pauline. Pauline felt a sudden revulsion of feeling.
+
+"That would never do," she said to herself.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" said Verena in her gentle voice.
+
+"I was considering what to ask," replied Pauline.
+
+"It isn't to ask, it is to command," said Miss Tredgold. "What sort of a
+queen would you make, Pauline, if you really had a kingdom? This is your
+kingdom. It lasts for a few hours; still, for the present it is your own.
+Your sway is absolute."
+
+"Then let us have hide-and-seek in the garden," she said.
+
+She laughed. The spell was broken. Penelope's eyes lost their watchful
+glance. The girls were all agreeable. Mr. Dale rose to his feet.
+
+"I have had my tea," he said, "and the queen has received her crown. I am
+truly thankful that birthdays don't last longer than a day. I presume
+there is no reason why I may not return to my study."
+
+"No, father, you mustn't stir," said Pauline. "You are my subject, and I
+command you to play hide-and-seek. You and Aunt Sophy must hide together.
+Now let us begin."
+
+The games that followed were provocative of mirth. Even Mr. Dale was
+heard to chuckle feebly. This was when Josephine put her hand into his
+pocket and withdrew his handkerchief. He made a scholarly remark the next
+moment to Miss Tredgold, who replied:
+
+"For goodness' sake, Henry, come down from the clouds. This is your
+child's birthday. It is all very well to know all that musty stuff, but
+there are times when it is fifty times better to be full of nonsense."
+
+Mr. Dale groaned, and then Lucy seemed to spring out of the ground. She
+laughed in his face, and cried out that she had found him.
+
+So the merry game proceeded. It had nearly come to an end when Pauline
+and Penelope found themselves alone.
+
+"I waited for you at twelve o'clock," said Penelope, "but you never
+comed. Why didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't want to, Pen. I have changed my mind. Think no more about what
+I said."
+
+"I can't never forget it," replied Pen.
+
+But then she heard a whoop from a distant enemy, and darted to another
+part of the garden.
+
+The game of hide-and-seek was followed by another, and then another and yet
+another, and the cries of mirth and laughter sounded all over the place.
+Even Betty forgot the tragic end of the Duke of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton,
+who was killed by a brigand in Italy while defending his fair duchess.
+Betty had been weeping scalding tears over the tragedy when the sound of
+mirth called her forth. John accompanied her, and the other servants looked
+on in the distance.
+
+"There never was such a rowdy family," said Betty.
+
+"Rowdy do you call it?" cried John.
+
+"Yes; and the very rowdiest is Miss Tredgold. For mercy's sake look at
+the way she runs! She's as fleet as a hare."
+
+"She have very neat ankles," said John. "I call her a neat figure of a
+woman."
+
+"Don't tell me," said Betty. "Much you know what a neat figure of a woman
+means. Miss Tredgold's a haristocrat. Now, if you'll believe me, she's
+the moral image of the duchess."
+
+"What duchess?" cried John.
+
+"The Duchess of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton--her that's just made a widow,
+and is crying her eyes out over the murdered remains of the poor dook."
+
+"Sometimes," said John, "I think that you have gone off your head, Betty.
+But I can't stay to listen to any more of these nonsenses. I have my
+garden to look after."
+
+The final delight before the curtain of that birthday was dropped down
+for ever found its vent in music--music in which Mr. Dale took a part,
+and in which Miss Tredgold excelled herself. It was the music that awoke
+Pauline's slumbering conscience. It was during that music that her heart
+truly began to understand itself.
+
+"I am wicked--a coward and a liar," she thought. "But, all the same, I am
+going on, for I must. Aunt Sophy loves me, and I love her, and I wouldn't
+have her love turned to hate for all the world. She must never find out
+what I did in the past, and the only way to keep it from her is to go on
+as I am going on."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A WILD FROLIC.
+
+
+The first part of the birthday was absolutely over, but the second
+part--the terrifying, awful part--was at hand. Aunt Sophy had kissed
+Pauline and had blessed her by a look. Her father had also put his
+trembling hand on her shoulder.
+
+"When you want to read that lovely volume of Cicero," he said, "come to
+me and I will teach you. I will spare a few minutes of my valuable time
+to give you instruction."
+
+Verena had also kissed her heartily, and she and the rest of her sisters
+had gone to bed. They were all tired. Verena came for a minute into
+Pauline's little room.
+
+"I am too sleepy even to brush my hair in your room to-night, Paulie,"
+she said. "I am too sleepy to talk about our long happy day. What a pile
+of presents you have got! Don't you think you have had a perfect
+birthday? I only wish mine was near at hand."
+
+"It will come in good time," said Pauline; "and even birthdays----"
+
+She broke off abruptly.
+
+"What do you mean by 'even birthdays'?" asked Verena. "What were you
+going to say?"
+
+"I was going to say that even birthdays had drawbacks. I know that I am
+dead-tired."
+
+"You look it, darling. Do turn into bed and go to sleep."
+
+Verena kissed her sister and left the room.
+
+Pauline stood by the attic window. The window was a French one, and was
+wide open. The night was warm; the sky was without a cloud; stars like
+diamonds dotted the firmament; the sky itself looked darkly blue. Pauline
+felt a sudden thrill going through her. It was a thrill from the nobler
+part of her being. The whole day, and all that happened in the day, had
+wrought her up to her present state of feeling. A touch now and she would
+have confessed all. A touch, a look, would have done it--for the child,
+with her many faults, was capable of noble deeds; but the touch was not
+there, nor the word of gentle advice given. Had her mother been alive,
+Pauline would have certainly gone to her and confessed what she had done.
+As it was, she only felt that, in order to save herself from the past,
+she must do something much more wicked in the future.
+
+She waited until she was quite certain that Verena was in bed; then she
+gently unfastened the door of her room and stole out on to the landing.
+There was not a light in the house. All the tired people had gone to bed.
+She reached the room, at the farther end of the same wing, where Briar
+and Patty slept. The sleeping attics occupied two wings of the old house,
+the centre part of the house being without rooms in the roof. Pauline,
+Verena, Briar, and Patty slept in one of the wings, the rest of the girls
+and the nursery children in the other. Mr. Dale had the room exactly
+under the large attic occupied by Briar and Patty. Miss Tredgold's room
+was under the nursery wing.
+
+Pauline now very gently opened the door of the room where her two little
+sisters slept. They were not asleep; they were sitting up in their beds
+waiting for her.
+
+"We thought you would come, Paulie," said Briar. "We are so excited! What
+is it you want us to do for you, darling Paulie?"
+
+"To save me! To save me!" said Pauline.
+
+Her tone was dramatic; her action was more so. She fell on her knees by
+Briar's bed; she clasped her arms round the little girl's neck; she laid
+her head on her shoulder and burst into tears. The birthday queen was
+weeping. Could emotion go beyond that fact? Patty bounded out of her bed
+and knelt by Pauline's other side. The two little girls clasped their
+arms round her. She had exercised a glamour over them all day, which now
+became greater than ever. Was she not their queen? Oh, yes, until
+midnight she was their own dear and absolutely beautiful queen. An hour
+was still left of her sovereignty. She had quite stolen their hearts;
+they loved her like anything.
+
+"What is it, Paulie?" said Briar.
+
+"I must tell you," said Pauline. "I know you won't betray me."
+
+"Indeed we won't," they both answered.
+
+"Well, then, this is what has happened."
+
+She began to tell her story. She told it quickly, for the time was short.
+If they were to meet Nancy they must steal away almost at once. Pauline
+told her tale with scarcely any comment. When it was finished she looked
+at her sisters. The moonlight was in the room, and Pauline's face looked
+ghastly, but it looked beautiful also. Her eyes were very big and dark
+and solemn and beseeching. Briar and Patty glanced at each other.
+
+"Shall we?" said Briar.
+
+"It seems the only thing to do," said Patty.
+
+"All the same, it is awfully wrong," said Briar.
+
+"Think of poor Paulie," said Patty.
+
+"If we are discovered----" cried Briar.
+
+"Oh, bother!" interrupted Patty. "She's our queen. We must obey her. We
+are bound to help her. Let us go. She mustn't run into danger. You know
+what Nancy has said: two of us must go with her. She mustn't go alone."
+
+Briar leant towards Patty, and Patty whispered in her ear; and then the
+two little girls began to dress.
+
+"You are darlings," said Pauline. "I shall never forget this to
+you--never. I have everything else managed. I am going back to my room.
+When you are dressed you must shut the door of your room very quietly
+behind you, and then you must steal along the corridor and you will find
+my door just ajar. We will get out of my window by the beech-tree, and
+we'll be back and safe in our beds before any one is up in the morning."
+
+"It certainly is thrilling," said Briar, raising her voice in her
+excitement.
+
+"Oh, don't speak so loud!" said Pauline. "Dress very fast. I will wait
+for you in my room. I shall be quite ready."
+
+Pauline rushed back to her own room. She then put on a warm golf-cape and
+an old hat; and her arrangements having been completed, she bent out of
+the French window. In an incredibly short time Briar and Patty appeared.
+All three girls were now in the wildest state of excitement. Scruples
+were silenced for the time being. Pauline's conscience no longer spoke.
+She felt that a midnight picnic, stolen, partaken of under difficulties,
+sinned mightily to obtain, had its own inexplicable charm. It was
+certainly sweet to be naughty; there was a thrill about it, and a sense
+of adventure, which goodness never brought. Oh, yes, it was well worth
+the risk and danger. Her two little sisters partook of Pauline's
+feelings. They all easily reached the ground, and when they found
+themselves outside in the middle of the night, it was with difficulty
+that Briar could keep from giving a shriek of ecstasy.
+
+"I suppose it's because I'm so awfully naughty that I enjoy it so," she
+said.
+
+"Come along; don't speak," said Pauline.
+
+She took a hand of each sister. They ran quickly over the dew-laden
+grass. Their feet soon got wet, for they had forgotten to put on strong
+shoes. But what mattered that? What did small discomforts signify when
+the grand total of pleasure was so enormous?
+
+They opened the wicket-gate, and Pauline found herself immediately in the
+strong embrace of Nancy King.
+
+"There you are, darling!" she cried, bestowing a resounding kiss on her
+cheek. "I feared that the she-dragon would waken and call you back; but
+you are here, and you have brought--let me see. Oh, you are Patty, are
+you not? And Briar? You are my friends for ever now. Oh, we shall have
+fun! The wagonette is here, and the dogcart; there are a party of us, and
+a lot more coming to meet us at the rendezvous. We shall have the most
+glorious time you ever imagined."
+
+As Nancy spoke she called out to two girls who were standing in the
+shadow.
+
+"Becky, this is Briar Dale--in other words, Rose Dale. You are to see
+after her. Amy, Patty Dale is your charge. Now let us get into the
+wagonette, for it is the snuggest of all the carriages, and the horses
+are so fleet. Listen how they are pawing the ground; they're mad to be
+off. Oh, here's father! Father, three of the young Dales have come."
+
+"Pleased to see you, I'm sure," said the farmer. "It's a warm night for
+the time of year."
+
+The little girls did not answer. Even Pauline, now that she had met the
+rest of the party, felt curiously silent. A weight seemed to rest on her.
+Her wild and riotous spirits had died down. Her conscience was not
+troubling her, but she felt depressed, she scarcely knew why.
+
+"I want something to poke me up," she said to herself. "I thought I'd be
+quite riotous with bliss when I met Nancy. I don't feel riotous; and, oh,
+how white the moonlight is making Briar look! Briar," whispered Pauline
+suddenly, "are your feet very wet?"
+
+"Very: and they're getting so cold," said Briar.
+
+"What are you talking about?" said Nancy.
+
+"The fact is," said Pauline, "we forgot to put on our outdoor shoes, and
+the dew is very heavy."
+
+"Dear, dear! That will never do. Father, what do you think these silly
+little misses have done? They've come out in their house slippers."
+
+"I never!" cried the farmer. "You are silly little ladies; that I will
+say. I tell you what it is, Nance; we don't want these children to catch
+cold. Shall we drive back to The Hollies and get them some of your shoes?
+You have enough, I take it, to shoe a regiment."
+
+Nancy laughed.
+
+"They wouldn't fit," she said. "They'd be too big for any of them."
+
+"Well, then," said the farmer, "they shall all three take their shoes off
+and wrap their feet in these warm rugs. They can put them on again, and
+when the dancing begins they will soon dry."
+
+"Are we to dance?" said Pauline, her eyes sparkling.
+
+"You wait and see," said Nancy.
+
+"Yes, you wait and see," cried the farmer. "There are all sorts of
+surprises. And there's a birthday queen of this here party, ain't there,
+Nancy?"
+
+"I have heard tell that there was," said Nancy. As she spoke she took
+Pauline's hand and dragged the little girl forward to sit by her.
+
+The drive took some time, and the farmer and his party were extremely
+loud and riotous and merry. As they passed under the huge oak-trees some
+one in a dogcart went by, and the light from a lantern fell on his face.
+Pauline recognized Dr. Moffat. The moment she saw him he looked round,
+and she fancied that he must have seen her, and that his eyebrows went up
+with an expression of astonishment. But he did not look again; he only
+continued on his way.
+
+"I do hope he didn't see me," said Pauline to Nancy.
+
+"What matter if he did? He's thinking of his profession, and not of a
+little girl like you. I wonder where he is going to."
+
+"To Farmer Jackson," said Farmer King. "He broke his leg a fortnight ago,
+and they say mortification is setting in and he can't live. Poor Farmer
+Jackson! Here are we all on a rollick, so to speak, a midnight picnic in
+summer, and all our hearts as light as froth, and the farmer lying on the
+flat of his back and like to pass away before morning."
+
+Pauline felt uncomfortable. She turned her head away. She did not wish to
+think of the sober events of life at that moment.
+
+By-and-by the long drive came to an end. The girls again put on their wet
+slippers, and the next moment they found themselves inside a large
+marquee, with a boarded floor, where a magnificent feast was prepared at
+the farther end. The whole centre of the marquee was got ready for
+dancing, and a number of young people whom Pauline had never seen before
+were standing about in little knots, evidently waiting for the arrival of
+the farmer and his family.
+
+"There!" said Nancy. "Now, Paulie, what do you think? Here's feasting for
+you at this end, and there's dancing at the other, and if the Kings don't
+do things in style I don't know who do."
+
+"Ah, Miss King, and how are you?"
+
+"Pleased to see you, I'm sure," was Nancy's response.
+
+A bashful-looking young man with sandy hair and light-blue eyes now came
+forward. He was followed by a girl of similar type, and the two were
+introduced to Pauline as Mr. and Miss Minchin. The Minchins were
+accompanied by other neighbors, and the Dale girls found themselves in
+the midst of a party numbering at least fifty people.
+
+Pauline felt suddenly shy. As a rule she was not remarkable for this
+quality. She had a certain pretty assurance, and never, as her sisters
+expressed it, lost her head; but now her principal desire was to creep
+into her shell, not to answer the inane remarks made by the young men of
+the party, and on no account to allow them to put their arms round her
+waist and carry her round in the dance. Her face grew first red, then
+pale. She realized that she was very tired, and more than ever did she
+wish that she had never yielded to Nancy's enticements.
+
+Patty and Briar, on the other hand, were enjoying themselves very much.
+They had done this very naughty thing on account of Pauline; they were
+glad they were helping her--their consciences did not trouble them in the
+least. They leant upon Pauline more than they were themselves aware of.
+If trouble came, she would of course shield them. At present there was no
+trouble. A picnic in the middle of the night, miles away from home, was
+the most exciting thing they had ever imagined. It beat the joys of the
+birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by there would perhaps
+be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast--and
+such a feast!--on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad,
+intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could
+scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer
+moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed
+people, and all the merry voices? Oh, it was an intoxicating time!
+
+So Briar danced with the first man who asked her, and Patty did likewise.
+They danced with the ease and lightness and grace of children in whom the
+accomplishment is born. Nancy's clumsy efforts, and the clumsy efforts of
+her friends, were nowhere beside them.
+
+"That little girl," said a rough-headed farmer, pointing to Patty as he
+spoke, "dances like the foam of the sea. I never saw anything like it in
+all my life."
+
+"But why doesn't the elder Miss Dale dance?" asked Farmer King.
+
+He had noticed that she was declining one partner after another.
+
+"Come, Miss Paulie," he said, going to her side: "this won't do. May I
+have the pleasure of a barn-dance with you, miss? You can't refuse me."
+
+Pauline did find it impossible to refuse the good man. He took her hand
+and led her out, and presently she, too, was being whirled round and
+round. But her sense of weariness increased, and the heavy pain and
+bewilderment at her heart grew worse. Oh, why had she come? Once the
+farmer, looking at her, saw tears in her eyes. In a moment he stopped
+dancing. He took her hand and led her to the other side of the tent.
+
+"You dance beautifully, miss," he said; "not quite so light as your
+little sister, but I am proud to be seen with you, miss, all the same.
+And now, if I may make so bold, what is the matter with you, Miss Pauline
+Dale?"
+
+"Nothing," answered Pauline.
+
+"Don't tell me," replied the farmer. "Is it in reason that a little lady
+like yourself would have tears in her eyes at a moment like the present
+if there was nothing the matter? Is it in reason, miss?"
+
+"Oh, I ought not to have come!" said Pauline.
+
+The farmer's face grew rather red. He looked full at Pauline for a
+moment; then he said:
+
+"I can't speak out now, for it's only the beginning of the fun. There's a
+great deal planned, and you are in the thick of it, but before you go
+back home I'll have a word with you; so cheer up, my pretty little miss,
+for things that aren't right can be put right. You trust Farmer King for
+that."
+
+Pauline did cheer up. She felt that the farmer was her friend, and she
+also knew that he was a friend worth having. The other girls met her once
+or twice, and Patty whispered:
+
+"Oh, there never was anything like this before! I could be naughty every
+single night of my life to have such fun!"
+
+The dance was followed by the feast, and the feast was A1. When it was
+over there was a moment of silence. Then Nancy, accompanied by Briar and
+Patty, Becky and Amy, and the two boys, Jack and Tom, assembled round the
+seat where Pauline had placed herself.
+
+"It is your turn, Paulie," said Nancy. "You are queen of to-night, for it
+is the night following your birthday. Come, queen, take your throne."
+
+"I am sick of thrones," answered Pauline.
+
+But Nancy took her hand.
+
+"Whatever you feel, you must not show it," she said, "for that will spoil
+everything. Here is your throne; step up."
+
+Pauline looked round her. Up to the present moment a curtain had been
+drawn across one end of the tent. It was now removed, and the little girl
+saw a deep chair covered completely with flowers and moss and ferns. A
+bright light was hanging just at the back of this throne. Now Pauline, as
+queen of the day, was led up to it, and requested to take her seat
+thereon. She did so, feeling queer and giddy. When she was seated the
+young people stood in groups at her right hand and at her left.
+
+The farmer now appeared, carrying a table. All the guests stood in the
+background and looked on. The table was placed in front of Pauline. At
+the same instant Nancy bent forward and laid her hand across the little
+girl's eyes.
+
+"Don't look just for a minute," she said.
+
+Pauline heard the ecstatic whispers of her own little sisters, and for
+the first time a feeling of wonder and pleasure stole over her. She
+forgot all that had gone before, and for the time was both happy and
+excited.
+
+"Now you may look," said Nancy.
+
+As Pauline opened her eyes she felt something cool and soft descending on
+her head.
+
+"Don't touch it," whispered Nancy; "it's your crown. But come, girls and
+boys, we must do more than this to make our queen beautiful."
+
+As she spoke all the young people divided into two groups, crossed the
+floor, and came past Pauline as she sat on her throne; and each one, as
+she or he passed, threw a wreath of flowers either over the head of the
+little girl, or round her neck, or into her lap, until finally she found
+herself absolutely embedded in flowers.
+
+"Look at yourself," said Nancy, suddenly slipping a looking-glass in
+front of the birthday queen. "Tell us what you see."
+
+Pauline looked. The lights were so managed that she could see everything
+distinctly. The lights fell full upon her. She saw a pair of dark eyes,
+sweet, anxious, and beautiful; she saw a radiant and rosy face. Lilies of
+the valley, sweet-peas, and summer roses fell about her soft dark hair.
+Similar flowers fell about her neck. Her dress was hidden beneath its
+wealth of flowers; her charming face rose out of a perfect foam of
+flowers.
+
+"Oh, I do look beautiful!" she said aloud, and at the naive remark the
+whole party shouted with merriment. Nancy cried, "Long life to the
+queen!" and Joe the Fiddler burst into his merriest strains; it was with
+the greatest difficulty that the desire for dancing could be suppressed,
+for the little ceremony was not yet quite over. It was Nancy's turn to
+come forward.
+
+"Queen of the night," she said, "we hope that you will like what we, your
+subjects, have done for you, and we hope that you will never forget your
+happy birthday. There is just one thing I have to say. When the flowers
+fade--and they are fading already--you, dear queen, will have no longer a
+kingdom, so we have brought you something; we have subscribed among us
+for something that will not fade--something that you can always wear in
+memory of us. Look! isn't it beautiful?"
+
+As Nancy spoke, she took a morocco case from the table, touched a spring,
+and revealed to Pauline's dazzled eyes, a necklace of thin pure gold, to
+which a little locket, with a diamond in the centre, was attached.
+
+"This won't fade," said Nancy. "You can keep it all your life long. You
+can also remember that there are people in the world, perhaps born a
+little lower than yourself, who love you and care for you."
+
+"Oh, you are good!" cried Pauline. "I will never forsake you, Nancy, or
+think myself better than you are."
+
+"Didn't I say she was a brick?" said Nancy. "Stoop your head, queen; I
+will clasp the necklace around your neck."
+
+Pauline did stoop her head, and the necklace was put in its place. The
+little diamond in the centre glittered as though it had a heart of fire.
+The flowers smelled sweet, but also heavy. Pauline was tired once again;
+but the music was resumed. Fiddler Joe played more enchanting music than
+before, and Pauline, suddenly rising from her throne, determined to dance
+during the remaining hours of that exciting night.
+
+But all happy things, and all naughty things come to an end, for such is
+the fashion of earth; and by-and-by the farmer said that if they wished
+to be home before morning they must get into the wagonette and the
+dogcart, and their guests must take themselves away. Now it was the
+farmer's turn to come up to Pauline.
+
+"You have given us all pleasure to-night, Miss Pauline," he said; "and it
+warms our hearts to feel that, whatever the circumstances, you will
+always be true to us, who have been true to you and yours for
+generations. For, miss, the history of the Dales is almost bound up with
+the history of the Kings. And if the Dales were gentlefolks and lords of
+the manor, the Kings were their humble retainers. So, miss, the Dales and
+Kings were always good to each other; the Kings over and over again
+laying down their lives for the Dales in the Civil Wars, and the Dales on
+their part protecting the Kings. So, after all, miss, there's no earthly
+reason, because a grand aunt of yours has come to live at The Dales, why
+the traditions of your house should be neglected and forgotten. I am
+proud to feel that this will never happen, and that your family and mine
+will be one. We do not consider ourselves your equals, but we do consider
+ourselves your friends. And if I can ever help you, Miss Pauline, you
+have only to come to me and I will do it. That's all I've got to say. I
+don't want thanks. I'm proud that you and your little sisters have
+trusted yourselves to us to-night, and I leave the matter of whether it
+was right or wrong to your own consciences. But whatever happens, what
+you did to-night is the sort of thing that Farmer King will never
+forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+VINEGAR.
+
+
+It was certainly not at all remarkable that the entire party should be
+drowsy and languid on the following day. Pauline had dark shadows under
+her eyes, and there was a fretful note in her voice. Nurse declared that
+Briar and Patty had caught cold, and could not imagine how they had
+managed to do so; but Miss Tredgold said that colds were common in hot
+weather, and that the children had played too long in the open air on the
+previous night. In short, those who were out of the mischief suspected
+nothing, and Pauline began to hope that her wild escapade would never be
+known. Certainly Briar and Patty would not betray her.
+
+They had all managed to climb up the tree and get in at her window
+without a soul knowing. Pauline therefore hoped that she was quite safe;
+and the hope that this was the case revived her spirits, so that in the
+afternoon she was looking and feeling much as usual. As she was dressing
+that morning she had made a sort of vow. It was not a bit the right thing
+to do, but then poor little Pauline was not doing anything very right
+just then. This was her vow. She had said in her prayer to God:
+
+"If You will keep Aunt Sophy from finding out how naughty I have been, I
+will, on my part, be extra good. I will do my lessons most perfectly, and
+never, never, never deceive Aunt Sophy again."
+
+Now, Pauline, unaware that such a prayer could not possibly be answered,
+felt a certain sense of security after she had made it.
+
+In addition to the beautiful chain with its locket and its diamond star
+in the middle, she had received several other presents of the gay and
+loud and somewhat useless sort. Nancy's friends, Becky and Amy, had both
+given her presents, and several young people of the party had brought
+little trifles to present to the queen of the occasion. There was a time
+when Pauline would have been highly delighted with these gifts, but that
+time was not now. She felt the impossible tidies, the ugly pin-cushions,
+the hideous toilet-covers, the grotesque night-dress bags to be more
+burdens than treasures. What could she possibly do with them? The gold
+chain and locket were another matter. She felt very proud of her chain
+and her little heart-shaped locket. She was even mad enough to fasten the
+chain round her neck that morning and hide it beneath her frock, and so
+go downstairs with the diamond resting on her heart.
+
+Miss Tredgold had wisely resolved that there were to be very few lessons
+that day. The girls were to read history and a portion of one of
+Shakespeare's plays, and afterwards they were to sit in the garden and do
+their fancy-work. They were all glad of the quiet day and of the absence
+of excitement, and as evening progressed they recovered from their
+fatigue, and Pauline was as merry as the rest.
+
+It was not until preparation hour that Pauline felt a hand laid on her
+arm; two keen black eyes looked into her face, and a small girl clung to
+her side.
+
+"Oh, what is it, Pen?" said Pauline, almost crossly. "What do you want
+now?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you'd like to know," replied Penelope.
+
+"To know what, you tiresome child? Don't press up against me; I hate
+being pawed."
+
+"Does you? Perhaps you'd rather things was knowed."
+
+"What is it, Pen? You are always so mysterious and tiresome."
+
+"Only that I think you ought to tell me," said Penelope, lowering her
+voice and speaking with great gentleness. "I think you ought to tell me
+all about the things that are hidden away in that bandbox under your
+bed."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Pauline, turning pale.
+
+"Why, I thought I'd like to go into your room and have a good look
+round."
+
+"But you have no right to do that sort of thing. It is intolerably mean
+of you. You had no right to go into my bedroom."
+
+"I often does what I has no right to do," said Penelope, by no means
+abashed. "I went in a-purpose 'cos you didn't tell me what you wished to
+tell me once, and I was burning to know. Do you understand what it is to
+be all curiosity so that your heart beats too quick and you gets fidgety?
+Well, I was in that sort of state, and I said to myself, 'I will know.'
+So I went into your room and poked about. I looked under the bed, and
+there was an old bandbox where you kept your summer hat afore Aunt Sophy
+came; and I pulled it out and opened it, and, oh! I see'd---- Paulie, I'd
+like to have 'em. You doesn't want 'em, 'cos you have hidden 'em, and I
+should like to have 'em."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, that pin-cushion for one thing--oh! it's a beauty--and that tidy.
+May I have the pin-cushion and the tidy, Paulie--the purple pin-cushion
+and the red tidy? May I?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May Aunt Sophy have them?"
+
+"Don't be silly."
+
+"May anybody have them?"
+
+"They're mine."
+
+"How did you get them?"
+
+"That's my affair."
+
+"You didn't get them from me, nor from any of the other girls--I can go
+round and ask them if you like, but I know you didn't--nor from father,
+nor from Aunt Sophy, nor from Betty, nor from John, nor from any of the
+new servants. Who gave them to you?"
+
+"That's my affair."
+
+"You won't tell?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May I tell Aunt Sophy about the bandbox chock-full of funny things
+pushed under the bed?"
+
+"If you do----"
+
+Penelope danced a few feet away. She then stood in front of her sister
+and began to sway her body backwards and forwards.
+
+"I see'd," she began, "such a funny thing!"
+
+"Penelope, you are too tormenting!"
+
+"I see'd such a very funny thing!"
+
+Miss Tredgold was seen approaching. Penelope looked round at her and then
+deliberately raised her voice.
+
+"I see'd such a very, very funny thing!"
+
+"What is it, Pen? Why are you teasing your sister?" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"I aren't!" cried Penelope. "I are telling her something what she ought
+to know. It is about something I---- Shall I go on, Paulie?"
+
+"No; you make my head ache. Aunt Sophy, may I go in and lie down?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear. You look very pale. My poor child, you were
+over-excited yesterday. This won't do. Penelope, stop teasing your
+sister, and come for a walk with me. Pauline, go and lie down until
+dinner-time."
+
+Pauline went slowly in the direction of the house, but fear dogged her
+footsteps. What did Penelope know, and what did she not know?
+
+Meanwhile Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hand and began to pace up
+and down.
+
+"I have a great deal to correct in you, Pen," she said. "You are always
+spying and prying. That is not a nice character for a child."
+
+"I can be useful if I spy and pry," said Penelope.
+
+"My dear, unless you wish to become a female detective, you will be a
+much greater nuisance than anything else if you go on making mysteries
+about nothing. I saw that you were tormenting dear little Pauline just
+now. The child is very nervous. If she is not stronger soon I shall take
+her to the seaside. She certainly needs a change."
+
+"And me, too?" said Penelope. "I want change awful bad."
+
+"Not a bit of you. I never saw a more ruddy, healthy-looking little girl
+in the whole course of my life."
+
+"I wonder what I could do to be paled down," thought Penelope to herself;
+but she did not speak her thought aloud. "I mustn't tell Aunt Sophy, that
+is plain. I must keep all I know about Paulie dark for the present.
+There's an awful lot. There's about the thimble, and--yes, I did see them
+all three. I'm glad I saw them. I won't tell now, for I'd only be
+punished; but if I don't tell, and pretend I'm going to, Paulie will have
+to pay me to keep silent. That will be fun."
+
+The days passed, and Pauline continued to look pale, and Miss Tredgold
+became almost unreasonably anxious about her. Notwithstanding Verena's
+assurance that Pauline had the sort of complexion that often looked white
+in summer, the good lady was not reassured. There was something more than
+ordinary weakness and pallor about the child. There was an expression in
+her eyes which kept her kind aunt awake at night.
+
+Now this most excellent woman had never yet allowed the grass to grow
+under her feet. She was quick and decisive in all her movements. She was
+the sort of person who on the field of battle would have gone straight to
+the front. In the hour of danger she had never been known to lose her
+head. She therefore lost no time in making arrangements to take Verena
+and Pauline to the seaside. Accordingly she wrote to a landlady she
+happened to know, and engaged some remarkably nice rooms at Easterhaze on
+the south coast. Verena and Pauline were told of her plans exactly a week
+after the birthday. Pauline had been having bad dreams; she had been
+haunted by many things. The look of relief on her face, therefore, when
+Miss Tredgold told her that they were to pack their things that day, and
+that she, Verena, and herself would start for Easterhaze at an early hour
+on the following morning, was almost beyond words.
+
+"Why is you giving Pauline this great big treat?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Little girls should be seen and not heard," was Miss Tredgold's remark.
+
+"But this little girl wants to be heard," replied the incorrigible child.
+"'Cos she isn't very strong, and 'cos her face is palefied."
+
+"There is no such word as palefied, Penelope."
+
+"I made it. It suits me," said Penelope.
+
+"Pauline's cheeks are rather too pale," answered Miss Tredgold.
+
+She did not reprove Penelope, for in spite of herself she sometimes found
+a smile coming to her face at the child's extraordinary remarks.
+
+Presently Penelope slipped away. She went thoughtfully across the lawn.
+Her head was hanging, and her whole stout little figure testified to the
+fact that she was meditating.
+
+"Off to the sea!" she muttered softly to herself. "Off to the big briny
+waves, to the wadings, to the sand castles, to the shrimps, to the
+hurdy-gurdies, and all 'cos she's palefied. I wish I could be paled."
+
+She ran into the house, rushed through the almost deserted nursery, and
+startled nurse out of her seven senses with a wild whoop.
+
+"Nursey, how can I be paled down?"
+
+"Nonsense, child! Don't talk rubbish."
+
+"Am I pale, nursey, or am I a rosy sort of little girl?"
+
+"You are a sunburnt, healthy-looking little child, with no beauty to fash
+about," was nurse's blunt response.
+
+"Am I healthy-looking?"
+
+"Of course you are, Miss Pen. Be thankful to the Almighty for it, and
+don't worry me."
+
+Pen stuck out her tongue, made a hideous face at nurse, and darted from
+the room. She stood in the passage for a minute or two reflecting, then
+she slipped round and went in the direction of Pauline's bedroom.
+
+The bandbox chock-full of those vulgar presents had been pushed into the
+back part of a dark cupboard which stood in the little girl's room.
+Penelope knew all about that. She opened the cupboard, disappeared into
+its shadows, and then returned with an orange-colored tidy and a
+chocolate-red pin-cushion. Having made a bag of the front of her frock,
+she slipped the pin-cushion and tidy into it, and ran off to the kitchen.
+Aunt Sophia visited the kitchen each morning, but Pen knew that the hour
+of her daily visit had not yet arrived. Betty was there, surreptitiously
+reading a copy of the _Faithful Friend_. She started when Pen darted into
+her domain.
+
+"Now what is it, Miss Penelope? For goodness' sake, miss, get out of
+this. Your aunt would be flabbergasted to see you here."
+
+For response Pen planted down in front of Betty the orange-colored tidy
+and the chocolate-red pin-cushion.
+
+"Here's some things," she said. "Here's two nice things for a nice body.
+What will that nice body give for these nice things?"
+
+"My word!" said Betty, "they're natty."
+
+She took up the pin-cushion and examined it all over. She then laid it
+down again. She next took up the tidy, turned it from side to side, and
+placed it, with a sigh of distinct desire, beside the pin-cushion.
+
+"Them's my taste," she said. "I like those sort of fixed colors. I can't
+abide the wishy-washy tastes of the present day."
+
+"They's quite beautiful, ain't they?" said Pen. "I'll give them to you if
+you will----"
+
+"You will give them to me?" said Betty. "But where did you get them
+from?"
+
+"That don't matter a bit. Don't you ask any questions and you will hear
+no lies. I will give them to you, and nobody and nothing shall ever take
+them from you again, if you do something for me."
+
+"What's that, Miss Pen?"
+
+"Will you, Betty--will you? And will you be awful quick about it."
+
+"I should like to have them," said Betty. "There's a friend of mine going
+to commit marriage, and that tidy would suit her down to the ground.
+She'd like it beyond anything. But, all the same, I don't hold with young
+ladies forcing their way into my kitchen; it's not haristocratic."
+
+"Never mind that ugly word. Will you do what I want?"
+
+"What is it, Miss Pen?"
+
+"Palefy me. Make me sort of refined. Take the color out of me. Bleach
+me--that's it. I want to go to the seaside. Pale people go; rosy people
+don't. I want to be awful pale by to-night. How can it be done? It's more
+genteel to be pale."
+
+"It is that," said Betty, looking at the rosy Penelope with critical
+eyes. "I have often fretted over my own color; it's mostly fixed in the
+nose, too. But I don't know any way to get rid of it."
+
+"Don't you?" said Penelope.
+
+Quick as thought she snatched up the pin-cushion and tidy.
+
+"You don't have these," she said. "Your friend what's going to be married
+won't have this tidy. If you can't take fixed colors out of me, you don't
+have fixed colors for your bedroom, so there!"
+
+"You are awful quick and smart, miss, and I have heard tell that vinegar
+does it."
+
+"Vinegar?"
+
+"I have heard tell, but I have never tried it. You drink it three times a
+day, a wine-glass at a time. It's horrid nasty stuff, but if you want to
+change your complexion you must put up with some sort of inconvenience."
+
+"Suppose, Betty, you and me both drink it. Your nose might get white, and
+I might go to the seaside."
+
+"No, miss, I'm not tempted to interfere with nature. I've got good
+'ealth, and I'll keep it without no vinegar."
+
+"But will you give me some? You shall have the pin-cushion and the tidy
+if you do."
+
+"'Arriet would like that tidy," contemplated Betty, looking with round
+eyes at the hideous ornament.
+
+"You sneak round to the boot-house, and I'll have it ready for you," she
+said. "Come at eleven, come again at half-past three, and come at seven
+in the evening."
+
+This was arranged, and Pen, faithfully to the minute, did make her
+appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her first glass of vinegar
+with a wry face; but after it was swallowed she began to feel intensely
+good and pleased with herself.
+
+"Will it pale me in an hour?" was her thought.
+
+She ran upstairs, found a tiny square of looking-glass, concealed it in
+her pocket, and came down again. During the remainder of the day she
+might have been observed at intervals sneaking away by herself, and had
+any one followed her, that person would have seen her taking the
+looking-glass from her pocket and carefully examining her cheeks.
+
+Alas! the vinegar had only produced a slight feeling of discomfort; it
+had not taken any of the bloom out of the firm, fat cheeks.
+
+"It's horrid, and it's not doing it," thought the child. "I wish I hadn't
+gived her that tidy and that pin-cushion. But I will go on somehow till
+the color is out. They will send for me when they hear that I'm bad.
+Perhaps I'll look bad to-night."
+
+But Pen's "perhapses" were knocked on the head, for Miss Tredgold made a
+sudden and most startling announcement.
+
+"Why wait for the morning?" she exclaimed. "We are all packed and ready.
+We can easily get to Easterhaze by a late train to-night."
+
+Accordingly, by a late train that evening Miss Tredgold, Verena, and
+Pauline departed. They drove to Lyndhurst Road, and presently found
+themselves in a first-class carriage being carried rapidly away.
+
+"I am glad I thought of it," said Miss Tredgold, turning to the two
+girls. "It is true we shall arrive late, but Miss Pinchin will have
+things ready, as she will have received my telegram. We shall sleep at
+our new quarters in peace and comfort, and be ready to enjoy ourselves in
+the morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+GLENGARRY CAPS.
+
+
+Penelope drank her vinegar three times a day. She applied herself to this
+supposed remedy with a perseverance and good faith worthy of a better
+cause. This state of things continued until on a certain night she was
+seized with acute pain, and awoke shrieking out the startling words,
+"Vinegar! vinegar!" Nurse, who was not in the plot, thought the child was
+raving. She scolded Penelope more than pitied her, administered a strong
+dose, and, in short, treated her as rather a naughty invalid.
+
+"It's green apples that has done it," said nurse, shaking her head
+solemnly, and looking as if she thought Penelope ought certainly to
+return to her nursery thraldom.
+
+"I mustn't take so much vinegar," thought the little girl; "but I do hope
+that being so ill, and taking the horrid medicine, and being scolded by
+the nurse will have made me a bit pale."
+
+She doubtless hoped also that her illness would be reported to Miss
+Tredgold, who would send for her in double-quick time; but as Miss
+Tredgold was not told, and no one took any notice of Pen's fit of
+indigestion, she was forced to try other means to accomplish her darling
+desire--for go to the seaside she was determined she would. Of late she
+had been reading all the books she could find relating to the sea. She
+devoted herself to the subject of shells and seaweeds, and always talked
+with admiration of those naughty children who got into mischief on the
+sands.
+
+"Lots of them get drownded," she was heard to say to Adelaide. "It is
+quite, quite common to be washed up a drownded person by the big waves."
+
+Adelaide did not believe it, but Penelope stuck to her own opinion, and
+whenever she found one of her sisters alone and ready to listen to her,
+her one invariable remark was:
+
+"Tell me about the sea."
+
+Once it darted into her erratic little head that she would run away, walk
+miles and miles, sleep close to the hedges at night, receive drinks of
+milk from good-natured cottagers, and finally appear a dusty,
+travel-stained, very sick little girl at Aunt Sophia's lodgings at
+Easterhaze. But the difficulties in the way of such an undertaking were
+beyond even Pen's heroic spirit. Notwithstanding her vinegar and her
+suffering, she was still rosy--indeed, her cheeks seemed to get plumper
+and rounder than ever. She hated to think of the vinegar she had taken in
+vain; she hated to remember Betty and the tidy and pin-cushion she had
+given her.
+
+Meanwhile the days passed quickly and the invitation she pined for did
+not come. What was to be done? Suddenly it occurred to her that, if she
+could only become possessed of certain facts which she now suspected, she
+might be able to fulfil her own darling desire. For Pen knew more than
+the other girls supposed. She was very angry with Pauline for not
+confiding in her on Pauline's birthday, and at night she had managed to
+keep awake, and had risen softly from her cot and stood in her white
+night-dress by the window; and from there she had seen three little
+figures creeping side by side across the lawn--three well-known little
+figures. She had very nearly shouted after them; she had very nearly
+pursued them. But all she really did was to creep back into bed and say
+to herself in a tone of satisfaction:
+
+"Now I knows. Now I will get lots of pennies out of Paulie."
+
+She dropped into the sleep of a happy child almost as she muttered the
+last words, but in the morning she had not forgotten what she had seen.
+
+On a certain day shortly after Penelope had recovered from her very
+severe fit of indigestion, she was playing on the lawn, making herself,
+as was her wont, very troublesome, when Briar, looking up from her new
+story-book, said in a discontented voice:
+
+"I do wish you would go away, Penelope. You worry me awfully."
+
+Penelope, instead of going away, went and stood in front of her sister.
+
+"Does I?" she said. "Then I am glad."
+
+"You really are a horrid child, Pen. Patty and Adelaide, can you
+understand why Pen is such a disagreeable child?"
+
+"She is quite the most extraordinary child I ever heard of in the whole
+course of my life," said Adelaide. "The other night, when she woke up
+with a pain in her little tum-tum, she shouted, 'Vinegar! vinegar!' She
+must really have been going off her poor little head."
+
+"No, I wasn't," said Penelope, who turned scarlet and then white. "It was
+vinegar--real vinegar. It was to pale me."
+
+"Oh, don't talk to her!" said Patty. "She is too silly for anything. Go
+away, baby, and play with sister Marjorie, and don't talk any more
+rubbish."
+
+"You call me baby?" said Penelope, coming close to the last speaker, and
+standing with her arms akimbo. "You call me baby? Then I will ask you a
+question. Who were the people that walked across the lawn on the night of
+Paulie's birthday? Who was the three peoples who walked holding each
+other's hands?--little peoples with short skirts--little peoples about
+the size of you, maybe; and about the size of Briar, maybe; and about the
+size of Paulie, maybe. Who was they? You answer me that. They wasn't
+ghostses, was they?"
+
+Briar turned pale; Patty glanced at her. Adelaide, who had watchful blue
+eyes, turned and looked from one sister to the other.
+
+"You are talking rubbish," said Briar. "Go and play."
+
+"Who was they?" repeated Pen.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Am I baby or big wise girl?"
+
+"Oh, you are an infant Solomon! I don't know who the people were."
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+Penelope looked at Briar with a sigh of disappointment. Then she
+whispered to herself:
+
+"It's 'cos of Adelaide. Course they don't want to say anything when
+Addy's there."
+
+She strolled away.
+
+"What was the child talking about?" asked Adelaide.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," replied Briar. "She's the rummiest little thing
+that ever walked. But there's no good in taking any notice of what she
+says."
+
+"Of course no one does," answered Adelaide. "But I do wonder if ghosts
+ever walk across the lawn. Do you believe in ghosts, Briar?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Briar. "No girl in her senses does."
+
+"I don't know at all as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl
+that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell.
+She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house.
+What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?"
+
+"I don't know," said Briar. "I don't want to talk about ghosts. I don't
+believe in them."
+
+She got up and crossed the lawn. The next moment Pen had tucked her hand
+inside her arm.
+
+"You needn't keep it from me," she said in a whisper. "It was you and
+Patty and Paulie. I knew who you were, 'cos the moon shone on Patty's
+Glengarry cap. You needn't deny it."
+
+"I do deny it. I didn't go," said Briar.
+
+She felt her heart smite her as she told this lie. She walked quickly.
+
+"Do leave me," she said. "You are a little girl that doesn't at all know
+her own place."
+
+"But I do know it," said Penelope. "My place is at the seaside. I want to
+go there. I'm 'termined to go there. If I don't go one way I'll go
+another. Why should Paulie, what is the naughtiest of girls, have all the
+fun? I don't mind Renny being there so much. And why should I, what is
+the very best of girls, be kept stuck here with only nursey and you
+childrens to bother me? I am going. I'm 'termined."
+
+She marched away. Patty came up.
+
+"Patty," said Briar, "I've done it."
+
+"What?" asked Patty.
+
+"I've told a lie about it. I said we weren't on the lawn at all. I told
+her she was talking nonsense."
+
+"Couldn't you have got out of it by any other way?" asked Patty. "It
+doesn't seem right to tell lies."
+
+"I could with any one but Pen; but Pen can see through a brick wall. I
+had to tell it, and very plump, too, where Pen was in the question."
+
+"Well, it makes me feel horrid," said Patty. "I am sorry we went. I think
+we did awfully wrong."
+
+"We did it for Paulie. We'd do more than that for her," replied Briar.
+
+"I suppose so. I certainly love Paulie very much," answered Patty.
+
+"And, Patty," continued Briar, "having told such a great black lie to
+help her, we must go through with it. Pen means mischief. She's the sort
+of child who would do anything to gain anything. She wants to go to the
+seaside, and she wouldn't mind whom she got into trouble if it suited her
+own ends. We must remember she means mischief, and if she talks again
+about three figures on the lawn, you and I have got to stick to it that
+we didn't go. Do you understand?"
+
+"I do, and I consider it awful," said Patty.
+
+She did not add any more, but went slowly into the house. Presently,
+feeling much depressed, she sought nurse's society. Nurse was turning
+some of the girls' skirts. She was a good needlewoman, and had clung to
+the house of Dale through many adverse circumstances. She was enjoying
+herself at present, and used often to say that it resembled the time of
+the fat kine in Egypt.
+
+"Ah, Miss Patty!" she cried. "It's glad I am to see you, darling."
+
+"Can I do anything for you, nursey?" asked Patty.
+
+"Of course you can, dear. You can help me to unpick this frock. I am
+cutting it down to fit Miss Pen. It will make a very neat frock for her,
+and it seems unfair that dear Miss Tredgold should be at more expense
+than is necessary."
+
+"Why," asked Patty, with a surprised look, "doesn't father pay for the
+things?"
+
+"Mr. Dale!" cried nurse in a tone of wrath, "I'd like to see him. It's
+not that he wouldn't, and for all I can tell he may have the money; but,
+bless you, darling! he'd forget it. He'd forget that there was such a
+thing as dress wanted in all the world; and servants and food, and the
+different things that all well-managed houses must have, couldn't lie on
+his memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose if that dear,
+blessed lady didn't put her hand into her pocket in the way she does that
+you'd be having the right good time you are now having, and the nice
+clothes, and the good education, and the pretty ponies coming next week?
+And Miss Pauline, just because she's a bit pale, taken to the seaside?
+Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It's thankful you ought to be to the
+Providence that put it into your aunt's head to act as she has done. Ah!
+if my dear mistress was living she would bless her dear sister."
+
+"Did you know mother before she was married?" asked Patty, taking up a
+skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which nurse provided her with, and
+sitting down happily to her task.
+
+"Didn't I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?" asked nurse. "And
+didn't I over and over again help Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was
+a wild young lady!"
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything wrong?"
+
+"Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit and for dash and
+for go there wasn't her like. Not a horse in the land was wild enough to
+please her. She'd ride bareback on any creature you gave her to mount,
+and never come to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn't
+touch. She had a way with her that they couldn't resist. Just a pat of
+her hand on their necks and they'd be quiet and shiver all over as though
+they were too delighted for anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My
+word! and she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand. And
+as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all the world like our
+Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two have very much in common, and that
+is why Miss Tredgold has taken such a fancy to your sister."
+
+"Do you think she has?" asked Patty.
+
+"Do I think it?" cried nurse. "For goodness' sake, Miss Patty, don't cut
+the material. Do look where you are putting the scissors. Do I think it,
+miss? I know it. Miss Marjorie, sweet pet, you shall thread these
+daisies. You shall make a pretty chain of them to put around your neck.
+There's my little precious."
+
+Fat, lovely, little Marjorie shrieked with delight when nurse put a
+coarse needle, to which was attached an equally coarse piece of cotton,
+and a basket of daisies before her. Marjorie tried to thread daisies, and
+uttered little cries of happiness, while Patty and nurse talked together.
+
+"Miss Tredgold was a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited.
+But if she didn't always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand.
+Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that
+when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while
+before she'd consent--and all because she didn't want to part with Miss
+Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy would consent to live with them she'd
+marry Mr. Dale at once, for she was very much attached to him. But Miss
+Sophy put down her foot. 'Live with a married couple!' she cried. 'Why,
+I'd rather die.' Well, my dear, there were words and tears and groans;
+but at last Miss Sophy took the bit between her teeth, and went off to an
+old relative, a certain Miss Barberry, in Scotland, and arranged to live
+with her and look after her. And your mother married; and when Miss
+Barberry died she left Miss Sophy every penny she possessed, and Miss
+Sophy is very rich now; and well she deserves it. Dear, dear! I seem to
+see Miss Sophia over again in our Miss Pauline. She was very comical, and
+so high-spirited and wild, although she'd never do an underhand thing."
+
+"Never?" asked Patty, with a sigh.
+
+"Of course not. What do you take her for? Noble ladies what is ladies
+don't do mean sort of things."
+
+Patty sighed again.
+
+"What are you sighing for, Miss Patty? I hate to hear young ladies giving
+way to their feelings in that sort of fashion."
+
+"I was only thinking that you compared Aunt Sophy to Pauline."
+
+"And why shouldn't I? Is it you who want to belittle your sister? Miss
+Pauline is as high-spirited as ever young lady was, but neither would she
+do a mean or underhand thing."
+
+Patty suppressed her next sigh. For a long time she did not speak.
+
+"Nurse," she said when she next broke silence, "did you in the whole
+course of your life ever tell a lie?"
+
+"My word!" cried nurse--"Miss Marjorie, you'll prick your little fingers
+if you hold the needle like that. This way, lovey. Did I ever tell a lie,
+Miss Patty? Goodness gracious me! Well, to be sure, perhaps I told a bit
+of a tarradiddle when I was a small child; but an out-and-out lie--never,
+thank the Almighty!"
+
+"But what is the difference between a lie and a tarradiddle?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Patty, there's a deal of difference. A tarradiddle is what you
+say when you are, so to speak, took by surprise. It isn't a lie out and
+out; it's the truth concealed, I call it. Sometimes it is a mere
+exaggeration. You say a person is very, very cross when maybe that person
+is hardly cross at all. I can't quite explain, miss; I suppose there's
+scarcely any one who hasn't been guilty of a tarradiddle; but a lie--a
+thought-out lie--never."
+
+"Is a lie so very awful?" asked Patty.
+
+"Awful!" repeated nurse.
+
+She rose solemnly from her seat, went up to Patty, and put her hand under
+her chin.
+
+"Don't you ever catch me a-seeing you a-doing of it," she said. "I
+wouldn't own one of you Dales if you told falsehoods. A black lie the
+Bible speaks of as a thing that ain't lightly forgiven. But, of course,
+you have never told a lie. Oh, my dear, sweet young lady, you quite
+frightened me! To think that one of my children could be guilty of a sin
+like that!"
+
+Patty made no answer.
+
+"I am tired of work," she said; "I am going out."
+
+She flung down the skirt that she was helping to unpick and let the
+scissors fall to the ground.
+
+"You might put your work tidily away, Miss Patty. You aren't half as
+useful and helpful as you ought to be."
+
+Patty laid the skirt on a chair and slipped away. Nurse continued her
+occupation.
+
+"I wonder what the child meant," she thought. "She looked queer when she
+spoke. But there! with all their faults--and goodness knows they've
+plenty--they're straight, every one of them. A crooked-minded Dale or a
+crooked-minded Tredgold would be a person unheard of. Oh, yes, they're
+straight enough, that's a blessing."
+
+Meanwhile Patty sought her sister.
+
+"It's worse than I thought," she remarked. "It's not even a tarradiddle."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Briar.
+
+"The lie you told--the lie I am to help you to hide. It's black as ink,
+and God is very angry with little girls who tell lies. He scarcely can
+forgive lies. I was talking to nurse, and she explained."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you told her about Pauline?"
+
+"No," answered Patty in a voice of scorn. "I am not quite as bad as that.
+But she was speaking about Aunt Sophy and how wild she used to be, and
+she compared her to Paulie, and said that Aunt Sophy never did anything
+mean or underhand, and that Paulie never did either. I felt as if I could
+jump, for we know, Briar, what Paulie has done."
+
+"Yes, we know," answered Briar. "And you and I have done very wrong, too.
+But there is no help for it now, Patty. We can't go back."
+
+"It certainly does seem awful to think of growing up wicked," said Patty.
+"I don't like it."
+
+"Don't let's talk about it," said Briar. "We'll have to suffer some time,
+but perhaps not yet. Do you know that the apples are getting ripe, and
+John wants us to help him to pick them? Oh! and the mulberry-tree, too,
+is a mass of fruit. What do you say to climbing the apple-trees and
+shaking down the apples?"
+
+"Say!" cried Patty. "Delicious!"
+
+Without more words the little girls ran off to the orchard, and nurse's
+remarks with regard to the difference between lies and tarradiddles were
+forgotten for the time being.
+
+The days went on, but Pen did not forget. There came a morning when, a
+letter having arrived from Aunt Sophy saying that Pauline was much
+better--in fact, quite herself again--and that she and both the girls
+would be home in about a week, the little girl was rendered desperate.
+
+"I has no time to lose," she said to herself. "I am 'termined to go; I am
+going some fashion or t'other."
+
+On this occasion she took a bolder step than she had yet attempted. She
+resolved to walk alone the entire distance between The Dales and The
+Hollies, which was about three miles. Pen was the sort of child who was
+never troubled by physical fear. She also knew the Forest very well. She
+had but to slip away; none of her sisters would miss her. Or if nurse
+wondered where she was, she would conclude that Pen was keeping her elder
+sisters company. If the girls wondered, they would think she was with
+nurse. Altogether the feat was easy of accomplishment, and the naughty
+child determined to go. She started off an hour after breakfast, opened
+the wicket-gate, let herself out, and began to walk quickly. These were
+the days of early autumn, when the Forest was looking its best; the trees
+were beginning to put on their regal dresses of crimson and brown and
+gold. Already the rich red leaves were dropping to the ground. The
+bracken was withering to a golden brown, and the heather was a deep
+purple. Everywhere, too, little bluebells sprang up, looking as if they
+were making fairy music. There were squirrels, too, darting from bough to
+bough of the beech-trees; and rabbits innumerable, with white-tipped
+tails, disappearing into their various holes. A walk in the Forest on
+this special day was the sort to fascinate some children, but Pen cared
+for none of these things. Her way lay straight before her; her object was
+never for a moment forgotten. She meant to reach the sea by some means or
+other.
+
+She was a somewhat tired and hot little person when at last she appeared
+outside the broad gravel walk that led to The Hollies; and it so happened
+that when she entered this walk her courage was put to a severe test, for
+Lurcher, the farmer's bulldog, happened to be loose. As a rule he was
+kept tied up. Now, Lurcher was a very discerning person. He attacked
+beggars in a most ferocious manner, but as to ladies and gentlemen a
+fierce bout of barking was sufficient. Pen, however, looked like neither
+a beggar nor a lady or gentleman. Lurcher did not know what to make of
+Pen. Some one so small and so untidy could scarcely be a visitor. She was
+much too short and much too stout, and her little legs were bleeding from
+the thorny brambles that she had come through during her journey.
+Accordingly Lurcher, with a low growl and a swift bound, pinned poor
+little Pen by the skirt of her short frock. He was sufficiently a
+gentleman not to hurt her, but he had not the least idea of letting her
+go. He pinned her even more firmly when she moved an inch away from him,
+and when she raised her voice he growled. He not only growled, but he
+shook her dress fiercely. Already she felt it snap from its waistband
+under Lurcher's terrible teeth. She was a very brave child, but her
+present predicament was almost more than she could bear. How long it
+lasted no one quite knew. Then there came a stride across the gravel, a
+shout from Farmer King, and Pen was transferred from the ground into his
+sheltering arms.
+
+"You poor little thing!" he said. "You poor little bit of a lass! Now,
+you don't tell me you are one of the Dales? You have their eyes--black as
+black most of them are. Are you a Dale?"
+
+"Course I am," answered Penelope. "I'm Penelope Dale. He's a shocking bad
+dog. I never thought I could be frightened. I was 'termined to come, but
+I never thought you kept such a shocking, awful dog as that."
+
+"I am more sorry than I can say, my little dear. I wonder now who let the
+brute out. He'll catch it from me, whoever he is. Here, Nancy! Hullo,
+Nancy! Come along here, quick!"
+
+Nancy, looking fresh and smiling, stepped out of the open French window.
+
+"Why," she said when she saw Pen, "wherever did you drop from?"
+
+Pen began to cry.
+
+"I wor 'termined to come," she said. "I wanted to see you most tur'ble
+bad."
+
+"Poor little thing!" said the farmer. "She's got a bit of a fright. What
+do you think, Nancy? Lurcher had little miss by her skirt. He'd pinned
+her, so to speak, and he wouldn't let go, not if she fainted; and she was
+that brave, little dear, that she didn't do anything but just stood
+still, with her face as white as death."
+
+"Wor I paled down?" said Pen. "Do tell me if I wor paled down a bit."
+
+"You were as white as death, you poor little pretty," said the farmer;
+and then he kissed the little girl on her broad forehead, and hurried off
+to expostulate with regard to Lurcher.
+
+Nancy took Pen into the house, and sat down in a cosy American
+rocking-chair with the little girl in her lap. She proceeded to gorge her
+with caramels and chocolates. Pen had never been so much fussed over
+before; and, truth, to tell, she had seldom enjoyed herself better.
+
+"I wor 'termined--'termined to come," she repeated several times. At last
+her sobs ceased altogether, and she cuddled up against Nancy and went to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Nancy lifted her up and put her on the horse-hair sofa; she laid a rug
+over her, and then stooped and kissed her. Afterwards she went out and
+joined her father.
+
+"Whatever brought little miss here?" asked the farmer.
+
+"That's more than I can tell you, father."
+
+"And why don't the others come sometimes?" snapped Farmer King. "They
+none of 'em come, not even that pretty girl we made so much fuss over,
+giving her a gold locket and chain. Now, I'd like to find out, Nancy, my
+girl, if she has ever shown that locket and chain to her haristocratic
+aunt. Do you suppose the haristocratic lady has set eyes on it?"
+
+Nancy laughed.
+
+"I guess not," she said. "Paulie's a bit of a coward. She wants to know
+us and yet she don't. She wants to know us behind the aunt's back."
+
+"Left hand, not right hand," said the farmer. "I don't like that sort."
+
+"At any rate she can't come to us at present, father, for Miss Tredgold
+has taken her to the seaside."
+
+"That's it, is it?" said the farmer, his face clearing. "Then I suppose
+little miss has come with a message. What did missie say about your
+friend, Nancy?"
+
+"Nothing. She's asleep at present. I mean to let her have her sleep out,
+then give her some dinner, and drive her home in the dogcart."
+
+"Do as you like, Nance; only for mercy's sake don't make a fool of
+yourself over that family, for it strikes me forcibly they're becoming
+too grand for us."
+
+Nancy said nothing further. She returned to the house and sat down in the
+room where Penelope slept. Her work-basket was open. She was making a
+pretty new necktie for herself. Nancy was a very clever workwoman, and
+the necktie grew under her nimble fingers. Presently she dived into the
+bottom of the basket and took out a gold thimble with a sapphire top and
+turquoises round the rim. She slipped it on to the tip of her slender
+first finger.
+
+"I must send it back again," she said to herself. "I'd have done it
+before, but Pauline is away."
+
+Just then she was attracted by a sound on the sofa. She turned. Pen's big
+black eyes were wide open; she was bending forward and gazing at the
+thimble.
+
+"So you got it after all!" she said.
+
+"Oh, child, how you startled me! What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that's Aunty Sophy's thimble. I was to get a penny if I found it."
+
+Nancy was silent.
+
+"How did it get into your work-basket?" asked Pen.
+
+"I borrowed it from Paulie, and I'd have given it to her long ere this,
+but I heard she was away."
+
+"Give it to me," cried Penelope. Her voice quite shook in her eagerness.
+"Give it to me at once, and I will take it back to her."
+
+"I wish you would, Pen, I am sure; but you must be very careful not to
+lose it, for it is a real beauty. See, I will put it into this little
+box, and cover the box up."
+
+Penelope pressed close to Nancy. Nancy placed the thimble in the midst of
+some pink cotton-wool and looked at it affectionately; then she tied up
+the little box, put brown paper round it, tied string round that again,
+and then she held it out to Pen.
+
+"You are quite positive you won't lose it?" she said.
+
+"Positive. I has a big pocket, and no hole in it. See for yourself,
+there's no hole. Turn it out, will you?"
+
+Penelope's pocket proved to be quite safe, and Nancy, with a qualm at her
+heart which she could not account for, allowed the little girl to put the
+thimble therein.
+
+"Well, that is settled," she cried. "And now I want to know what you came
+for. You are going to have dinner with father and me after a bit."
+
+"No, I'm not," answered Pen. "I'm going home at once."
+
+"But why did you come? Did Pauline send me a message?"
+
+"No, she wouldn't."
+
+"Why not? I've done a great deal for her."
+
+"She's ongrateful," said Pen. "She didn't send no message. I 'spect
+she'll have forgot you when she comes back."
+
+Nancy's face flamed.
+
+"I can make it a little too hot for her if she does."
+
+"What's making a thing too hot?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Oh, making it so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes
+pit-a-pat," replied Nancy. "There! I'm not going to talk any more. If you
+won't tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room
+and have some dinner?"
+
+"I won't. I'm going home. As Paulie didn't send you a message, are you
+going to make it hot for her?"
+
+"That I am. Somebody will come here--somebody I know--to see somebody she
+knows; and there will be a begging and imploring, and somebody she knows
+will do nothing for somebody I know. Now, can you take that in?"
+
+"You are very funny," answered Penelope, "but I think I can. I'm glad,
+and I'm not glad, that I comed. I won't stay to dinner; I'm going
+straight away home this blessed minute."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+PEN VICTORIOUS.
+
+
+Penelope managed to reach home unattended. She was tired and draggled and
+dusty, and also very much scratched. Her sisters received her with whoops
+of astonishment and welcome. They had not missed her, it is true, but
+when they saw her coming sadly and sheepishly in at the wicket-gate they
+concluded that they had. Adelaide was the first to reach her.
+
+"Don't ask me any questions and you'll hear no lies," was Pen's remark.
+She waved her fat hand as she spoke. "I am going to nursey straight away.
+I has something I wants to say to nursey. Has the post gone? I want to
+catch the post immediate."
+
+"You are too queer for anything," said Adelaide; "but go your own way.
+You'll catch it for being out all by yourself in the woods."
+
+"I won't catch it, but there are others who will," replied Penelope. "And
+now keep out of my way. I want to find nursey."
+
+She marched in a most defiant and even queenly style towards the house;
+and the others, after laughing for a moment, returned to their various
+pursuits and forgot all about her.
+
+When nurse saw Penelope she uttered a groan.
+
+"There you come," she said. "You are a handful! You never turned up at
+dinner-time, although we looked for you everywhere. Now, where were you
+hiding?"
+
+"Never mind that, nursey. Get out your writing 'terials."
+
+"Now, whatever does the child mean? Sakes! you are scratched, and your
+nice new holland frock is all torn, and you are dusty and pale and
+trembling--as pale and trembling as can be."
+
+"Is it pale I am?" cried Penelope. "Is it? Is it? Nursey, I love you,
+love you, love you!"
+
+With a flop Penelope's fat arms were flung round nurse's neck; her hot
+little lips caressed nurse's cheeks.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "how much I love you! Get writing 'terials quick. Get
+pen and ink and paper, and sit down and write. I will tell you what to
+say. You must write this instant minute. It is the most 'portant thing in
+all the world. Write, and be quick. If you don't I'll go to Betty, and
+she'll do what I want her to do."
+
+"You needn't do that," cried nurse. "You are a queer child, and more
+trouble than you're worth, but when you are in a bit of a mess I'm not
+the one to refuse my aid. Who have I to write to?"
+
+"To my darlingest Aunt Sophy."
+
+"My word! What on earth have you got to say to her?"
+
+"Get 'terials and you'll know."
+
+Nurse complied somewhat unwillingly. She produced a portfolio, got out
+her ink-bottle and pen, dipped the pen in ink, and looked up at Penelope.
+
+"Go on, and be quick," she said. "I can't be fashed with the whims of
+children. What is it that you want to say?"
+
+"Write, 'Dear, darling Aunt Sophia.'"
+
+"You are too queer!"
+
+Nevertheless nurse put the words on the sheet of paper, and Pen proceeded
+to deliver herself quickly.
+
+"'I am paled down, and want change of air. My breaf is too quick. My legs
+is all tored with briers and things. I has got a prickly feeling in my
+froat, and I gets wet as water all over my hands and round my neck and my
+forehead. It's 'cos I'm weak, I 'spect.'"
+
+"Miss Penelope," said the nurse, "if those symptoms are correct, it is
+the doctor you want."
+
+"'I has a doubly-up pain in my tum-tum,'" proceeded Penelope, taking no
+notice of nurse's interruption. "'I shrieks in my sleep. I wants change
+of air. I am very poorly. Nursey is writing this, and she knows I am very
+poorly. I feel sort of as though I could cry. It's not only my body, it's
+my mind. I has got a weight on my mind. It's a secret, and you ought to
+know. Send for me quick, 'cos I want change of air.
+
+                                                                  Pen.'"
+
+"I never wrote a queerer letter," said nurse; "and from the looks of you
+there seems to be truth in it. You certainly don't look well."
+
+"You will send it, nursey?" asked Pen, trembling with excitement.
+
+"Yes, child; you have dictated it to me, and it shall go by the post.
+Whether Miss Tredgold will mind a word you say or not remains to be
+proved. Now leave me, and do for goodness' sake try not to run about
+wildly any more for to-day at least."
+
+Penelope left the room. She stooped slightly as she walked, and she
+staggered a little. When she got near the door she coughed. As she
+reached the passage she coughed more loudly.
+
+"It's my froat," she said in a very sad tone, and she crept down the
+passage, nurse watching her from the open door of the nursery.
+
+She did not guess that when Penelope turned the last corner she gave a
+sudden whoop, leapt nearly a foot into the air, and then darted out of
+the house as fast as she could.
+
+"I 'spect I's done it this time," thought Pen.
+
+Meanwhile in the nursery, after a moment's reflection, nurse added a
+postscript of her own to Pen's letter.
+
+"Miss Penelope is very queer, and don't look well at all."
+
+That letter was put in the post, and in due time received by Miss
+Tredgold.
+
+Penelope began to count the hours. She knew that no answer could come for
+some time after the letter was written. During the next day she went at
+intervals to visit Betty, and begged her for drinks of vinegar; and as
+she paid Betty by more and more presents out of Pauline's old bandbox,
+she found that individual quite amenable. After drinking the vinegar
+Penelope once again suffered from the "doubly-up pain in her tum-tum."
+She spoke of her agonies to the others, who pitied her a good deal, and
+Josephine even presented her with some very precious peppermints for the
+purpose of removing it. Towards evening she seemed better, and talked
+continually of the seaside and how she intended to enjoy herself there.
+And then she suggested that her sisters should come and help her to pack
+her things. The girls naturally asked why they were to do it, and she
+replied:
+
+"'Cos I'm going on a journey, and it's most 'portant. None of you are
+going, but I am."
+
+"You're not going on any journey," said Lucy. "You do talk rubbish."
+
+"What you bet?" asked Penelope, who saw an instant opportunity of making
+a little money.
+
+"Nothing," replied Lucy. "You are talking rubbish. Get out of my way. I'm
+very busy."
+
+Pen looked wildly around her. She was in such a state of suppressed
+excitement that she could stop at nothing. Her sisters were all close at
+hand. Patty and Briar were sitting as usual almost in each other's
+pockets. Adelaide, Josephine, Lucy, and Helen made a group apart. Pen
+thought carefully.
+
+"There's six of 'em," she said to herself. "I ought to make a little
+money by six of 'em. Look here!" she called out. "You all say I'm not
+going on a journey to-morrow; I say I am. Will you give me a penny each
+if I go? Is it done? Is it truly done? If I don't go I'll give you a
+penny each."
+
+"But you haven't got any pence to give us."
+
+"I will borrow from nursey. I know she'll lend me the money. But I shan't
+need it, for I am going. Will you give me a penny each if I go?"
+
+"Oh, yes, if you want it," said Adelaide.
+
+"But remember," continued Lucy, "we shall keep you to your part of the
+bargain if you don't go."
+
+"All right," cried Pen; and, having received the promise, she walked
+sedately across the grass.
+
+"Six pennies! I'll find them useful at the seaside," she thought.
+"There's nothing like having a little money of your own. It buys
+sweetmeats and cakes. I'll tell Aunt Sophy that my froat is so sore, and
+that I must have constant sweetmeats. Six pennies will get a lot."
+
+She walked more slowly. She was in reality in excellent health; even the
+vinegar was not doing her much harm.
+
+"How hungry I'll be when I get to the seaside!" she said to herself.
+"I'll swell out and get very red and very fat. My body will be 'normous.
+Oh, there's father!"
+
+Mr. Dale was seated near his window. His head was bent as usual over his
+work.
+
+"Father could give me something," thought Pen. "He could and he ought.
+I'll ask him. Dad!" she called.
+
+Mr. Dale did not answer.
+
+"Dad!" called Pen again.
+
+He looked up with a fretful expression.
+
+"Go away, my dear," he said. "I am particularly busy."
+
+"I will if you'll give me sixpence."
+
+"Go away."
+
+Pen's father bent again over his book. He forgot Penelope.
+
+"He's sure to give me sixpence if I worrit him long enough," thought the
+naughty little girl.
+
+She stood close to the window. Suddenly it occurred to her that if she
+drew down the blind, which she could easily do by pushing her hand inside
+the window and then planting her fat little person on the window-sill,
+she would cause a shadow to come before the light on her father's page.
+
+"That will make him look up," she thought. "When he does I'll ask him
+again for sixpence. I'll tell him I won't go away till I get it."
+
+She sat down on the window-sill, cleverly manipulating the blind, and Mr.
+Dale found an unpleasant darkness steal over his page.
+
+"Draw up that blind and go away, Penelope," he said. "Do you hear? Go
+away."
+
+"I will 'mediately you give me sixpence. I will draw up the blind and
+I'll go away," said Pen.
+
+"I will give you nothing. You are an extremely naughty little girl."
+
+Penelope sat on. Mr. Dale tried to read in the darkening light. Presently
+he heard a sniff. The sniff grew louder.
+
+"My froat," said Penelope.
+
+He glanced towards her. She was sitting huddled up; her back looked very
+round.
+
+"Do go away, child. What is wrong?"
+
+"My froat. I want something to moisten it. It is so dry, it hurts me."
+
+"Go and get a drink of water."
+
+"Oh, my froat! Oh, my tum-tum! Oh, my froat!" said Penelope again.
+
+Mr. Dale rose from his seat at last.
+
+"I never was so worried in my life," he said. "What is it, child? Out
+with it. What is wrong?"
+
+Penelope managed to raise eyes brimful of tears to his face.
+
+"If you knowed that your own little girl was suffering from bad froat and
+doubly-up tum-tum, and that sixpence would make her well--quite, really,
+truly well--wouldn't you give it to her?" said Penelope.
+
+"How can sixpence make you well? If you really have a sore throat and a
+pain we ought to send for the doctor."
+
+"Sixpence is much cheaper than the doctor," said Penelope. "Sixpence will
+do it."
+
+"How?"
+
+"It will buy peppermints."
+
+"Well, then, here it is, child. Take it and be off."
+
+Penelope snatched it. Her face grew cheerful. She shot up the blind with
+a deft movement. She jumped from her seat on the window-ledge. She was no
+longer doubled up.
+
+"Thank you, dad," she said. "Thank you--thank you."
+
+She rushed away.
+
+"I'll have another sixpence to-morrow," she thought. "That's a whole
+beautiful shilling. I will do fine when I am at the seaside."
+
+Penelope could scarcely sleep that night. She got up early the next
+morning. She was determined to stand at the gate and watch for the
+postman. The letters usually arrived about eight o'clock. The postman
+hove in sight, and Pen rushed to meet him.
+
+"Have you letters--a letter for me?" she asked.
+
+"No, Miss Penelope, but there is one for your nurse."
+
+"It is from Easterhaze," said the child. "Thank you--thank you, posty."
+
+She snatched the first letter away from the old man and darted away with
+it. Into the nursery she rushed.
+
+"Here it is, nursey. Open it, quick! I am to go; I know I am."
+
+Nurse did open the letter. It was from Miss Tredgold, and it ran as
+follows:
+
+"DEAR NURSE: Penelope is evidently too much for you. I intend to remain
+two or three days longer in this pleasant place, so do not expect me home
+next week. I shall have Penelope here, so send her to me by the first
+train that leaves Lyndhurst Road to-morrow. Take her to the station and
+put her into the charge of the guard. She had better travel first-class.
+If you see any nice, quiet-looking lady in the carriage, put Penelope
+into her charge. I enclose a postal order for expenses. Wire to me by
+what train to expect the child."
+
+The letter ended with one or two more directions, but to these Pen
+scarcely listened. Her face was pale with joy. She had worked hard; she
+had plotted much; she had succeeded.
+
+"I feel as though I'd like to be really quite good," was her first
+thought.
+
+Nurse expected that she would be nearly mad with glee; but she left the
+nursery quietly. She went downstairs quietly. Her sisters were at
+breakfast. She entered the room and stood before them.
+
+"Pennies, please," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Briar, who was pouring out coffee.
+
+"Pennies from all of you, quick."
+
+Josephine put on a supercilious face; Lucy sniffed; Helen and Adelaide
+went on with their breakfast as though nothing had happened.
+
+Penelope came a little nearer.
+
+"Must I speak up?" she said. "Must I ask again? Is you all deaf? I am
+going to Easterhaze to Aunt Sophy. Darling aunty can't do without me. She
+has sent for me as she wants me so badly. I'm going by the first train. I
+am much the most 'portant person in the house, and I's won my bet. I like
+betting. A penny from you all if you please."
+
+The girls were excited and amazed at Pen's news.
+
+"You are clever," said Briar. "How in the world did you get her to do
+it?"
+
+"Tum-tum and sore froat," said Penelope bluntly. "Oh! and vinegar and
+paling down."
+
+"You are really such an incomprehensible child that I am glad Aunt Sophy
+is going to manage you," was Patty's remark. "Here are your pence. Shall
+we help you to pack your things?"
+
+"They are a'most packed. I did some myself last night. I took your new
+little trunk, Briar. I don't 'uppose you'll mind."
+
+Briar did mind, but she knew it was useless to expostulate.
+
+By eleven o'clock Penelope was off to Lyndhurst Road station. By twelve
+o'clock she was in charge of a red-faced old lady. In five minutes' time
+she was _en route_ for Easterhaze. The old lady, whose name was Mrs.
+Hungerford, began by considering Pen a plain and ordinary child; but she
+soon had reason to change her views, for Pen was not exactly plain, and
+was certainly by no means ordinary. She stared fixedly at the old lady,
+having deliberately left her own seat and planted herself on the one
+opposite.
+
+"Vinegar will do it," she said.
+
+"What are you talking about, child?" asked Mrs. Hungerford.
+
+"You are so red--such a deep red, I mean--much the same as chocolate.
+Vinegar will do it. Take three small glasses a day, and pay your Betty
+with vulgar sort of things out of an old bandbox."
+
+"The unfortunate child is evidently insane," was Mrs. Hungerford's
+thought. She spoke, therefore, in a reassuring way, and tried to look as
+though she thought Pen's remarks the most natural in the world.
+
+Pen, however, read through her.
+
+"You don't believe me," she said. "Now you listen. I look a pale little
+girl, don't I? I am nearly eight years old. I don't see why a girl of
+eight is to be trampled on; does you? I wanted to go, and I am going.
+It's tum-tum-ache and sore froat and paling cheeks that has done it. If
+you want to get what you don't think you will get, remember my words.
+It's vinegar does it, but it gives you tum-ache awful."
+
+The old lady could not help laughing.
+
+"Now, I wonder," she said, opening a basket of peaches, "whether these
+will give tum-ache."
+
+Penelope grinned; she showed a row of pearly teeth.
+
+"Guess not," she said.
+
+The old lady put the basket between Penelope and herself.
+
+"I have also got sandwiches--very nice ones--and little cakes," she said.
+"Shall we two have lunch together, even if my face is like chocolate?"
+
+"It's a beauty face, even if it is, and I love you," said Penelope. "I
+think you are quite 'licious. Don't you like to look like chocolate?"
+
+The old lady made no answer. Penelope dived her fat hand into the basket
+of peaches and secured the largest and ripest.
+
+"It is the best," she said. "Perhaps you ought to eat it."
+
+"I think I ought, but if you don't agree with me you shall have it."
+
+Penelope hesitated a moment.
+
+"You wouldn't say that if you didn't mean me to eat it," she said. "Thank
+you."
+
+She closed her teeth in the delicious fruit and enjoyed herself vastly.
+In short, by the time Mrs. Hungerford and her curious charge reached
+Easterhaze it seemed to them both that they had known each other all
+their days.
+
+Miss Tredgold, Verena, and Pauline met the train. The girls looked rosy
+and sunburnt. This was an ideal moment for Penelope. She almost forgot
+Mrs. Hungerford in her delight at this meeting with her relatives. But
+suddenly at the last moment she remembered.
+
+"How are you, Aunt Sophy? I am scrumptiously glad to see you. How are
+you, Verena? How are you, Paulie? Oh! please forgive me; I must say
+good-bye to the chocolate old lady."
+
+And the chocolate old lady was hugged and kissed several times, and then
+Pen was at liberty to enjoy the delights of the seaside.
+
+The lodgings where Miss Tredgold was staying were quite a mile from the
+station. Pen enjoyed her drive immensely. The look of the broad sea
+rolling on to the shore had a curious effect upon her strange nature. It
+touched her indescribably. It filled that scarcely awakened little soul
+of hers with longings. After all, it might be worth while to be good. She
+did not know why the sea made her long to be good; nevertheless it did.
+Her face became really pale.
+
+"Are you tired, dear?" asked Miss Tredgold, noticing the curious look on
+the expressive little face.
+
+"Oh, no, not that," replied Pen; "but I have never seen the sea before."
+
+Miss Tredgold felt that she understood. Pauline also understood. Verena
+did not think about the matter. It was Verena's habit to take the sweets
+of life as they came, to be contented with her lot, to love beauty for
+its own sake, to keep a calm mind and a calm body through all
+circumstances. She had accepted the sea as a broad, beautiful fact in her
+life some weeks ago. She was not prepared for Pen's emotion, nor did she
+understand it. She kept saying to herself:
+
+"Nurse is right after all; it was not mere fancy. Little Penelope is not
+well. A day or two on the sands in this glorious air will soon put her
+straight."
+
+Pauline, however, thought that she did understand her little sister. For
+to Pauline, from the first day she had arrived at Easterhaze, the sea had
+seemed to cry to her in one incessant, reiterating voice:
+
+"Come, wash and be clean. Come, lave yourself in me, and leave your
+naughtiness and your deceits and your black, black lies behind."
+
+And Pauline felt, notwithstanding her present happiness and her long days
+of health and vigor and glee, that she was disobeying the sea, for she
+was not washing therein, nor getting herself clean in all that waste of
+water. The old cry awoke again in her heart with an almost cruel
+insistence.
+
+"Come, wash and be clean," cried the sea.
+
+"I declare, Pauline, you are looking almost as pale as your sister," said
+Miss Tredgold. "Well, here we are. Now, Pen," she added, turning to
+Penelope, "I hope you will enjoy yourself. I certainly did not intend to
+ask you to join us, but as nurse said you were not well, and as your own
+extremely funny letter seemed to express the same thing, I thought it
+best to ask you here."
+
+"And you did quite right, Aunty Sophy," said Penelope.
+
+Then the look of the sea faded from her eyes, and she became once again a
+suspicious, eager, somewhat deceitful little girl. Once again the subtle
+and naughty things of life took possession of her. At any cost she must
+keep herself to the front. At any cost she must assume the power which
+she longed for. She was no longer a nursery child. She had won her way
+about coming to the seaside; now she must go still further. She must
+become a person of the greatest moment to Aunt Sophia. Aunt Sophia held
+the keys of power; therefore Penelope determined to devote herself to
+her.
+
+The lodgings were extremely cheerful. They were in a terrace overhanging
+the sea. From the big bay-windows of the drawing-room you could see the
+sunsets. There was a glorious sunset just beginning when Penelope walked
+to the window and looked out. Miss Tredgold had secured the best rooms in
+this very handsome house, and the best rooms consisted of a double
+drawing-room, the inner one of which was utilized as a dining-room; a
+large bedroom overhead in which Verena and Pauline slept; and a little
+room at the back which she used for herself, and in which now she had
+ordered a cot to be placed for Penelope.
+
+Penelope was taken upstairs and shown the arrangements that had been made
+for her comfort. Her eyes sparkled with delight when she saw the little
+cot.
+
+"There's no time like the night for telling things," she thought to
+herself. "Aunt Sophy can't get away from me at night. It's only to stay
+awake, perhaps to pertend to have a nightmare. Anyhow, night is the time
+to do what I have to do."
+
+Being quite sure, therefore, that she would get her opportunity of
+talking to Aunt Sophia, she revived for the time being to enjoy herself.
+Her volatile spirits rose. She laughed and talked, and ate an enormous
+meal. After the sort of tea-dinner was over the three girls went out by
+themselves on the sands.
+
+"You may stay out half-an-hour," said Miss Tredgold: "no longer, for
+Penelope has to go to bed. Afterwards I will take a walk with you two
+elder ones if you care to have me."
+
+"Of course we care to have you, dear Aunt Sophy," said Verena in her
+gentlest tone; and then the three started off. Penelope, in honor of her
+recent arrival, was promoted to the place in the middle. She laid a hand
+on each sister's arm and swung herself along. People remarked the trio,
+and said to themselves what a remarkably fat, healthy-looking little girl
+the one in the middle was.
+
+"Well, Pen," said Pauline as they approached the house, having discussed
+all sorts of subjects, "I can't see where the tum-ache and the sore
+throat and the pale cheeks come in."
+
+"They're gone," said Penelope. "I knew the sea would cure 'em. I am quite
+perfect well. I am going to be quite perfect well while I am here. I love
+the sea; don't you?"
+
+"Come, wash and be clean," whispered the sea to Pauline.
+
+She was silent. Verena said, however, that she greatly liked the sea.
+They went back to the house. Penelope was escorted upstairs. Pauline
+helped her to undress, and presently she was tucked into her little bed.
+
+"It seems a'most as if I wor still a nursery child," she said to her
+elder sister.
+
+"Why so?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Being sent to bed afore you and Renny. I am quite as old as you and
+Renny--in my mind, I mean."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," said Pauline almost crossly.
+
+"Paulie," said Penelope, taking hold of her hand and pulling her towards
+her, "I went to see Nancy King t'other day."
+
+"Why did you do that?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Because I wanted to come to the sea, and there was no other way. Vinegar
+wouldn't do it, nor tum-aches, but I thought Nancy might."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Pauline. "In what possible way could
+Nancy King have brought you here?"
+
+"Only that I got so desperate after seeing her that I wrote that funny,
+funny letter, and nursey helped me; and now I'm here, and I think I can
+do what I like. You had best be friends with me now, for I can do just
+what I like."
+
+Pauline felt just a little afraid. She knelt down by Pen.
+
+"Tell me why you went," she said. "You know you disobeyed Aunt Sophy when
+you went."
+
+"Yes; but what's one more in a family doing disobeying things?" answered
+Pen in her glib fashion. "But now listen. I will tell you."
+
+She related her adventures with much glee--her walk through the woods,
+her arrival, the terrible way in which Lurcher had treated her, the
+kindness of the farmer, the proposed dinner, Nancy's manners. She was
+working up to the grand climax, to the moment when she should speak about
+the thimble.
+
+"What do you think?" she said suddenly. "Nancy put me on a sofa, and I
+slept. I slept sound, and when I woke up I saw Nancy sitting by the
+window sewing. She wor making a blue scarf, and her thimble went flashing
+in and out; and what do you think, Paulie? What _do_ you think?"
+
+"Well?" said Pauline.
+
+"Pauline, dear, are you ready?" called a voice from below.
+
+"I must go," said Pauline; "but tell me at once, Pen, what you mean."
+
+"It was the thimble--the lost one," said Penelope--"the one with the
+dark-blue top and the light-blue stones round the rim, the goldy thimble
+which was Aunt Sophy's."
+
+In spite of her efforts Pauline did find herself turning white.
+
+"Pauline, dear, we can't wait any longer," said Miss Tredgold's voice.
+
+"I must go," said Pauline. "Tell me afterwards."
+
+"Whisper," said Penelope, pulling her hand. "I have got it. The deep-blue
+top and the light-blue stones and the goldy middle--I have it all. And I
+can tell Aunt Sophy, and show it, and I will if--if you don't tell me
+about----"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About that time when three peoples walked across the lawn--the night
+after your birthday, I mean. Will you tell? I asked Briar, and she said
+she didn't know. She told a lie. Are you going to tell a lie, too? If you
+do I will---- Well, I won't say any more; only I have put it in the
+safest of places, and you will never find it. Now you can go down and go
+out with Aunt Sophy. Now you know, 'cos I've told you."
+
+Pauline slowly left the room. She felt dazed. Once again Miss Tredgold
+called her. She ran to her washstand, filled her basin with cold water,
+and dipped her face into it. Then she ran downstairs. She found it
+difficult to analyze her own sensations, but it seemed to her that
+through her little sister's eyes she saw for the first time her own
+wickedness.
+
+"To think that Pen could do it, and to think that I could be afraid of
+her!" she thought.
+
+She went out and walked with her aunt and Verena, but the insistent voice
+of the sea, as with each swish of the waves it cried, "Come, wash and be
+clean," hit like a hammer on her brain.
+
+"What is the matter with Pauline?" thought Verena.
+
+"The child is tired; she is not quite well yet," was Miss Tredgold's
+mental reflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE WHITE BAY.
+
+
+Penelope did not repeat her threat, but she watched Pauline. Miss
+Tredgold also watched Pauline. Verena felt uncomfortable, without quite
+knowing why. The keen vigor and joy of the first days at the seaside had
+departed. Pauline became pale once more, and Miss Tredgold's anxieties
+about her were revived. The Dales were a healthy race, but one or two of
+the Tredgolds had died of consumption. Miss Tredgold remembered a
+young--very young--sister of her own who had reached Pauline's age, and
+then quite suddenly had become melancholy, and then slightly unwell, and
+then more unwell, until the fell scourge had seized her as its prey. She
+had died when between sixteen and seventeen. Miss Tredgold seemed to see
+her sister's face in Pauline's. She did not for a single moment accuse
+the child of any wrong-doing. She did not imagine that what ailed her
+could have to do with the mind. Nevertheless she was anxious about her.
+Miss Tredgold had a good deal of penetration, but she was not accustomed
+to children. She thought that children of Pen's age were more little
+animals than anything else. It did not occur to her that a small child
+like Pen could have a mind of a very extraordinary order, and that the
+mind of this child could work in a direction which might hurt others. She
+did not suppose such a terrible child could exist.
+
+Pauline was therefore more or less a prey to the naughtiness of Pen, who
+used her as a weapon for her own enjoyment. Pen was quite determined to
+enjoy herself at the seaside. She would have her bucket and spade and
+make castles in the sand as long as ever she liked, and she would play
+with other children, and would make acquaintance with them. She insisted
+also on going very often to the shops to buy caramels or chocolates. In
+short, she was determined that during her brief stay at Easterhaze she
+would have as good a time as possible. It is quite on the cards that she
+would not have had so good a time as she did but for the agency of
+Pauline. Pauline, however, in spite of herself, sided with Pen. She
+almost hated Pen, but she sided with her. She used to throw her voice
+into the scale of Pen's desires, and Pen in consequence got pretty much
+what she wanted.
+
+There came a day when two children, a boy and a girl of the name of
+Carver, ran up to Pen and asked her if she would join them in going round
+the next promontory and gathering shells in a wide bay on the other side,
+which was known as the White Bay. The way to this bay, except at
+low-water, was not very safe, as during high-tide the sea was apt to come
+up and cut off retreat. Pen, however, knew nothing about this. The moment
+she was asked to go it occurred to her that there could be no such
+delightful place as the White Bay anywhere else in the world. She knew
+well, however, that Miss Tredgold never allowed her to go fifty yards
+from the house on either side. She looked up. Pauline was walking along
+the upper walk. She had a story-book in her hand. She meant to reach one
+of the shelters and sit down there to read. Pen turned to the two Carvers
+and said that she must ask permission, but she would be with them in a
+minute. She then scrambled up the path and ran to Pauline's side.
+
+"Pauline," she said, "I am going to the White Bay with the Carvers--those
+two children there--that boy and girl; you see 'em. We are going at once.
+They have got a basket of cakes, and we are going to gather shells and
+have a jolly time. We won't be back till one o'clock."
+
+"But you can't go," said Pauline. She did not know of any danger in
+going; she only thought that Penelope meant to disobey Miss Tredgold.
+"Aunt Sophy is out, and she has not given you leave," she said. "You must
+stay where you are, Pen."
+
+"But you can give me leave, Paulie, darling, can you not?"
+
+"I can't do anything of the sort; you mustn't ask me."
+
+Pen's eyes danced. The children on the sands called out to her.
+
+"Be quick, little girl, or we'll be cotched. If nurse comes out she won't
+let us go. We can go if we start at once."
+
+"Well, I'm off. You must give me leave, Paulie. If you don't I will----"
+
+"Don't!" said Pauline, backing away from her sister. She felt a sort of
+terror when Penelope taunted her with her superior knowledge and the
+cruel use she meant to put it to.
+
+"Go if you like," she said, in a white heat of passion. "You are the
+worry of my life."
+
+Pen gave her a flashing, by no means good sort of glance, and then tore
+down the winding path which led to the sands. Pauline got up; she left
+her seat by the shore and went inland.
+
+"I don't know how I am to bear it," she said to herself. "Pen has made me
+so wretched. I was hoping that nothing would be known. I was trying to
+forget, and I was making a lot of good resolves, and I am loving Aunt
+Sophy more and more each day. Why have I got such a dreadful little
+sister as Pen? She is like none of the rest. It seems almost incredible
+that I should be in the power of such a small child. Nevertheless I am in
+her power. I had no right to let her go to the White Bay; still, I told
+her to go, for I couldn't bear the agonies I should have to go through if
+I refused. Oh, I am wretched! Pen practically knows everything; so does
+Patty, and so does Briar. But they're safe enough; they won't betray
+me--they wouldn't for all the world. As to Pen, I don't know what she is
+made of. She will be a terrible woman by-and-by."
+
+Pauline walked on until she heard Verena's voice. She then turned back.
+
+"Aunt Sophy said we were to go up to the town to meet her," said Verena.
+"She's doing some shopping. She wants to get a new autumn hat for you,
+and another for me. Come along, Paulie. We are to be at Murray's in the
+High Street at eleven o'clock."
+
+Pauline turned and walked soberly by her sister's side.
+
+"Are you as tired as ever this morning, Paulie?" asked Verena.
+
+"I am not tired at all," replied Pauline.
+
+Verena considered for a minute.
+
+"Aunt Sophy is often anxious about you," she said. "I can't imagine why,
+but she is. She says that she doesn't think you are at all strong."
+
+"Oh, I am!" interrupted Pauline. "I wish she wouldn't worry about me. I
+wish you'd tell her not to worry. I am really as strong as any girl could
+be. Do tell her not to fret about me any more."
+
+"Where is Pen?" said Verena suddenly.
+
+Pauline did not speak.
+
+"I suppose she is down on the beach as usual," said Verena again in a
+careless tone. "She's always down there. She is such a queer little
+mite!"
+
+"Don't let's talk about her," said Pauline almost crossly.
+
+The girls turned their conversation to other matters, and when they
+joined Miss Tredgold at Murray's shop they had both forgotten the
+existence of their little sister Penelope.
+
+Meanwhile that young person was having a good time. Having gained her
+wish, she was in excellent spirits, and was determined to make herself
+extremely agreeable to the Carvers. She thought them quite nice children.
+They were different from the children at home. They had lived almost all
+their lives in London. They told Pen a good many stories about London. It
+was the only place worth living in, Harry Carver said. When you went out
+there you always turned your steps in the direction of the Zoo. Pen asked
+what the Zoo was. Harry Carver gave her a glance of amazement.
+
+"Why, it's chock-full of wild beasts," he said.
+
+Pen thought this a most exciting description. Her cheeks paled; her eyes
+grew big. She clasped hold of Harry's arm and said in a trembling voice:
+
+"Are you joking, or do you mean real lions and bears and tigers?"
+
+"I mean real lions and bears and tigers," said Harry. "Oh, if you only
+heard the lions roar! We see them fed, too. It is fun to hear them
+growling when they get their meat; and the way they lick it--oh, it's
+most exciting!"
+
+"So it is," said Nellie Carver. "It's awful fun to go to the Zoo."
+
+"You must be very courageous," said Pen, who did not know that the wild
+beasts were confined in cages.
+
+Neither Eleanor nor Harry Carver thought it worth while to enlighten Pen
+with regard to this particular; on the contrary, they determined to keep
+it to themselves. It was nice to have a little girl like Pen looking at
+them with awe.
+
+"It isn't everybody who can go to the Zoo," proceeded Harry. "There are
+people that the wild beasts don't ever care to touch. Nellie and I are
+that sort; we're made that way. We walk about amongst them; we stroke
+them and pet them. I often sit on the neck of a lion, and quite enjoy
+myself."
+
+"My pet beast for a ride is a panther," said Nellie, her eyes sparkling
+with fun at her own delicious ideas; "but most children can never ride on
+lions and panthers."
+
+"I don't believe you ride on them," said Pen. "You don't look half brave
+enough for that."
+
+"Why don't you think us brave?" asked Harry. "You are not a nice girl
+when you talk in that way. You wouldn't even be brave enough to ride on
+the elephants. Oh, it's very jolly for the real brave people when they go
+to the Zoo."
+
+"And is that the only place to go to in London?" asked Pen.
+
+As she spoke she quickened her steps, for the children were now crossing
+the extreme end of the promontory round which was the celebrated White
+Bay.
+
+"There are other places. There's the British Museum, full of books. There
+are miles and miles of books in London, and miles and miles of pictures."
+
+"What an awful place!" said Pen, who had no love for either books or
+pictures. "Don't tell me any more about it. Go on ascribing the wild
+animals. Is there serpents at the Zoo?"
+
+"Tons of 'em. When they have gorged a rabbit or a lamb or a girl whole,
+they lie down and sleep for about a week."
+
+"They don't gorge girls!"
+
+"They think nothing of it; that is, if the girl is the sort of child they
+don't like."
+
+"I won't go," said Pen. "I am not the sort of child the wild beasts would
+love. I think maybe I might be crunched up by the lions. I shan't go."
+
+"Well, no one asked you," said Harry. "You are quite certain to be eaten,
+so you had best stay away."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+Harry glanced at his sister. Nellie laughed. Harry laughed also.
+
+"Why do you talk in that way, you horrid boy?" said Pen, stamping her
+foot. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you, only you need not try to kill me with your eyes. The wild
+beasts only like good uns. You ain't good. The wild beasts would soon
+find that out."
+
+For some extraordinary reason Pen found herself turning pale. She had a
+moment of actual fear. At this instant she would have resigned the
+thimble--the golden thimble, with its sapphire top and turquoise rim--to
+the safe keeping of Pauline. For if Pauline had the thimble Pen would
+have very little to say against her. As long as she possessed the thimble
+she felt that Pauline was in her power. She liked the sensation, and she
+was honest enough to own as much.
+
+The conversation was now quickly turned. The children found plenty of
+shells in the White Bay. Soon they were sitting on the sands picking them
+up and enjoying themselves as only children can.
+
+"So," said Pen, pushing back her hat and fixing her eyes on Harry's face,
+"you comed here without leave?"
+
+"Of course we did," said Harry. "Won't nurse be in a state when she finds
+we've gone! She will rush up and down in front of the house and cry, for
+father and mother have gone away for the whole day, and nurse is in sole
+charge. Oh, won't she be in a state! She went off to walk with her young
+man, and we thought we'd play a joke on her, for she's often told us not
+to come here. 'If you go near that White Bay,' she said, 'you will be
+drowned as sure as sure.' She daren't tell father and mother because of
+her young man. Isn't it fun?"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope, "it's prime fun; but isn't this fun, too? You won't
+be able to go to that Zoo place any more."
+
+"Now what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, this: the animals will eat you up. You are bad, same as me. You two
+won't be able to go to any more Zoos;" and Pen rolled round and round in
+fiendish delight.
+
+The other children looked at her with anything but approval.
+
+"I don't like her," whispered Nellie to her brother.
+
+"Of course you don't like bad little girls," replied Harry. "Let's run
+away at once and leave her. Let's."
+
+They scrambled to their feet. To love a new playmate and yet without an
+instant's warning to desert her was quite in accordance with their
+childish ideas. In a moment they were running as fast as their legs would
+permit across the sands. The tide had been coming in fast for some time.
+
+For a moment Pen sat almost petrified; then she rushed after them. She
+was wild with passion; she had never been so angry in all her life. There
+were many times when the other children at The Dales treated her with
+scant courtesy, but to be suddenly deserted in this fashion by strange
+children was more than she could endure.
+
+"Oh, how bad you have got! You are so bad--so dreadfully, horribly
+bad--that the tide is certain to come in and drown you up," she cried.
+"You can't go away from me; you can't. Oh, see! it has comed;" and Pen
+danced up and down and clapped her hands in triumph.
+
+She was right. She had gained a complete victory. Just at the extreme end
+of the promontory a gentle wave, peaceful, pretty, and graceful, curled
+up against the solid rock. It had scarcely retired in bashful innocence
+when another wave tumbled after it. They looked like charming
+playfellows. Then came a third, then a fourth and a fifth. Faster and
+faster they rolled in, flowing up the white sands and making a white foam
+round the rock.
+
+The little Carvers stood still, transfixed with a curious mingling of
+delight, excitement, and horror. Pen ceased to jump up and down.
+Presently she ceased to laugh. She was only a very small girl, and did
+not in the least realize her danger; nevertheless, as she used her eyes
+to good purpose, and as she quickly perceived that the opposite side of
+the bay was now shut away by a great body of water, it did occur to her
+that they would have to stay in their present shelter for some time.
+Harry turned round slowly. Harry was ten years old, and he understood. He
+had heard his father talk of the dangerous White Bay. He went straight up
+to Pen, and, taking her hand, burst out crying.
+
+"It don't matter," he said--"it don't matter whether we are good or
+whether we are bad. We can none of us ever go to the Zoo again. Nellie
+and I won't ever go any more, and you can never go at all."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Pen.
+
+Her heart began to beat fast and loud.
+
+"What do you mean? Oh, you dreadful bad----"
+
+"Don't call names," said Harry. "You will be sorry by-and-by; and
+by-and-by comes soon. We have got to be drowned, all three of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"OUR FATHER" IS BEST.
+
+
+Pauline and Verena found Miss Tredgold waiting for them. They went into
+the shop, which was quite one of the best shops in the High Street. There
+Miss Tredgold asked to see hats, and presently the two girls and their
+aunt were absorbed in the fascinating occupation of trying on new
+headgear. Miss Tredgold was buying a very pretty hat for herself also. It
+was to be trimmed with lace and feathers, and Verena had a momentary
+sense of disappointment that she was to have nothing so gay to wear on
+her own head. The attendant who was serving them made a sudden remark.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," she said, "this little brown hat trimmed with velvet will
+exactly suit the dark young lady." Here she looked at Pauline. "And I
+should venture to suggest a very little cream-colored lace introduced in
+front. The autumn is coming on, and the young lady will find this hat
+very suitable when the weather changes."
+
+"Well, the weather seems inclined to remain fine," said Miss Tredgold,
+glancing out of the window, where a very blue sky met her gaze. There
+were heavy white clouds, however, drifting quickly across the sky, and
+the young shop attendant said:
+
+"I hear that there's a storm expected. And anyhow it is high-tide
+to-night. The tide will come up and quite cover the White Bay this
+evening. It is always more or less dangerous there, but it is specially
+dangerous to-day. I never like these high-tides; children and nursemaids
+are so apt to forget all about them."
+
+Miss Tredgold muttered something conventional. Pauline suddenly sat down
+on a chair.
+
+"How white you are, dear!" said Miss Tredgold. "Would you oblige me," she
+added, turning to the attendant, "by bringing this young lady a glass of
+water?"
+
+But Pauline had already recovered herself.
+
+"Please don't," she said. "I want to go out. I want to get the air.
+Don't--don't keep me."
+
+Her movement was so sudden and so unexpected that neither Miss Tredgold
+nor Verena had time to say a word. The people in the shop saw a somewhat
+untidy-looking little girl rush wildly down the stairs and out of doors,
+and long before Miss Tredgold had time to recover her scattered senses
+that same little girl was tearing as though on the wings of the wind up
+the High Street. Panting, breathless, overpowered with emotion, she
+presently reached the long flat stretch of beach at the farther end of
+which was the dangerous White Bay. Never in all her life had Pauline run
+as she did now. Faster and faster flew her feet. There was a noise in her
+ears as though something was hammering on her brain. She was almost faint
+with terror. Should she be in time? Should she be too late? Oh! she must
+be in time.
+
+Presently she saw the far end of the promontory. Her heart gave a bound
+and almost stood still. What was that white thing curling round it?
+Water? Oh, yes; but she did not mind. She had waded before now. This was
+a case of wading again. She reached the spot, and a moment later she had
+torn off her shoes and stockings, had gathered her skirts round her
+waist, and was walking through the waves. The water was already over a
+foot deep. There was also a strong tide, and she had some difficulty in
+keeping her feet. She managed to hold her own, however, and found herself
+a minute or two later, drenched all over, panting and trembling, but
+still safe in the White Bay. To her relief, she saw three terrified
+children crouching up as near as they dared to the water. Even now a
+great wave, deeper and stronger than its predecessors, rolled in. It took
+Pauline off her feet just as she was clambering to dry ground. She
+recovered herself, ran up to Pen, took her hand, and said:
+
+"We have played pickaback before now. Get on my back this moment; don't
+stop to think."
+
+"I daren't," said Pen.
+
+"Little boy--I don't know your name," said Pauline--"put Pen onto my back
+whatever happens."
+
+Harry Carver sprang towards Pen.
+
+"You must," he said. "She is brave; she is a true heroine. The lions and
+tigers would love her. Get on her back and she will return for us. Oh! be
+quick--do be quick--for we don't any of us want to be drowned."
+
+"Can you swim?" asked Pauline. "No; I know you can't. I haven't a moment
+to stay; I'll come back somehow."
+
+She struggled towards the water, but Pen scrambled off her back and stood
+firm on the ground.
+
+"I am bad," she said--"there never was anybody much badder--but I'm not
+going first. Take that little girl; I will go afterwards."
+
+"Come, little girl," said Pauline.
+
+Harry rushed towards his sister.
+
+"Do go, Nellie. Let mother keep one of us. I don't mind being
+drowned--not a bit. You tell mother I don't mind. Go, Nellie; do go with
+the big brave girl."
+
+So Pauline carried Nellie through the rising tide, and, marvellous to
+relate, did land her safely on the other side.
+
+"Now look here," she said, "you must rush home as fast as you can, and
+when you get there you are to say that there are two girls and a boy in
+the White Bay, and that your people are to bring a boat immediately.
+Don't waste a second. Find somebody. If all your people are out, go to
+ours. Our house is No. 11. You understand? There isn't a minute to lose."
+
+"Yes, see you go," shouted Harry Carver. "And if you are too late, be
+sure you tell mother that I wasn't afraid to drown."
+
+Nellie Carver began to run as fast as she could across the sands. Pauline
+hesitated for a moment; then she deliberately waded back to the other
+two. The water was up to her waist now, and she had the greatest
+difficulty in keeping her feet.
+
+"I couldn't face anybody again if Pen were drowned," she said to herself.
+"If she drowns, so will I. It is the only thing fit for me. Perhaps when
+God sees that I am sorry, and that I did try to save Pen, He will forgive
+me; but I am not sure. Anyhow, I deserve to be drowned. I could never,
+never face the others if Pen were to die because of me."
+
+She was just able to scramble again out of the water on the White Bay
+side. The tide was coming in with great rapidity. It was hopeless to
+think of carrying Pen across.
+
+"Let us go to the top part of the bay, as close to the rocks as
+possible," said Pauline; "and don't let's be really frightened, for I am
+sure the boat will be in time."
+
+"Oh, I am certain of it!" said Harry. "Nellie never does lose her head.
+She won't want us to drown, so she'll hurry up."
+
+"Give me your hand, Pen," said Pauline. "You are a very brave little girl
+to let the other little girl go first. I am glad you did it."
+
+"Will God remember that about me by-and-by?" asked Pen.
+
+"I hope so," replied Pauline, with a shiver.
+
+She took Pen's icy hand and began to rub it.
+
+"It isn't at all good for you to shiver like this," she said. "Here is a
+bright piece of sunshine. Let us run up and down in the sunshine. It
+doesn't seem, somehow, as though anybody could drown when the sun
+shines."
+
+"Maybe the boat will be in time," said Harry.
+
+They ran up and down for some time, and then stood quiet. Pauline was
+very silent. Beside the other two children she felt quite old and
+grown-up. She had got Pen into this terrible scrape; it was her mission
+to help them both. If they must all die, she at least would have to show
+courage. She was not ready to die. She knew that fact quite well. But she
+had naturally plenty of pluck, and fearful as her present surroundings
+were, she would not have been afraid but for that ugly black thing which
+rested on her conscience. Penelope looked full into her face. There was
+something also pricking Penelope's conscience. The three children stood
+close together on the little white patch of sand which had not yet been
+covered by the waves. The wind was getting up, and the waves were
+mounting higher; they rushed farther and farther up the bay, and curled
+and swept and enjoyed themselves, and looked as though they were having a
+race up the white sands. Pauline made a rapid calculation, and came to
+the conclusion that they had about half-an-hour to live; for the bay was
+a very shallow one, and when the wind was in its present quarter the tide
+rose rapidly. She looked back at the rocks behind her, and saw that
+high-water mark, even on ordinary occasions, was just above their heads.
+This was what is called a spring-tide. There was not the least hope.
+
+"If only we could climb up," she thought.
+
+Then Penelope gave her hand a great tug. She looked down. Pen went on
+tugging and tugging.
+
+"Look," she said; "stoop and look."
+
+In the palm of Pen's hand lay the thimble.
+
+"Take it," said Pen. "I comed with it to make mischief, but I won't never
+tell now--never. Take it. Put it in your pocket. I am sorry I was so bad.
+Take it."
+
+Pauline did take the little gold thimble. She slipped it into her pocket;
+then she stooped and kissed Pen.
+
+"What are you two doing?" said Harry. "Why don't you talk to me? Can't I
+do something to help? I'm ten. How old are you?"
+
+"I was fourteen a few weeks ago," said Pauline.
+
+"Granny!" said the boy. "Why, you are quite old; you are withering up. I
+wouldn't like to be fourteen. You must know a monstrous lot. You are a
+very plucky one to come through the water as you did. I wish I could
+swim, and I wouldn't let the waves get the better of me; but I'm glad I
+let Nellie see that I wasn't afraid of drowning. Do you mind drowning,
+big, big, old girl?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Pauline.
+
+"You have a queer sort of look in your eyes, like the little one has in
+hers. Are you wicked, too?"
+
+"You have guessed it," said Pauline.
+
+"I expect we're all wicked for that matter; but we can say our prayers,
+can't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Pauline, and now her lips trembled and the color faded from
+her cheeks. "Let us say them together."
+
+"By-and-by," said Pen. "We needn't say our prayers yet. It will be some
+time afore the water will touch us; won't it, Paulie?"
+
+Pauline knew that the water would come in very quickly. Harry looked full
+at Pen, and then he nodded his head. He came to Pauline and whispered
+something in her ear.
+
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"She's little," he said. "She's quite a baby--not eight yet. I am ten.
+When the water begins to come in we'll lift her in our arms and raise her
+above it; shan't we?"
+
+"Yes; that is a very good thought," said Pauline. She looked back again
+at the rocks. They were smooth as marble; there did not seem to be a
+possible foothold. She felt a sense of regret that they had not gone to
+the farther end of the bay, where the rocks were lower and more indented,
+and where it might be possible for a brave boy and girl to get temporary
+foothold; but the sea had already reached those rocks and was dashing
+round them.
+
+"I wish I had thought of it," said Pauline.
+
+"What about?"
+
+"The rocks--those rocks out there."
+
+The words had scarcely passed her lips before Harry darted back. A wave
+from the incoming tide had rolled over his feet.
+
+Pen uttered a sudden cry:
+
+"I am frightened. I won't drown. I am awful frightened."
+
+She began to shriek.
+
+"Try and keep up your courage, darling," said Pauline. "It won't be long.
+It will be quickly over, and I will stay close to you. Paulie will be
+close to you."
+
+"Let us get her to stand on our two shoulders, and we'll lean up against
+the rocks," said Harry. "She can steady herself against the rock, and I
+will support you both. Here, I will hoist her up. Now, missy, you look
+slippy. That's it."
+
+Harry was a very active boy, and he did manage to lift Pen, who was stiff
+with cold and fright, and miserable with a sense of her own naughtiness,
+on to Pauline's and his shoulders. When she was established in that
+position she was propped up against the rocks.
+
+"Now you are safe," said Harry, looking back at her and trying to laugh.
+"We'll both drown before you. See how safe you are."
+
+Just for a moment Pen was somewhat consoled by this reflection. But
+presently a fresh terror seized her. It would be so awful when she was
+left alone and there was only a dead Pauline and a dead Harry to keep her
+company. She had never seen anybody die, and had not the least idea what
+death meant. Her terrors grew worse each moment. She began to cry and
+whimper miserably, "I wish that boat would come."
+
+Another wave came in and washed right over both Pauline's and Harry's
+ankles. They were jammed up against the rocks now. This big wave was
+followed by a second and a third, and soon the children were standing in
+water very nearly up to their knees.
+
+"Seems to me," said Harry in a choky voice, "that it is about time we
+began our prayers. It is like going to sleep at night. Just when you are
+preparing to sleep you say your prayers, and then you dump your head down
+on your pillow and off you go to by-bye land. Then mother comes and
+kisses you, and she says---- Oh, bother! I don't want to think of that.
+Let's try and fancy that it is night. Let's begin our prayers. Oh, what a
+wave that is! Why, it has dashed right into my eyes."
+
+"How far up is the water now, Pauline?" asked Penelope from her position.
+
+"It is not very far up yet," replied Pauline in as cheerful a tone as she
+could. "We had better do what Harry says, and say our prayers."
+
+"Shall us?" said Pen.
+
+"I think so," replied Pauline.
+
+There was a strange sensation in her throat, and a mist before her eyes.
+Her feet were so icy cold that it was with difficulty she could keep
+herself from slipping.
+
+"Which prayer shall we say?" asked Harry. "There's a lot of them. There's
+our special private prayers in which we say, 'God bless father and
+mother;' and then there's 'Our Father.'"
+
+"'Our Father' is best," said Pauline.
+
+The children began repeating it in a sing-song fashion. Suddenly Pen
+violently clutched hold of Pauline.
+
+"Will God forgive our badnesses?" she asked.
+
+"He will--I know He will," answered Pauline; and just at that instant
+there came a cry from Harry.
+
+"A boat! a boat!" he shrieked. "And it's coming our way. I knew Nellie
+was a brick. I knew she'd do it."
+
+A boat rowed by four men came faster and faster over the waves. By-and-by
+it was within a stone's-throw of the children. A big man sat in the
+stern. Harry glanced at him.
+
+"Why, it's father!" he cried. "Oh, father, why did you come home? I
+thought you had gone away for the day. Father, I wasn't a bit afraid to
+drown--not really, I mean. I hope Nellie told you."
+
+"Yes, my brave boy. Now, see, when I hold out my hand, spring up
+carefully or the boat will capsize."
+
+The next instant a stalwart hand and arm were stretched across the
+rapidly rising waves, and Harry, with a bound, was in the boat.
+
+"Lie down in the boat, and stay as quiet as a mouse," said his father.
+
+Pauline, already up to her waist in water, struggled a step or two and
+was dragged into the boat; while two of the men bent over, and, catching
+Penelope round the waist, lifted her into their ark of shelter.
+
+"It was touch-and-go, sir," said one of the sailors who had accompanied
+Harry's father. "Five minutes later and we could have done no good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DULL WEIGHT.
+
+
+The rest of that day passed for Pauline in a sort of dream. She felt no
+fear nor pain nor remorse. She lay in bed with a languid and sleepy
+sensation. Aunt Sophia went in and out of the room; she was all kindness
+and sympathy. Several times she bent down and kissed the child's hot
+forehead. It gave Pauline neither pain nor pleasure when her aunt did
+that; she was, in short, incapable of any emotion. When the doctor came
+at night his face looked grave.
+
+"The little girl is all right," he said. "She has had a terrible fright,
+but a good night's rest will quite restore her to her usual health; but I
+don't quite like the look of the elder girl."
+
+Verena, who was in the room, now came forward.
+
+"Pauline is always pale," she said. "If it is only that she looks a
+little more pale than usual----"
+
+"It isn't that," interrupted the doctor. "Her nervous system has got a
+most severe shock."
+
+"The fact is this," said Miss Tredgold. "The child has not been herself
+for some time. It was on that account that I brought her to the seaside.
+She was getting very much better. This accident is most unfortunate, and
+I cannot understand how she knew about Penelope."
+
+"It was a precious good thing she did find it out," said the doctor, "or
+Mr. Carver's two little children and your young niece would all have been
+drowned. Miss Pauline did a remarkably plucky thing. Well, I will send
+round a quieting draught. Some one had better sleep in the child's room
+to-night; she may possibly get restless and excited."
+
+When Miss Tredgold and Verena found themselves alone, Miss Tredgold
+looked at her niece.
+
+"Can you understand it?" she asked.
+
+"No, Aunt Sophy."
+
+"Has Pen told you anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"We must not question her further just now," said Miss Tredgold. "She
+will explain things in the morning, perhaps. Why did the children go to
+the White Bay--a forbidden place to every child in the neighborhood? And
+how did Pauline know that they were there? The mystery thickens. It
+annoys me very much."
+
+Verena said nothing, but her eyes slowly filled with tears.
+
+"My dear," said Miss Tredgold suddenly, "I thought it right this
+afternoon to send your father a telegram. He may arrive in the morning,
+or some time to-morrow; there is no saying."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he will come if he remembers," said Verena.
+
+"That's just it, Renny. How long will he remember? Sometimes I think he
+has a fossil inside of him instead of a heart. But there! I must not
+abuse him to you, my dear."
+
+"He is really a most loving father," said Verena; "that is, when he
+remembers. Why he should forget everything puzzles me a good deal; still,
+I cannot forget that he is my father."
+
+"And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go and sleep in the
+same room with Pen, and watch her. I will take care of Pauline."
+
+Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold, placing
+herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over the events of the day. Soon
+her thoughts wandered from the day itself to the days that had gone
+before, and she puzzled much over Pauline's character and her curious,
+half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself.
+
+"What can be the matter with the child?" she thought. "She doesn't really
+care for me as the others do, and yet sometimes she gives me a look that
+none of the others have ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with
+such a passionate love that it would make up for everything I have ever
+missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and sweet, and open as the
+day. As to Pen, she is an oddity--no more and no less. I wish I could
+think her quite straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission
+to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the one who really
+puzzles me."
+
+By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself alone. She
+stretched out her arms and said in a voice of excitement:
+
+"Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right to send it away to
+London. It was like stealing it. I want it back. Nancy, I must have it
+back."
+
+Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was evidently speaking in
+her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned again to her place by the window. The
+dawn was breaking. There was a streak of light across the distant
+horizon. The tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched the
+waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest chance Pauline and
+Pen might have been now lying within their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold
+shuddered again. She stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to
+prevent the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light, when
+Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her aunt, and said:
+
+"Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you have got! And have
+you brought it back at last? She wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps
+on looking and looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It
+is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful. Have you got
+it for me, Nancy?"
+
+"It is I, dear, not Nancy," said Miss Tredgold, coming forward. "You have
+had a very good night. I hope you are better."
+
+Pauline looked up at her.
+
+"How funny!" she said. "I really thought you were Nancy--Nancy King, my
+old friend. I suppose I was dreaming."
+
+"You were talking about something that was dark-blue and light-blue and
+gold," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+Pauline gave a weak smile.
+
+"Was I?" she answered.
+
+Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hands and put them inside the
+bedclothes.
+
+"I am going to get you a cup of tea," she said.
+
+Miss Tredgold made the tea herself; and when she brought it, and pushed
+back Pauline's tangled hair, she observed a narrow gold chain round her
+neck.
+
+"Where did she get it?" thought the good lady. "Mysteries get worse. I
+know all about her little ornaments. She has been talking in a most
+unintelligible way. And where did she get that chain?"
+
+Miss Tredgold's discoveries of that morning were not yet at an end; for
+by-and-by, when the servant brought in Pauline's dress which she had been
+drying by the kitchen fire, she held something in her hand.
+
+"I found this in the young lady's pocket," she said. "I am afraid it is
+injured a good bit, but if you have it well rubbed up it may get all
+right again."
+
+Miss Tredgold saw in the palm of the girl's hand her own much-valued and
+long-lost thimble. She gave a quick start, then controlled herself.
+
+"You can put it down," she said. "I am glad it was not lost."
+
+"It is a beautiful thimble," said the girl. "I am sure Johnson, the
+jeweller in the High Street, could put it right for you, miss."
+
+"You had better leave the room now," replied Miss Tredgold. "The young
+lady will hear you if you talk in a whisper."
+
+When the maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a minute or two holding
+the thimble in the palm of her hand; then she crossed the room on tiptoe,
+and replaced it in the pocket of Pauline's serge skirt.
+
+For the whole of that day Pauline lay in a languid and dangerous
+condition. The doctor feared mischief to the brain. Miss Tredgold waited
+on her day and night. At the end of the third day there was a change for
+the better, and then convalescence quickly followed.
+
+Mr. Dale made his appearance on the scene early on the morning after the
+accident. He was very much perturbed, and very nearly shed tears when he
+clasped Penelope in his arms. But in an hour's time he got restless, and
+asked Verena in a fretful tone what he had left his employment for. She
+gave him a fresh account of the whole story as far as she knew it, and he
+once more remembered and asked to see Pauline, and actually dropped a
+tear on her forehead. But by the midday train he returned to The Dales,
+and long before he got there the whole affair in the White Bay was
+forgotten by him.
+
+In a week's time Pauline was pronounced convalescent; but although she
+had recovered her appetite, and to a certain extent her spirits, there
+was a considerable change over her. This the doctor did not at first
+remark; but Miss Tredgold and Verena could not help noticing it. For one
+thing, Pauline hated looking at the sea. She liked to sit with her back
+to it. When the subject was mentioned she turned fidgety, and sometimes
+even left the room. Now and then, too, she complained of a weight
+pressing on her head. In short, she was herself and yet not herself; the
+old bright, daring, impulsive, altogether fascinating Pauline seemed to
+be dead and gone.
+
+On the day when she was considered well enough to go into the
+drawing-room, there was a festival made in her honor. The place looked
+bright and pretty. Verena had got a large supply of flowers, which she
+placed in glasses on the supper-table and also on a little table close to
+Pauline's side. Pauline did not remark on the flowers, however. She did
+not remark on anything. She was gentle and sweet, and at the same time
+indifferent to her surroundings.
+
+When supper was over she found herself alone with Penelope. Then a wave
+of color rushed into her face, and she looked full at her little sister.
+
+"Have I done it or have I not, Pen?" she said. "Have I been awfully
+wicked--the wickedest girl on earth--or is it a dream? Tell me--tell me,
+Pen. Tell me the truth."
+
+"It is as true as anything in the wide world," said Pen, speaking with
+intense emphasis and coming close to her sister. "There never was anybody
+more wicked than you--_'cept_ me. We are both as bad as bad can be. But I
+tell you what, Paulie, though I meant to tell, I am not going to tell
+now; for but for you I'd have been drownded, and I am never, never, never
+going to tell."
+
+"But for me!" said Pauline, and the expression on her face was somewhat
+vague.
+
+"Oh, Paulie, how white you look! No, I will never tell. I love you now,
+and it is your secret and mine for ever and ever."
+
+Pauline said nothing. She put her hand to her forehead; the dull weight
+on her head was very manifest.
+
+"We are going home next week," continued Pen in her brightest manner.
+"You will be glad of that. You will see Briar and Patty and all the rest,
+and perhaps you will get to look as you used to. You are not much to be
+proud of now. You are seedy-looking, and rather dull, and not a bit
+amusing. But I loves you, and I'll never, never tell."
+
+"Run away, Pen," said Miss Tredgold, coming into the room at that moment.
+"You are tiring Pauline. You should not have talked so loud; your sister
+is not very strong yet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+PLATO AND VIRGIL.
+
+
+Mr. Dale returned home to find metamorphosis; for Betty and John, egged
+on by nurse, had taken advantage of his day from home to turn out the
+study. This study had not been properly cleaned for years. It had never
+had what servants are fond of calling a spring cleaning. Neither spring
+nor autumn found any change for the better in that tattered, dusty, and
+worn-out carpet; in those old moreen curtains which hung in heavy, dull
+folds round the bay-window; in the leathern arm-chair, with very little
+leather left about it; in the desk, which was so piled with books and
+papers that it was difficult even to discover a clear space on which to
+write. The books on the shelves, too, were dusty as dusty could be. Many
+of them were precious folios--folios bound in calf which book-lovers
+would have given a great deal for--but the dust lay thick on them, and
+Betty said, with a look of disgust, that they soiled her fingers.
+
+"Oh, drat you and your fingers!" said nurse. "You think of nothing but
+those blessed trashy novels you are always reading. You must turn to now.
+The master is certain to be back by the late afternoon train, and this
+room has got to be put into apple-pie order before he returns."
+
+"Yes," said John; "we won't lose the chance. We'll take each book from
+its place on the shelf, dust it, and put it back again. We have a long
+job before us, so don't you think any more of your novels and your grand
+ladies and gentlemen, Betty, my woman."
+
+"I have ceased to think of them," said Betty.
+
+She stood with her hands hanging straight to her sides; her face was
+quite pale.
+
+"I trusted, and my trust failed me," she continued. "I was at a wedding
+lately, John--you remember, don't you?--Dick Jones's wedding, at the
+other side of the Forest. There was a beautiful wedding cake, frosted
+over and almond-iced underneath, and ornaments on it, too--cupids and
+doves and such-like. A pair of little doves sat as perky as you please on
+the top of the cake, billing and cooing like anything. It made my eyes
+water even to look at 'em. You may be sure I didn't think of Mary
+Dugdale, the bride that was, nor of poor Jones, neither; although he is a
+good looking man enough--I never said he wasn't. But my heart was in my
+mouth thinking of that dear Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton."
+
+"Who in the name of fortune is he?" asked nurse.
+
+"A hero of mine," said Betty.
+
+Her face looked a little paler and more mournful even than when she had
+begun to speak.
+
+"He's dead," she said, and she whisked a handkerchief out of her pocket
+and applied it to her eyes. "It was bandits as carried him off. He loved
+that innocent virgin he took for his wife like anything. Over and over
+have I thought of them, and privately made up my mind that if I came
+across his second I'd give him my heart."
+
+"Betty, you must be mad," said nurse.
+
+"Maybe you are mad," retorted Betty, her face flaming, "but I am not. It
+was a girl quite as poor as me that he took for his spouse; and why
+shouldn't there be another like him? That's what I thought, and when the
+wedding came to an end I asked Mary Dugdale to give me a bit of the cake
+all private for myself. She's a good-natured sort is Mary, though not
+equal to Jones--not by no means. She cut a nice square of the cake, a
+beautiful chunk, black with richness as to the fruit part, yellow as to
+the almond, and white as the driven snow as to the icing. And, if you'll
+believe it, there was just the tip of a wing of one of those angelic
+little doves cut off with the icing. Well, I brought it home with me, and
+I slept on it just according to the old saw which my mother taught me.
+Mother used to say, 'Betty, if you want to dream of your true love, you
+will take a piece of wedding-cake that belongs to a fresh-made bride, and
+you will put it into your right-foot stocking, and tie it with your
+left-foot garter, and put it under your pillow. And when you get into
+bed, not a mortal word will you utter, or the spell is broke. And that
+you will do, Betty,' said my mother, 'for three nights running. And then
+you will put the stocking and the garter and the cake away for three
+nights, and at the end of those nights you will sleep again on it for
+three nights; and then you will put it away once more for three nights,
+and you will sleep on it again for three nights. And at the end of the
+last night, why, the man you dream of is he.'"
+
+"Well, and did you go in for all that gibberish?" asked nurse, with
+scorn.
+
+She had a duster in her hand, and she vigorously flicked Mr. Dale's desk
+as she spoke.
+
+"To be sure I did; and I thought as much over the matter as ought to have
+got me a decent husband. Well, when the last night come I lay me down to
+sleep as peaceful as an angel, and I folded my hands and shut my eyes,
+and wondered what his beautiful name would be, and if he'd be a dook or a
+marquis. I incline to a dook myself, having, so to speak, fallen in love
+with the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton of blessed memory. But what do
+you think happened? It's enough to cure a body, that it is."
+
+"Well, what?" asked nurse.
+
+"I dreamt of no man in the creation except John there. If that isn't
+enough to make a body sick, and to cure all their romance once and for
+ever, my name ain't Betty Snowden."
+
+John laughed and turned a dull red at this unexpected ending to Betty's
+story.
+
+"Now let's clean up," she said; "and don't twit me any more about my
+dreams. They were shattered, so to speak, in the moment of victory."
+
+The children were called in, particularly Briar and Patty, and the room
+was made quite fresh and sweet, the carpet taken up, the floor scrubbed,
+a new rug (bought long ago for the auspicious moment) put down, white
+curtains hung at the windows in place of the dreadful old moreen, every
+book dusted and put in its place, and the papers piled up in orderly
+fashion on a wagonette which was moved into the room for the purpose.
+Finally the children and servants gazed around them with an air of
+appreciation.
+
+"He can't help liking it," said Briar.
+
+"I wonder if he will," said Patty.
+
+"What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and we have not
+disturbed one single blessed thing."
+
+Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to greet their
+returning parent.
+
+"How is Pauline, father?" asked Briar in an anxious voice.
+
+"Pauline?" replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly through
+his thin locks. "What of her? Isn't she here?"
+
+"Nonsense, father!" said Patty. "You went to see her. She was very ill;
+she was nearly drowned. You know all about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us
+how she is."
+
+"To be sure," said Mr. Dale. "I quite recall the circumstance now. Your
+sister is much better. I left her in bed, a little flushed, but looking
+very well and pretty. Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has
+improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too, and Pen, and your
+good aunt. Yes, I saw them all. Comfortable lodgings enough for those who
+don't care for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not seem to
+be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why I was summoned. Don't
+keep me now, my dears; I must get back to my work. The formation of that
+last sentence from Plato's celebrated treatise doesn't please me. It
+lacks the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how you stare!
+There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty, why the English translation
+should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended
+itself considerably of late, and close application and study may recall
+to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing certain, my
+dear girls---- Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was
+talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from
+his immortal work does not please me; but toil--ceaseless toil--the
+midnight oil, _et cetera_, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I
+may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in
+a way worthy of the immortal master."
+
+Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his forehead. He
+removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired with long, shuffling
+strides to his beloved study.
+
+"No food until I ring for it," he said when he reached the door, and then
+he vanished.
+
+"Blessed man!" said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. "He
+might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he
+clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don't know, but
+his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you
+standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden--do."
+
+"You'll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of
+yours," was John's answer.
+
+Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed
+the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then
+proceeded to make tea.
+
+But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with
+each other, Mr. Dale's condition was by no means so favorable. At first
+when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too
+loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and
+druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and
+stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of
+Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised
+his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with
+a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see?
+He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the
+opposite bookcase. There was his Plato--his idol--actually placed in the
+bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime--a crime that he felt he
+could never forgive--that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked
+across to the fireplace and rang the bell.
+
+"You must go, Miss Patty," said nurse. "I was willing to do it, but I
+can't face him. You must go; you really must."
+
+"Well, I'm not frightened," said Patty. "Come on, Briar."
+
+The two little girls walked down the passage. Mr. Dale's bell was heard
+to ring again.
+
+"Aren't you the least bit frightened, Patty?" asked Briar.
+
+"No," answered Patty, with a sigh. "If only I could get the real
+heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter. Oh, Briar, Briar!"
+
+"Don't talk of it now," said Briar. "To-night when we are alone, when we
+are by ourselves in our own room, but not now. Come, let us answer
+father's bell."
+
+They opened the door and presented themselves--two pretty little figures
+with rosy faces and bright eyes--two neatly dressed, lady-like little
+girls.
+
+"Do you want anything, father?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Dale. "Come in and shut the door."
+
+The girls did what he told them.
+
+"Who did this?" asked the master of The Dales. He swept his hand with a
+certain majesty of gesture round the restored room. "Who brushed the
+walls? Who put those flimsies to the windows? Who touched my beloved
+books? Who was the person? Name the culprit."
+
+"There were quite a lot of us, father. We all did it," said Briar.
+
+"You all did it? You mean to tell me, little girl, that you did it?"
+
+"I dusted a lot of the books, father. I didn't injure one of them, and I
+put them back again just in the same place. My arms ached because the
+books were so heavy."
+
+"Quite right that they should ache. Do you know what injury you have done
+me?"
+
+"No," said Patty suddenly. "We made the room clean, father. It isn't
+right to live in such a dirty room. Plato wouldn't have liked it."
+
+"Now what do you mean?"
+
+Mr. Dale's white face quieted down suddenly; for his daughter--his small,
+young, ignorant daughter--to dare to mention the greatest name, in his
+opinion, of all the ages, was too much for him.
+
+"You are always talking to us about Plato," said Patty, who grew braver
+and braver as she proceeded. "You talk of Plato one day, and Virgil
+another day, and you always tell us how great they were; but if they were
+really great they would not be dirty, and this room was horrid and dirty,
+father. It really was. Nice, great, good, noble people are clean. Aunt
+Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt Sophy came we have been very
+happy, and the house has been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and
+so does Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your
+room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil--that is,
+if they can see us."
+
+"If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?" said Mr. Dale.
+
+He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead, and gazed at the
+children.
+
+"There is the door," he said. "Go."
+
+They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.
+
+"Upon my word!" he said several times. "Upon--my--word! So Plato liked
+things clean, and Virgil liked things orderly. Upon--my--word!"
+
+He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was working, for his
+glasses were sometimes removed and then put on again, and several times
+he brushed his hand through his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and,
+gazing at the frills of the white window-curtains, he opened the French
+windows, and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open air. He went
+for a walk--a long one. When he came back he entered his clean study, to
+find the lamp burning brightly, his Plato restored to its place by his
+left-hand side, and a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own
+old pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled with fresh
+ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and wrote on a sheet of
+paper, "Plato likes things clean, and Virgil likes things orderly," and
+then pinned the paper on the opposite wall.
+
+For the rest of the evening the astonished household were much beguiled
+and overcome by the most heavenly strains from Mr. Dale's violin. He
+played it in the study until quite late at night; but none of the
+household went to bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that
+music.
+
+About eleven o'clock Patty and Briar found themselves alone.
+
+"Well," said Patty suddenly, "I have made up my mind."
+
+"Yes," said Briar, "I thought you had."
+
+"When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her everything."
+
+Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her.
+
+"I wonder what she will say," said Briar.
+
+"Say!" echoed Patty. "She will be hurt. Perhaps she'll punish us; but
+that doesn't matter, for in the end she is quite, quite certain to
+forgive us. I am going to tell her. I couldn't go through another night
+like last night again."
+
+"Nor could I," said Briar. "I stayed awake and thought of Paulie, and I
+seemed to see her face as it might look if she were really dead. I wish
+they'd all come back, for Paulie is better. And then we'd have just a
+dreadful ten minutes, and everything would be all right."
+
+"That's it," said Patty. "Everything would be all right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"YOU ARE NOT TO TELL."
+
+
+Pauline was certainly better, although she was not what she was before.
+In body she was to all appearance quite well. She ate heartily, took long
+walks, and slept soundly at night; but she was dull. She seldom laughed;
+she took little interest in anything. As to the sea, she had a positive
+horror of it. When she went out for walks she invariably chose inland
+directions. She liked to walk briskly over the great moors which surround
+Easterhaze, and to sit there and think, though nobody knew what she was
+thinking about. Her face now and then looked pathetic, but on the whole
+it was indifferent. Miss Tredgold was much concerned. She made up her
+mind.
+
+"The seaside is doing the child no good," she thought. "I will take her
+straight back home. She is certainly not herself; she got a much greater
+shock than we knew of or had any idea of. When she gets home the sight of
+the other children and the old place will rouse her. She is not
+consumptive at the present moment. That is one thing to be thankful for.
+I shall take her to London for the winter. If going back to The Dales
+does not arouse her, she must go somewhere else, for roused she certainly
+must be."
+
+Miss Tredgold, having made up her mind, spoke to Verena.
+
+"We are going home to-morrow, Verena," she said.
+
+"And a very good thing," answered the young girl.
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"I do, Aunt Sophy. Pauline has got all she can get out of the sea at
+present. She does not love the sea; she is afraid of it. She may be
+better when she is home."
+
+"And yet she is well," said Miss Tredgold. "The doctor pronounces her in
+perfect health."
+
+"In body she is certainly well," said Verena.
+
+"Oh, then, you have observed it?"
+
+"Yes, I have," replied Verena slowly. "There is some part of her stunned.
+I can't make out myself what ails her, but there is undoubtedly one part
+of her stunned."
+
+"We will take her home," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+The good lady was a person of very direct action and keen resource. She
+had whisked Pauline and Verena off to the sea almost at a moment's
+notice, and quite as quickly she brought them back. They were all glad to
+go. Even Pen was pleased. Pen looked very still and solemn and contented
+during these days. She sat close to Pauline and looked into her eyes over
+and over again; and Pauline never resented her glance, and seemed to be
+more pleased to be with Penelope than with anybody else.
+
+The nice landau which Miss Tredgold had purchased met the travellers at
+Lyndhurst Road, and the first piece of news which Briar, who had come to
+meet them, announced was that the ponies had arrived.
+
+"Peas-blossom and Lavender are so sweet!" she said. "They came yesterday.
+We are quite longing to ride them. As to Peas-blossom, he is quite the
+dearest pony I ever looked at in my life."
+
+"Peas-blossom will be Pauline's special pony," said Miss Tredgold
+suddenly. "Do you happen to know if the sidesaddles have arrived?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they have; and the habits, too," said Briar. "It is
+delicious--delicious!"
+
+"Then, Pauline, my dear, you shall have a ride to-morrow morning."
+
+Pauline scarcely replied. She did not negative the idea of the ride, but
+neither did she accept it with any enthusiasm.
+
+There was a wild moment when the entire family were reassembled. All the
+girls surrounded Pauline, and kissed her and hugged her as though she had
+come back from the dead.
+
+"You quite forget," said Penelope, "that I was nearly drownded, too. I
+was very nearly shutting up of my eyes, and closing of my lips, and
+stretching myself out and lying drownded and still on the top of the
+waves. I was in as big a danger as Pauline, every bit."
+
+"But you didn't get ill afterwards, as Paulie did," said the other girls.
+
+They kissed Pen, for, being their sister, they had to love her after a
+fashion; but their real adoration and deepest sympathy were centred round
+Pauline.
+
+Meanwhile Pen, who never cared to find herself neglected, ran off to
+discover nurse.
+
+"Well," she said when she saw that worthy, "here I am. I'm not pale now.
+I am rosy. The seaside suits me. The salty waves and the sands, they all
+agrees with me. How are you, nursey?"
+
+"Very well," replied nurse, "and glad to see you again."
+
+"And how is Marjorie? Kiss me, Marjorie."
+
+She snatched up her little sister somewhat roughly.
+
+"Don't make the darling cry," said nurse.
+
+"All right," replied Pen. "Sit down, baby; I have no time to 'tend you.
+Nursey, when I was at the sea I was a very 'portant person."
+
+"Were you indeed. Miss Pen? But you always think yourself that. And how
+is Miss Pauline?"
+
+"Paulie?" said Penelope. "She's bad."
+
+"Bad!" echoed nurse.
+
+"Yes, all-round bad," said Penelope.
+
+As she spoke she formed her mouth into a round O, and looked with big
+eyes at nurse.
+
+"The seaside didn't agree with her," said Pen. "Nor does the fuss, nor
+the petting, nor the nice food, nor anything else of that sort. The only
+thing that agrees with Paulie is me. She likes to have me with her, and I
+understand her. But never mind about Paulie now. I want to ask you a
+question. Am I the sort of little girl that lions would crunch up?"
+
+"I never!" cried nurse. "You are the queerest child!"
+
+"But am I, nursey? Speak."
+
+"I suppose so, Miss Pen."
+
+"I thought so," answered Pen, with a sigh. "I thought as much. I am bad
+through and through, then. They never eat good uns. You know that, don't
+you, nursey? They wouldn't touch Marjorie, though she is so round and so
+white and so fat; and they wouldn't look at Adelaide or Josephine, or any
+of those dull ones of the family; but they'd eat me up, and poor Paulie.
+Oh! they'd have a nice meal on Paulie. Thank you, nursey. I am glad I
+know."
+
+"What is the child driving at?" thought nurse as Penelope marched away.
+"Would lions crunch her up, and would they crunch up Miss Paulie? Mercy
+me! I wouldn't like any of us to be put in their way. I do hope Miss Pen
+won't go off her head after a time; she is too queer for anything. But
+what is wrong with Miss Pauline? I don't like what she said about Miss
+Pauline."
+
+When nurse saw Pauline she liked matters even less. For though her dearly
+beloved young lady looked quite well in health, her eyes were no longer
+bright, and she did not take the slightest interest in the different
+things which the children had to show her. When asked if she would not
+like to visit the stables, now in perfect restoration, and see for
+herself those darling, most angelic creatures that went by the names of
+Peas-blossom and Lavender, she said she was tired and would rather sit in
+the rocking-chair on the lawn.
+
+The others, accompanied by Aunt Sophia, went off to view the ponies; and
+then at the last moment Pen came back. She flung herself on the ground at
+Pauline's feet.
+
+"I has quite made up my mind for ever and ever," she said. "Not even
+lions will drag it from me."
+
+"What?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Why, all that I know: about who stole the thimble, and about the picnic
+on the birthday, and about what Briar and Patty did, and about you,
+Paulie, and all your wicked, wicked ways. I meant to tell once, but I
+will never tell now. So cheer up; even lions won't drag it from me."
+
+Pauline put her hand to her forehead.
+
+"I keep having these stupid headaches," she said. "They come and go, and
+whenever I want to think they get worse. I suppose I have been very bad,
+and that all you say is right, but somehow I can't think it out. Only
+there is one thing, Pen--if I were you I wouldn't do wrong any more. It
+isn't worth while."
+
+"It is quite worth while getting you cheered up," said Pen, "so I thought
+I'd let you know."
+
+That same evening Briar and Patty held a consultation in their own room.
+
+"We must do it after breakfast to-morrow," said Patty.
+
+Just then there was a slight rustle. Briar paused to listen.
+
+"Those horrid mice have come back again," she said. "We must get
+Tiddledywinks to spend a night or two in this room."
+
+"Oh, bother the mice!" was Patty's response. "Let us arrange when we must
+see her."
+
+"I have planned it all out," said Briar. "We must tell her just
+everything we know. She won't be so terribly angry with Paulie, because
+poor Paulie is not well. But I suppose she will punish us terribly. I
+have been thinking what our punishment ought to be."
+
+"What?" asked Patty.
+
+"Why, not to ride either of the ponies until after Christmas."
+
+"Oh! don't tell her to do that," said Patty, in some alarm. "I have been
+so pining for my rides."
+
+"There's that mouse again," said Briar.
+
+The children now looked under the little beds, and under the farther one
+there was something which would certainly have preferred to be thought an
+enormous mouse. On being dragged to the front, the stout, dishevelled
+figure of Penelope Dale was discovered.
+
+"I comed a-purpose," said Pen, who did not look the least taken aback. "I
+saw by your faces that you were up to fun, and I thought I'd like to be
+in it. It is well I comed. I am willing to talk to you about everything.
+Call me a mouse if you like. I don't care. I meant to listen. I am glad I
+comed."
+
+"You are too mean for anything," said Briar. "You are the horridest girl
+I ever came across. Why did you dare to hide under my bed in order to
+listen to what I had to say to Patty?"
+
+"I knew it all afore," said Penelope, "so that wasn't why I comed. I
+comed to keep you from doing mischief. What are you going to tell
+to-morrow?"
+
+"That isn't your business," said Briar.
+
+"But I am going to make it my business. What you have to tell isn't news
+to me. You are going to 'fess 'cos of the pain in your little hearts. You
+must keep your pain, and you must not 'fess. You are going to tell Aunt
+Sophy about that wicked, wicked birthday night--how you stole away in the
+dark across the lawn, and wore your Glengarry caps, and how you didn't
+come back until the morning. But you mustn't tell. Do you hear me, Briar
+and Patty?"
+
+"But why not? Why should you talk to us like that?" asked Patty. "Why
+shouldn't we say exactly what we like?"
+
+"You mustn't tell 'cos of Paulie. She is ill--more ill than you think.
+She mustn't be punished, nor fretted, nor teased, nor worrited. If you
+tell it will worrit her, so you mustn't tell. Why do you want to tell?
+You have kept it dark a long time now."
+
+"Because we are unhappy," said Patty then. "We haven't got hard hearts
+like yours. My heart aches so badly that I can't sleep at nights for
+thinking of the lies I've told and how wicked I am."
+
+"Pooh!" said Penelope. "Keep your achy hearts; don't worrit."
+
+"But it's past bearing," said Briar. "What we feel is remorse. We must
+tell. The Bible is full of the wickedness of people not confessing their
+sins. We can't help ourselves. We are obliged to tell."
+
+"Just because you have a bit of pain," said Pen in a tone of deepest
+contempt. "I suppose you think I never have any pain. Little you know. I
+have done a lot of wicked things. I consider myself much the most
+desperate wicked of the family. Your little pains is only pin-pricks
+compared to mine. It would relieve me to tell, but I love Paulie too
+much, so I won't. We have all got to hold our tongues for the present.
+Now good-night. I am not a mouse, nor a rat, nor a ferret. But I mean
+what I say. You are not to tell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+DECEITFUL GIRLS.
+
+
+Miss Tredgold was dreadfully puzzled to know what to make of the girls.
+The time was autumn now; all pretense of summer had disappeared. Autumn
+had arrived and was very windy and wet, and the girls could no longer
+walk in twos and twos on the pretty lawn. They had to keep to the walks,
+and even these walks were drenched, as day after day deluges of rain fell
+from the heavens. The Forest, too, was sodden with the fallen leaves, and
+even the ponies slipped as they cantered down the glades. Altogether it
+was a most chilling, disappointing autumn, winter setting in, so to
+speak, all at once. Verena said she never remembered such an early season
+of wintry winds and sobbing skies. The flowers disappeared, several of
+the Forest trees were rooted up in consequence of the terrible gales, and
+Miss Tredgold said it was scarcely safe for the children to walk there.
+
+"The best cure for weather of this sort," she said to herself, "is to
+give the young people plenty to do indoors."
+
+Accordingly she reorganized lessons in a very brisk and up-to-date
+fashion. She arranged that a good music-master was to come twice a week
+from Southampton. Mistresses for languages were also to arrive from the
+same place. A pretty little pony-cart which she bought for the purpose
+conveyed these good people to and from Lyndhurst Road station. Besides
+this, she asked one or two visitors to come and stay in the house, and
+tried to plan as comfortable and nice a winter as she could. Verena
+helped her, and the younger girls were pleased and interested; and Pen
+did what she was told, dashing about here and there, and making
+suggestions, and trying to make herself as useful as she could.
+
+"The child is improved," said Miss Tredgold to Verena. "She is quite
+obliging and unselfish."
+
+Verena said nothing.
+
+"What do you think of my new plans, Verena?" said her aunt. "Out-of-door
+life until the frost comes is more or less at a standstill. Beyond the
+mere walking for health, we do not care to go out of doors in this wet
+and sloppy weather. But the house is large. I mean always to have one or
+two friends here, sometimes girls to please you other girls, sometimes
+older people to interest me. I should much like to have one or two
+_savants_ down to talk over their special studies with your father; but
+that can doubtless be arranged by-and-by. I want us to have cheerful
+winter evenings--evenings for reading, evenings for music. I want you
+children to learn at least the rudiments of good acting, and I mean to
+have two or three plays enacted here during the winter. In short, if you
+will all help me, we can have a splendid time."
+
+"Oh, I will help you," said Verena. "But," she added, "I have no talent
+for acting; it is Paulie who can act so well."
+
+"I wish your sister would take an interest in things, Verena. She is
+quite well in body, but she is certainly not what she was before her
+accident."
+
+"I don't understand Pauline," said Verena, shaking her head.
+
+"Nor do I understand her. Once or twice I thought I would get a good
+doctor to see her, but I have now nearly resolved to leave it to time to
+restore her."
+
+"But the other girls--can you understand the other girls, Aunt Sophy?"
+asked Verena.
+
+"Understand them, my dear? What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the younger ones--Adelaide and Lucy and the others. I
+mean Briar and Patty. They are not a bit what they were."
+
+"Now that you remark it, I have noticed that they are very grave; but
+they always do their lessons well, and I have nothing to complain of with
+regard to their conduct."
+
+"Nor have you anything to complain of with regard to Paulie's conduct,"
+said Verena. "It isn't that."
+
+"Then what is it, my dear?"
+
+"It is that they are not natural. There is something on their minds. I am
+certain of it."
+
+"Verena," said her aunt gently, "I wonder if I might confide in you."
+
+Verena started back; a distressed look came over her face.
+
+"If it happens to be anything against Paulie, perhaps I had better not
+hear," she said.
+
+"I do not know if it is for her or against her. I am as much in the dark
+as you. I have not spoken of it yet to any one else, but I should like to
+mention it to you. It seems to me that light ought to be thrown on some
+rather peculiar circumstances or your sister will never get back her old
+brightness and gaiety of heart."
+
+"Then if you think so, please tell me, Aunt Sophy," said Verena.
+
+She got up as she spoke and shut the door. She was a very bright and
+pretty-looking girl, but her face sometimes wore too old a look for her
+age. Her aunt looked at her now with a mingling of affection and
+compassion.
+
+"Come," she said, "sit on this sofa, darling. We can understand each
+other better when we are close together. You know how much I love you,
+Renny."
+
+"There never, never was a better aunt," said the girl.
+
+"I am not that. But I do love you. Now, dear, I will tell you. You
+remember when first I came?"
+
+"Oh, don't I? And how angry we were!"
+
+"Poor children! I don't wonder. But don't you think, Verena, I was a very
+brave woman to put myself into such a hornet's nest?"
+
+"Indeed you were wonderful. It was your bravery that first attracted me.
+Then I saw how good you were, and how kindly you meant, and everything
+else became easy."
+
+"But was it equally easy for Pauline?"
+
+"I--I don't know. I am sure I do know, however, that now she loves you
+very much."
+
+"Ah! now," said Miss Tredgold. "But what about the early time?"
+
+"I don't quite know."
+
+"Verena, if I am to be frank with you, you must be frank with me."
+
+"I think perhaps she was not won round to you quite as easily as I was."
+
+"You are right, my dear. It was harder to win her; but she is worth
+winning. I shall not rest until I bring her round altogether to my side.
+Now, little girl, listen. You know what a very odd child we are all
+forced to consider your sister Pen?"
+
+"I should think so, indeed." Verena laughed.
+
+"Well, your sister found out one day, not very long after I came, that I
+had lost a thimble."
+
+"Your beautiful gold thimble? Of course we all knew about that," said
+Verena. "We were all interested, and we all tried to find it."
+
+"I thought so. I knew that Pen in particular searched for it with
+considerable pains, and I offered her a small prize if she found it."
+
+Verena laughed.
+
+"Poor Pen!" she said. "She nearly broke her back one day searching for
+it. Oh, Aunt Sophy! I hope you will learn to do without it, for I am
+greatly afraid that it will not be found now."
+
+"And yet, Verena," said Miss Tredgold--and she laid her hand, which
+slightly shook, on the girl's arm--"I could tell you of a certain person
+in this house to whom a certain dress belongs, and unless I am much
+mistaken, in the pocket of that dress reposes the thimble with its
+sapphire base, its golden body, and its rim of pale-blue turquoise."
+
+"Aunt Sophy! What do you mean?"
+
+Verena's eyes were wide open, and a sort of terror filled them.
+
+"Don't start, dear. That person is your sister Pauline."
+
+"Oh! Pauline! Impossible! Impossible!" cried Verena.
+
+"It is true, nevertheless. Do you remember that day when she was nearly
+drowned?"
+
+"Can I forget it?"
+
+"The next morning I was in her room, and the servant brought in the
+dark-blue serge dress she wore, which had been submerged so long in the
+salt water. It had been dried, and she was bringing it back. The girl
+held in her hand the thimble--the thimble of gold and sapphire and
+turquoise. She held the thimble in the palm of her hand, and said, 'I
+found it in the pocket of the young lady's dress. It is injured, but the
+jeweller can put it right again.' You can imagine my feelings. For a time
+I was motionless, holding the thimble in my hand. Then I resolved to put
+it back where it had been found. I have heard nothing of it since from
+any one. I don't suppose Pauline has worn that skirt again; the thimble
+is doubtless there."
+
+"Oh, may I run and look? May I?"
+
+"No, no; leave it in its hiding-place. Do you think the thimble matters
+to me? What does matter is this--that Pauline should come and tell me,
+simply and quietly, the truth."
+
+"She will. She must. I feel as if I were in a dream. I can scarcely
+believe this can be true."
+
+"Alas! my dear, it is. And there is another thing. I know what little
+trinkets you each possess, for you showed them to me when first I came.
+Have you any reason to believe, Verena, that Pauline kept one trinket
+back from my knowledge?"
+
+"Oh, no, Aunt Sophy; of course she did not. Pauline has fewer trinkets
+than any of us, and she is fond of them. She is not particularly fond of
+gay clothes, but she always did like shiny, ornamenty things."
+
+"When she was ill I saw round her neck a narrow gold chain, to which a
+little heart-shaped locket was attached. Do you know of such a locket, of
+such a chain?"
+
+"No."
+
+Miss Tredgold rose to her feet.
+
+"Verena," she said, "things must come to a climax. Pauline must be forced
+to tell. For her own sake, and for the sake of others, we must find out
+what is at the back of things. Until we do the air will not be cleared. I
+had an idea of taking you to London for this winter, but I shall not do
+so this side of Christmas at any rate. I want us all to have a good time,
+a bright time, a happy time. We cannot until this mystery is explained. I
+am certain, too, that Pen knows more than she will say. She always was a
+curious, inquisitive child. Now, until the time of the accident Pen was
+always pursuing me and giving me hints that she had something to confide.
+I could not, of course, allow the little girl to tell tales, and I always
+shut her up. But from the time of the accident she has altered. She is
+now a child on the defensive. She watches Pauline as if she were guarding
+her against something. I am not unobservant, and I cannot help seeing.
+From what you tell me, your sisters Briar and Patty are also implicated.
+My dear Verena, we must take steps."
+
+"Yes," said Verena. "But what steps?"
+
+"Let me think. It has relieved my mind to tell you even this much. You
+will keep your own counsel. I will talk to you again to-morrow morning."
+
+Verena felt very uncomfortable. Of all the Dales she was the most open,
+in some ways the most innocent. She thought well of all the world. She
+adored her sisters and her father, and now also her aunt, Miss Tredgold.
+She was the sort of girl who would walk through life without a great deal
+of sorrow or a great deal of perplexity. The right path would attract
+her; the wrong would always be repellent to her. Temptation, therefore,
+would not come in a severe guise to Verena Dale. She was guarded against
+it by the sweetness and purity and innocence of her nature. But now for
+the first time it seemed to the young girl that the outlook was dark. Her
+aunt's words absolutely bewildered her. Her aunt suspected Pauline, Pen,
+Briar, and Patty of concealing something. But what had they to conceal?
+It is true that when Aunt Sophia first arrived they had felt a certain
+repugnance to her society, a desire to keep out of her way, and a longing
+for the old wild, careless, slovenly days. But surely long ere this such
+foolish ideas had died a natural death. They all loved Aunt Sophia now;
+what could they have to conceal?
+
+"I dare not talk about it to the younger girls. I don't want to get into
+Pen's confidence. Pen, of all the children, suits me least. The people to
+whom I must appeal are therefore Briar or Patty, or Pauline herself.
+Patty and Briar are devoted to each other. The thought in one heart seems
+to have its counterpart in that of the other. They might even be twins,
+so deeply are they attached. No; the only one for me to talk to is
+Pauline. But what can I say to her? And Pauline is not well. At least,
+she is well and she is not well. Nevertheless I will go and see her. I
+will find her now."
+
+Verena went into the nursery. Pauline was sometimes there. She was fond
+of sitting by the cosy nursery fire with a book in her hand, which of
+late she only pretended to read. Verena opened the nursery door and poked
+in her bright head and face.
+
+"Come in, Miss Renny, come in," said nurse.
+
+"I am not going to stay, nurse. Ah, Marjorie, my pet! Come and give me a
+sweet kiss."
+
+The little baby sister toddled across the floor. Verena lifted her in her
+arms and kissed her affectionately.
+
+"I thought perhaps Miss Pauline was here, nurse. Do you happen to know
+where she is?"
+
+"Miss Pauline has a very bad headache," said nurse--"so bad that I made
+her go and lie down; and I have just lit a bit of fire in her bedroom,
+for she is chilly, too, poor pet! Miss Pauline hasn't been a bit herself
+since that nasty accident."
+
+"I am sure she hasn't; but I did not know she was suffering from
+headache. I will go to her."
+
+Verena ran along the passage. Her own room faced south; Pauline's,
+alongside of it, had a window which looked due east. Verena softly opened
+the door. The chamber was tiny, but it was wonderfully neat and cheerful.
+A bright fire burned in the small grate. Pauline was lying partly over on
+her side; her face was hidden. Her dark hair was tumbled about the
+pillow.
+
+"Paulie, it is I," said Verena. "Are you awake?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Pauline.
+
+She turned round almost cheerfully. A cloud seemed to vanish from her
+face.
+
+"I am so glad you have come, Renny," she said. "I see so little of you
+lately. Get up on the bed, won't you, and lie near me?"
+
+"Of course I love to be with you, but I thought----"
+
+"Oh! don't think anything," said Pauline. "Just get on the bed and cuddle
+up close, close to me. And let us imagine that we are back in the old
+happy days before Aunt Sophy came."
+
+Verena did not say anything. She got on the bed, flung her arms round
+Pauline's neck, and strained her sister to her heart.
+
+"I love you so much!" she said.
+
+"Do you, Renny? That is very, very sweet of you."
+
+"And you love me, don't you, Paulie?"
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"Pauline! You don't know? You don't know if you love me or not?"
+
+"I don't think that I love anybody, Renny."
+
+"Oh, Paulie! then there must be something dreadfully bad the matter with
+you."
+
+Pauline buried her face in Verena's soft white neck and lay quiet.
+
+"Does your head ache very badly, Paulie?"
+
+"Pretty badly; but it is not too bad for us to talk--that is, if you will
+keep off the unpleasant subjects."
+
+"But what unpleasant subjects can there be? I don't understand you,
+Paulie. I cannot think of anything specially unpleasant to talk of now."
+
+"You are a bit of a goose, you know," replied Pauline with a smile.
+
+"Am I? I didn't know it. But what are the subjects we are not to talk
+about?"
+
+"Oh, you must know! Aunt Sophia, for instance, and that awful time at
+Easterhaze, and the most terrible of all terrible days when I went to the
+White Bay, and Nancy King, and--and my birthday. I can't talk of these
+subjects. I will talk of anything else--of baby Marjorie, and how pretty
+she grows; how fond we are of nurse, and of father, and--oh!"
+
+Pauline burst into a little laugh.
+
+"Do you know that John is courting Betty? I know he is. He went up to her
+the other day in the garden and put his hand on her shoulder, and when he
+thought no one was by he kissed her. I hid behind the hedge, and I had
+the greatest difficulty to keep back a shout of merriment. Isn't it fun?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Verena. "But, Pauline, what you say makes me
+unhappy. I wish I might talk out to you."
+
+Pauline raised herself on her elbow and looked full into Verena's face.
+
+"What about?" she asked.
+
+Verena did not speak for a minute.
+
+"Where are your dresses?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"My dresses! You silly girl! In that cupboard, of course. I am getting
+tidy. You know I would do anything I possibly could to please Aunt Sophy.
+I can't do big things to please her--I never shall be able to--so I do
+little things. I am so tidy that I am spick-and-span. I hate and loathe
+it; but I wouldn't leave a pin about for anything. You open that door and
+look for yourself. Do you see my skirts?"
+
+Verena got off the bed and opened the cupboard door. Pauline had about
+half-a-dozen skirts, and they all hung neatly on their respective hooks.
+Amongst them was the thick blue serge which she had worn on the day when
+she had gone to the White Bay. Verena felt her heart beating fast. She
+felt the color rush into her cheeks. She paused for a moment as if to
+commune with her own heart. Then her mind was made up.
+
+"What are you doing, Renny?" said her sister. "How funny of you to have
+gone into the cupboard!"
+
+For Verena had absolutely vanished. She stood in the cupboard, and
+Pauline from the bed heard a rustle. The rustling grew louder, and
+Pauline wondered what it meant. A moment later Verena, her face as red as
+a turkey-cock, came out.
+
+"Paulie," she said--"Paulie, there is no good going on like this. You
+have got to explain. You have got to get a load off your mind. You have
+got to do it whether you like it or not. How did you come by this?
+How--did--you--come--by--this?"
+
+As Verena spoke she held in her open palm the long-lost thimble. Poor
+Pauline had not the most remote idea that the thimble was still in the
+pocket of the blue serge dress. She had, indeed, since the day of her
+accident, forgotten its existence.
+
+"Where did you get it?" she asked, her face very white, her eyes very
+startled.
+
+"In the pocket of the dress you wore on the day you were nearly drowned
+in the White Bay."
+
+"I told you not to mention that day," said Pauline. Her whole face
+changed. "I remember," she said slowly, but she checked herself. The
+words reached her lips, but did not go beyond them. "Put it down,
+Verena," she said. "Put it there on the mantelpiece."
+
+"Then you won't tell me how you got it? It is not yours. You know it
+belongs to Aunt Sophy."
+
+"And it is not yours, Renny, and you have no right to interfere. And what
+is more, I desire you not to interfere. I don't love anybody very much
+now, but I shall hate you if you interfere in this matter."
+
+Verena laid the thimble on the mantelpiece.
+
+"You can leave me, Renny. I am a very bad girl; I don't pretend I am
+anything else, but I won't talk to you now."
+
+"Oh!" said poor Verena. "Oh!"
+
+Before she reached the door of the room she had burst into tears. Her
+agony was so great at Pauline's behavior to her that her tears became
+sobs, and her sobs almost cries of pain. Pauline, lying on the bed, did
+not take the least notice of Verena. She turned her head away, and when
+her sister had left the room and shut the door Pauline sprang from the
+bed and turned the key in the lock.
+
+"Now, I am safe," she thought. "What is the matter with me? There never
+was anything so hard as the heart that is inside me. I don't care a bit
+whether Renny cries or whether she doesn't cry. I don't care a bit what
+happens to any one. I only want to be let alone."
+
+At dinner-time Pauline appeared, and tried to look as though nothing had
+happened. The other girls looked neat and pretty. They had not the least
+idea through what a tragedy Verena and Pauline were now living. Verena
+showed marks of her storm of weeping, and her face was terribly
+woebegone. Miss Tredgold guessed that things were coming to a crisis, and
+she was prepared to wait.
+
+Now, Miss Tredgold was a very good woman; she was also a very wise and a
+very temperate one. She was filled with a spirit of forbearance, and with
+the beautiful grace of charity. She was all round as good a woman as ever
+lived; but she was not a mother. Had she been a mother she would have
+gone straight to Pauline and put her arms round her, and so acted that
+the hard little heart would have melted, and the words that could not
+pass her lips would have found themselves able to do so, and the misery
+and the further sin would have been averted. But instead of doing
+anything of this sort, Miss Tredgold resolved to assemble the children
+after breakfast the next day, and to talk to them in a very plain way
+indeed; to assemble all before her, and to entreat the guilty ones to
+confess, promising them absolute forgiveness in advance. Having made up
+her mind, she felt quite peaceful and happy, and went down to interview
+her brother-in-law.
+
+Mr. Dale still continued to like his study. He made no further objection
+to the clean and carefully dusted room. If any one had asked him what was
+passing in his mind, he might have said that the spirits of Homer and
+Virgil approached the sacred precincts where he wrote about them and
+lived for them night after night, and that they put the place in order.
+He kept the rough words which he had printed in large capitals on the
+night when he had returned to his study still in their place of honor on
+the wall, and he worked himself with a new sense of zest and freedom.
+
+Miss Tredgold entered the room without knocking.
+
+"Well, Henry," she said, "and how goes the world?"
+
+"The world of the past comes nearer and nearer," was his reply. "I often
+feel that I scarcely touch the earth of the nineteenth century. The world
+of the past is a very lovely world."
+
+"Not a bit better than the world of the present," said Miss Sophia. "Now,
+Henry, if you can come from the clouds for a minute or two----"
+
+"Eh? Ah! What are you saying?"
+
+"From the clouds, my dear brother, right down to this present prosaic and
+workaday world. Can you, and will you give me five minutes of your
+attention?"
+
+"Eh? Yes, of course, Sophia."
+
+Mr. Dale sat very still, drumming with his right hand on his pad of
+blotting-paper. Miss Tredgold looked at him; then she crossed the room,
+took away the pad, his pen and ink, the open volume of Homer, and removed
+them to another table.
+
+"Sit with your back to them; keep your mind clear and listen to me,
+Henry."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+"I want you to come into the schoolroom after breakfast to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"To the schoolroom?"
+
+"I have a reason. I should like you to be present."
+
+"But it is just my most important hour. You commence lessons with the
+girls--when, Sophia?"
+
+"We sit down to our work at nine o'clock. Prayers take ten minutes. I
+should like you to be present at prayers--to conduct Divine worship in
+your own house on that occasion."
+
+"Oh, my dear Sophia! Not that I have any objection--of course."
+
+"I should hope you have no objection. You will take prayers, and
+afterwards you will assist me in a most painful task which lies before
+me."
+
+"Painful, Sophia? Oh, anything I can do to help you, my dear sister, I
+shall be delighted to undertake. What is it? I beg of you to be brief,
+for time does fly. It was only a quarter of an hour ago that I found
+Homer----"
+
+"I could say a very ugly word about Homer," said Miss Tredgold.
+"Sometimes I wish that I were a man in order that I might swear hard at
+you, Henry Dale. As I am a woman I must refrain. Do you know that your
+daughter Pauline, your daughter Briar, your daughter Patty, and your
+extraordinary daughter Penelope are all of them about as naughty children
+as they can be. Indeed, in the case of Pauline I consider her worse than
+naughty. What she has done I don't know, and I don't know what the others
+have done; but there is a weight on their minds, and those four girls
+must be got to confess. And you must be present, and you must speak as a
+father to them. Now do you understand?"
+
+"I am to be in the schoolroom to-morrow," said Mr. Dale, "and four of my
+girls are turning wicked, and I am not to know what they have done. I
+will be in the schoolroom at nine o'clock to-morrow, Sophia. May I thank
+you to hand me back my blotting-pad, my pen and bottle of ink, and my
+beloved Homer? Take care of the volume. Take it tenderly. Put both hands
+under the binding. Ah! that is so. You will have the goodness to leave me
+now, Sophia. To-morrow morning at nine o'clock precisely."
+
+Miss Tredgold went out of the room.
+
+"How my poor dear sister ever brought herself to marry that man," she
+whispered under her breath, "I know not. But he is capable of being
+roused, and I rather fancy I shall manage to rouse him to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+PAULINE IN DISTRESS.
+
+
+When Pauline went up to her room late that evening she gave Verena a very
+cold good-night. Her little fire was still burning, for nurse had taken
+care of it. Verena heard her lock the door. Had she not done so her
+sister would have gone to her, and begged and prayed, as such a sweet
+girl might, for the confidence of Pauline. Verena had to get into bed
+feeling lonely and unhappy. Just as she was doing so she heard a firm
+step walking down the corridor. A hand turned the handle of Pauline's
+door, and Verena heard Pen's voice say:
+
+"It's me, Paulie. It's me. Let me in, Paulie."
+
+Verena instantly opened her own door.
+
+"Go away, Pen," she said. "Go straight back to your bed. You are not to
+go near Pauline to-night."
+
+"Yes, but I want her," said Pauline, opening the door and putting out her
+head.
+
+"Very well," said Verena. "You shall see her with me. I will ring the
+bell and ask nurse to fetch Aunt Sophy."
+
+Pauline gave a shrill laugh.
+
+"It isn't worth all that fuss. Go to bed, Pen. We shall have plenty of
+time for our chat to-morrow morning."
+
+Penelope looked disgusted. Verena stood in the passage until her stout
+little figure had disappeared. She then turned, hoping that Pauline would
+speak to her; but Pauline had gone into her room and locked the door.
+
+Now, Pauline Dale was at this time going through a curious phase. She was
+scarcely to be blamed for her conduct, for what she had lately lived
+through had produced a sort of numbness of her faculties, which time
+seemed to have no intention of restoring to her. To look at her face now
+no one would suppose her to be in the ordinary sense of the word an
+invalid; for she was rosy, her eyes were bright, her appetite was good,
+and she had plenty of strength. Nevertheless there was a certain part of
+her being which was numb and cold and half-dead. She was not frightened
+about anything; but she knew that she had behaved as no right-minded or
+honorable girl should have done. Verena's words that afternoon had roused
+her, and had given her a slight degree of pain. She lay down on her bed
+without undressing. She left the blind up so that the moon could shine
+through her small window, and she kept repeating to herself at intervals
+through the night the words that had haunted her when she was at
+Easterhaze: "Wash and be clean." It seemed to Pauline that the sea was
+drawing her. The insistent voice of the sea was becoming absolutely
+unpleasant. It echoed and echoed in her tired brain: "Wash--wash and be
+clean." After her accident she had hated the sea while she was there, but
+now she wanted to get back to it. She dreaded it and yet she was hungry
+for it.
+
+As she lay with her eyes wide open it seemed to her that she was looking
+at the sea. It seemed to her, too, that she really did hear the murmur of
+the waves. The waves came close, and each wave as it pressed nearer and
+nearer to the excited child repeated the old cry: "Wash and be clean."
+
+"Oh, if only I could get to the sea!" was her thought. She pressed her
+hand to that part of her forehead which felt numb and strange. All of a
+sudden the numbness and strangeness seemed to depart. She saw one vivid
+picture after another, and each picture revealed to her the sin which she
+had sinned and the wrong she had committed. At last she saw that fearful
+picture when she stood with her little sister in the White Bay, and the
+waves had so nearly drowned them. She sat up in bed. The idea of going
+straight to Aunt Sophia and of telling her everything did not occur to
+her. She wanted to get back to the sea. How could she manage this? She
+was not in the least afraid of Aunt Sophy; she was only afraid of the God
+whom she had offended. She got up, pushed back her black hair, tied it
+neatly behind her ears, and taking her little sailor-hat and her
+dark-blue serge jacket, she put them on. She would go back to the sea.
+She did not know exactly how she could manage it, but somehow she would.
+When she was dressed she opened a drawer. She must have money. Aunt
+Sophia was liberal in the matter of pocket-money, but Pauline was
+careless and spent hers as she got it. All she possessed now was a
+shilling. She put the shilling into her pocket. Turning round, she saw
+the flash of the gold thimble as it rested on the mantelpiece. She
+slipped that also into her pocket. She then opened the window, and, as
+she had done on a previous night long ago, she got out and let herself
+down to the ground. She was now out all alone about midnight. Once again
+the numb feeling had come back to her; nevertheless her mind was made up.
+She would at any cost get back to the sea.
+
+She walked across the grass. By-and-by she found herself at the
+wicket-gate. When she reached the gate she had a sudden overwhelming
+memory of Nancy King. During the last few weeks she had forgotten Nancy.
+Now she thought of her. Standing with one hand on the post of the
+wicket-gate, she reflected on an idea which presented itself to her. If
+she, Pauline, was wicked--if she had been a naughty girl from the
+first--surely Nancy was worse! If it was necessary for Pauline to wash
+and be clean, it was still more necessary for Nancy. Together they could
+visit the seaside; together lave themselves in the waves; together reach
+that beautiful state where sin did not trouble.
+
+Pauline smiled to herself. She walked through the Forest in the dead of
+night, and presently reached Nancy's home. Now, it would have been a very
+bad thing for Pauline, as it had very nearly been a bad thing for
+Penelope some weeks ago, had Lurcher been out. But Lurcher was ill, and
+had been sent to a neighboring vet.'s. And it also happened--just, as it
+were, in the nick of time--that Farmer King was returning very late from
+visiting a neighboring fair. He had been kept by a friend until past
+midnight, and had driven home through the woods. As Pauline got to the
+gate the farmer drew up his mare within a few feet of the tired girl. He
+saw a girl standing by the gate, and could not make out who she was or
+what she was doing. He said gruffly:
+
+"You get out of this. What are you doing here at this time of night?"
+
+Then Pauline raised a white face. He recognized the face, gave a
+smothered, hasty exclamation, sprang to the ground, flung the reins over
+the neck of the mare, and came towards the girl.
+
+"Miss Pauline," he said, "what in the name of all that is wonderful are
+you doing here at this hour?"
+
+Pauline looked full up at him.
+
+"You said you would help me. You said you would if ever the time came. I
+want to be helped--oh, so badly!--and I have come."
+
+"Because I said that?" exclaimed the farmer, his face flushing all over
+with intense gratification. "Then you be certain of one thing, my
+dear--sure and positive certain--that when Farmer King says a thing he
+will do it. You come straight in with me, missy--straight in with me this
+blessed minute."
+
+Pauline gave him her hand. It was quite wonderful how he soothed her, how
+her fear seemed to drop away from her, how contented and almost happy she
+felt.
+
+"You are very strong, aren't you?" she said. "You are very, very strong?"
+
+"I should about think I am. I can lift a weight with any man in England,
+cut up a sheep with any man in existence, run a race with any farmer of
+my age. Strong! Yes, you are right there, missy; I am strong--strong as
+they're made."
+
+"Then you are what I want. You will help me."
+
+The farmer opened the hall door with his latch-key. Nancy had been in bed
+for an hour or more. The farmer unlocked the door which led into the
+kitchen.
+
+"The parlor will be cold," he said, "and the drawing-room will be sort of
+musty. We don't use the drawing-room every night. But the kitchen--that
+will be all right. You come right into the kitchen, Miss Pauline, and
+then you'll tell me."
+
+He took her into the kitchen, lit a big lamp which hung over the
+fireplace, and poked the ashes in the big stove.
+
+"You do look white and trembly all over. Shall I call Nancy to see you,
+miss?"
+
+"Please, please do."
+
+Farmer King went noisily upstairs.
+
+"Nancy!" he called to his daughter. "I say, Nancy!"
+
+Nancy was in her first sleep. She opened her eyes at the sound of the
+farmer's voice, and said in a sleepy tone:
+
+"Well, what now, dad? I wish you wouldn't call me just because you come
+in late."
+
+"You get up, my girl. There's trouble downstairs. Missy has come."
+
+"Missy? Miss Pen?"
+
+"No, not Miss Pen; the other one--the one we love, both of us--the one
+who was our queen--Miss Pauline. She's downstairs, and she's shocking
+bad. She has come to me to help her."
+
+"Why, of course she's bad, father," said Nancy. "Don't you know all that
+happened? Pauline was nearly drowned at Easterhaze, and they say she
+hasn't been quite, so to say, right in her head ever since. I have been
+nearly mad about it."
+
+"Sane, you mean, to my way of thinking," exclaimed the farmer; "for you
+never said a word to me about it, eating your meals as hearty and
+contented as you please, buying your winter finery, and talking about
+going to London for Christmas. Give me a friend who will think of me when
+I am in trouble. But the lass knows what's what, and it isn't to you she
+has come; it's to me. She wants me to help her because I made her a
+promise, forsooth! But you come right down, for she will want a bit of
+cuddling from a girl like yourself. Come right down this minute and see
+her, for she badly wants some one to do something for her."
+
+Now, Nancy was really fond of Pauline, notwithstanding her father's
+words, and she got up willingly enough and ran downstairs to the kitchen;
+and when she saw her little friend sitting by the fire, looking very
+white, her head dropped forward, and her big black eyes fixed with an
+almost vacant expression straight before her, a great lot of Nancy's
+heart did go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side,
+threw her arms round her, and hugged her over and over again.
+
+"Come," said the farmer, "it's a bit of something to eat she wants; then
+to go upstairs and share your bed with you, Nance. And in the morning,
+why, I am at her service."
+
+"Yes, that's what you do want, isn't it, Paulie?" said Nancy.
+
+Pauline nodded. She felt almost incapable of speaking. So the farmer
+brought her food, and made her eat and drink. And then she went upstairs
+with Nancy, and Nancy made her he down by her side, and when they were
+both together in the dark, in the warm bed in the pretty room, Pauline
+flung her arms round Nancy and began to cry. It was really quite a long
+time since Pauline had cried. At first her tears came slowly and with
+great difficulty; but in a little they rained from her eyes more and more
+easily, until at last they came in torrents, and her tears hurt her and
+shook her little frame, and came faster, and yet faster, until from sheer
+exhaustion she dropped asleep. But when Pauline woke from that sleep it
+seemed to her that the numb part had greatly left her brain and that she
+could think clearly. Only, still she had no wish to go back to The Dales.
+She only wanted to wash and be clean.
+
+"You are the queerest girl that ever lived," said Nancy. "You come right
+downstairs and have breakfast. Of course, they are sure to look for you
+and try to find you, but you must come straight downstairs now and hear
+what father has got to say."
+
+Pauline got up willingly enough and went downstairs. There was a groaning
+breakfast on the board. On most occasions the farmers' servants ate below
+the salt, but now only the farmer and his daughter Nancy were present.
+
+"Here's cake worth eating," said the farmer, "and new-laid eggs worth
+taking; and here's honey the like of which is not to be found anywhere
+else, even in the New Forest. And here's chicken rissoles, and here's
+cooked ham. Now, missy, fall to--fall to."
+
+Pauline ate very little, and then she turned to the farmer.
+
+"And now you want me to help you?" he said.
+
+"I want you to take me to the seaside. I want Nancy to come, too. I want
+to go where the waves are high, and where I can wash and be clean."
+
+"My word!" said the farmer, "what does the little lass say?"
+
+"I don't want to go home. I can't go home. If I am alone with you and
+with Nancy I might get better. Don't let me go home."
+
+"My lass, my lass, you have applied to Farmer King in your trouble, and
+Farmer King won't desert you. I have not the most remote notion what
+trouble it can be that worrits a poor little lass, but, such as it is,
+Farmer King will be your friend. There is no doubt, my dear, that when
+they miss you at The Dales they will come to look for you here, and what
+am I to do?"
+
+"Hide me! Oh, hide me! I can't go home."
+
+"What a lark!" cried Nancy. "We could, couldn't we, father?"
+
+"And we won't," said the farmer, bringing his hand down with a great bang
+on the table. "What we do we'll do above-board. We did wrong that time in
+the summer when we took miss to that picnic and got her into trouble. Now
+we're bound to see her out of her trouble. It has to do with that night
+partly, hasn't it, missy?"
+
+"I have never been happy since," said Pauline.
+
+"Well, then, my dear, I said I would help you out if the time came, and I
+will. You shall stay here--I vow it--and I am just going to get on my
+horse Caesar, and I shall ride over to The Dales this blessed minute. You
+leave it to me. You leave it all to me, my dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+FARMER KING.
+
+
+Since Pauline's illness she had very often not been down in time for
+breakfast. The fact, therefore, that she did not appear on this special
+morning caused no excitement in the mind of any one. Miss Tredgold was so
+much absorbed in the task which lay before her that she scarcely noticed
+the little girl's absence; nurse would see to her, would take her a
+proper meal, would do all that was necessary. Very often nurse did not
+disturb Pauline until long after the others had breakfasted, for the
+doctor had said that she ought never to be wakened when asleep, and that
+she ought to have as much rest and sleep as possible. So breakfast came
+to an end. There was a weight in the air. Now, it happened that the day
+was a specially fine one, for the skies, after crying so many tears, had
+cleared up, the sun had come out, and the few flowers that were left held
+up their heads gayly and tried to forget the storm through which they had
+lived and the winter days which were before them.
+
+Mr. Dale had, of course, forgotten what he had promised his sister-in-law
+to do on the previous night. But Miss Tredgold had not the slightest idea
+of letting him off.
+
+"Come, Henry," she said; "we will go into the schoolroom to prayers."
+
+Accordingly they went, and Mr. Dale read prayers in his somewhat sleepy
+tones. The children, with the exception of Pauline, were all present. At
+last family worship was finished and the servants were allowed to leave
+the room. As nurse was going she looked at Verena.
+
+"Miss Pauline is sleeping longer than usual," she said. "She asked me a
+few days ago never to waken her, and said she would ring her bell when
+she wanted breakfast or hot water. I had better find out if she is
+awake."
+
+"Yes, do, nurse," said Miss Tredgold briskly; "and ask her to be quick
+and come downstairs. I want all the children except little Marjorie to be
+present."
+
+"Oh, my dear Sophia!" said Mr. Dale at that moment, "you cannot expect me
+to wait here with all my morning's work neglected while one of the girls
+chooses to dress herself."
+
+"Here's a very interesting paper on Plato," said Miss Tredgold suddenly,
+and as she spoke she handed Mr. Dale the last number of the _Spectator_.
+"I thought you might like to see it."
+
+"Eh? What?" he cried. "An article on Plato. By whom?"
+
+"By the great classical scholar, Professor Mahaffy," replied Miss
+Tredgold calmly.
+
+Mr. Dale was in an intense state of excitement.
+
+"When did this come?"
+
+"On Saturday morning."
+
+"But this is Wednesday. How is it I did not see it before?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, Henry, I read it and kept it back on purpose. I
+want to keep your attention until all the family are assembled. Here is
+your chair, here are your spectacles, and here is the paper."
+
+Mr. Dale took the paper, muttering to himself:
+
+"Mahaffy--Mahaffy; one of the greatest scholars of the time;" and then he
+was lost to external things.
+
+Yes, Mr. Dale of The Dales, the head of an ancient house, the father of a
+large family, forgot everything on earth except a certain disputed
+passage in which he and Professor Mahaffy diametrically disagreed. He
+continued to forget everything else, even when nurse rushed into the
+room.
+
+"Why, she has gone!" cried the good woman. "She ain't in her bed; and
+what's more, she's been out of it for hours, and the window is open. Oh,
+whatever has come to the child? Where in the world is she?"
+
+Miss Tredgold looked terribly startled. Verena's face turned like a
+sheet. Briar and Patty clasped each other's hands. Pen said to herself:
+
+"This is the time for a good sort of child like me to do something."
+
+Then a clatter of horse's hoofs was heard on the gravel outside, and a
+stoutly built, rubicund man, on a very large horse, drew rein at the
+front door.
+
+"It's Farmer King!" cried Verena.
+
+"Yes, it's Farmer King," said Pen.
+
+"Penelope, be quiet," said her aunt.
+
+The next moment the door was opened, and the parlor-maid said that Farmer
+King had come and was anxious to see Mr. Dale and Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Show him in here," said Miss Tredgold. "Henry, have the goodness to give
+me that paper."
+
+"But I---- My dear Sophia, I have not finished reading it. I don't agree
+a bit with Mahaffy--not a bit. He takes the text in its literal meaning.
+He ought to read it with the context. Now, there is not the slightest
+manner of doubt that Plato meant----"
+
+"Henry! Are you mad? Give me that paper."
+
+It is to be regretted that Miss Tredgold snatched the _Spectator_ from
+Mr. Dale's unwilling hand.
+
+"Now, Henry, wake up," she said. "Pauline is lost, and Farmer King has
+come to speak to us both on a matter of importance."
+
+Just then Farmer King came into the room. Now, the Kings may have been
+the humble retainers of the Dales for generations, but there was not the
+slightest doubt that Farmer King made a far more imposing appearance at
+that moment than did Mr. Dale of The Dales; for Mr. Dale stood up, thin,
+bewildered, shivering, his mind in the past, his eyes consumed by a sort
+of inward fire, but with no intelligence as far as present things were
+concerned; and Farmer King was intensely wide awake, and, so to speak,
+all there.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dale," he said. "And I beg your pardon, miss. I
+presume I am speaking to Miss Tredgold?"
+
+"You are, Mr. King," said that lady.
+
+"Good-day to you all, misses," said the farmer.
+
+He looked round at the somewhat frightened little group of sisters in the
+background.
+
+"I have come to say something," said the farmer. "It is something about
+Miss Pauline. It is something about myself and Nancy, and it has to do
+with you, sir"--here he bowed low to Mr. Dale--"and with you, madam"--his
+bow was not quite so reverential when he turned to the lady.
+
+"What is it? Please speak," said Miss Tredgold. "We are very anxious
+about Pauline. Our nurse has just told us that she is not in her bedroom.
+Do you know where she is?"
+
+"Well, madam, about half an hour ago I left Miss Pauline seated in my
+warm kitchen, in the company of my good daughter, Nancy, and eating as
+good a breakfast as I could provide for her. She did not eat much, madam,
+but it is there for her acceptance. The young lady is heartily welcome.
+She prefers us to you for the time being. She did not want you to know
+anything about it, but that ain't quite my way, so I came to explain."
+
+"Please, please, Aunt Sophy, don't be too angry," here came from Verena's
+lips.
+
+"Silence, Verena!" said her father.
+
+Surely there was quite a new note in his voice! He rose; his languor left
+him; he came up to Farmer King and held out his hand.
+
+"Why, good old friend," he said, "it seems ages since we met. Do you
+remember that day when we were boys together and went in search of
+robins' eggs?"
+
+"Don't I?" said the farmer.
+
+He gave an embarrassed laugh, which ended in a sort of roar.
+
+"And haven't I the eggs safe still?" he said. "I have parted with many
+things, but not with the eggs the young squire and I took together."
+
+"It is ages since we met," said Mr. Dale. "You are looking very well,
+Robert--admirably well. I am pleased to see you. Sit down, won't you?
+Pray sit down."
+
+"That man is enough to turn the brain of any one," was Miss Tredgold's
+private ejaculation. Aloud she said:
+
+"I presume, Farmer King, that you have not come here without a story to
+tell."
+
+"That is just it, madam. And now, if I may speak, I will tell you my
+story."
+
+"We are all prepared to listen," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Yes, Robert, and with attention--with attention and interest," said Mr.
+Dale. "Why, upon my word, this is almost as good as a fresh rendering of
+the immortal Plato. Sit down, farmer, sit down."
+
+The farmer did not sit down.
+
+"It's no use mincing matters," he said, "nor walking round the bush. It
+is just this. If there is a family on this earth that I have been proud
+to have to do with, it is that of the Dales. If there were children that
+I loved next to my own, it was the Dales. Why, I was brought up, so to
+speak, to look on them as my liege lords. My mother had the old feudal
+principles in her, and she never went with the times. She never held that
+we were as good as our betters. We were good enough, straight enough,
+honest enough, but we hadn't the blue blood of the Dales in us. That is
+how I was brought up. Well, you, sir, were married, and came to live here
+with your good lady. It was the will of the Almighty that she should be
+taken, and the children were left motherless; and my little Nancy and I,
+we used to watch to do them a kindness. They were right pleased to come
+over and see us, and to ride barebacked on my two Forest ponies, and have
+their fun whenever they could get as far away as The Hollies. And Nancy
+was free to come to your house, and much she enjoyed it."
+
+"Well, Robert, very natural--very natural indeed," said Mr. Dale.
+
+"So I took it; so I took it."
+
+Here the farmer flashed an angry eye in the direction of Miss Tredgold.
+
+"But never mind," he continued. "I did not presume--far from that--far
+indeed from that. It pleased the Almighty to give you ten daughters, Mr.
+Dale, and to give me but one. And I love my one as much, perhaps, as you
+love the whole of your ten. But be that as it may, when Nancy went to The
+Dales to have her fun and her larks and her gay time, I was as pleased as
+Punch. And then this good lady came, and she said to herself, 'Who is
+Nancy King?' and the young ladies told her the plain truth; and then this
+good lady did not take the trouble to inquire. A farmer's daughter was
+only a farmer's daughter to her. Oh, I am not blaming her; but a little
+thought, a little less prejudice, would have prevented a lot of mischief.
+Anyhow, the good aunt gave the word--my girl and the young ladies were to
+have nothing to do with each other in the future. Mark you that, sir,
+when they were brought up, so to speak, together--always tumbling about
+in the same hay-field, and riding the same ponies, and playing the same
+games. It was all to end because of madam. Now, Mr. Dale, I was real mad
+when Nancy came and told me what had happened. My feelings were hot and
+strong and bitter, and I thought the treatment dealt out to my child and
+me none too just. So, sir, when Nancy asked me to help her, I helped with
+a will. When Miss Pauline came over to see us--which she did unknown to
+her aunt--I gave her the best of welcomes, and we started our midnight
+picnic for no other reason in life but to have her with us."
+
+"When did you have your midnight picnic?" asked Miss Tredgold very
+gently. "When? Kindly give me the date."
+
+The farmer looked into her face. When he saw how white she was, and when
+he glanced at the two little girls, Briar and Patty, his heart smote him.
+
+"I was given over to evil feelings at that time," he said, "and I don't
+pretend for a moment I did right. Miss Pauline didn't want to be coaxed,
+but Nancy was a rare temptress. We did our best, and the children
+came--three of them. You want to know the date, madam. It was the date of
+Miss Pauline's birthday--the night after her birthday. Oh, yes, madam, we
+had our wild time--a right good time, too." The farmer gave a short
+laugh. "You thought your young ladies quite out of the reach of the
+influence of Farmer King and his family; but you never guessed, madam,
+that all through one long beautiful summer night we had revels in the
+woods--dancing, madam; and a picnic, no less; and the young miss crowned
+with flowers as queen, and given the best presents we could give her. We
+took a drive under the oaks and elms and beeches of the New Forest, and
+you never guessed, madam--never. But Miss Pauline, Miss Briar, and Miss
+Patty were there, and Miss Pauline was our queen. Ah! she had a gay
+birthday, but you ask her what sort of a birthnight she had. It is true
+she was queen of the day, but that was nothing to the time when she was
+queen of the night. Well, sir"--the farmer's eyes shone as he spoke----
+"I meant it as a big joke, and I was desperately proud of myself; but I
+saw even then that Miss Pauline was fretting, and I spoke to her quite
+seriously, and I said, 'If ever the time comes when you want a friend, I
+am the man for your purpose. Don't you forget that; because you are a
+Dale and I am a King, and you Dales have always been our liege lords, so
+don't you forget that.' And the child, sir, she believed me. Lots of
+things happened afterwards, but of them I have nothing to say until last
+night. Miss Pauline came back to me, and she reminded me of what I had
+said to her that night in the woods. And, sir--and, madam--I mean to keep
+my promise. I came home at midnight, and there she was standing at the
+gate, white and slim and pretty as though she was a moonbeam. And she
+said, 'You promised to help me when I was in trouble, and I have come to
+you to get you to keep your promise.' Now, sir and madam, I have come
+here about that. The young lady wants to be helped. She has got a shock,
+and wants a bit of humoring. She says some words which have no meaning to
+me, but they mean something to her, and she must be humored. 'I want to
+wash and be clean,' she keeps saying; and she wants Nancy and me to take
+her away to the seaside where the waves are big and strong, and she
+insists on it that she will only go with Nancy and me. So, Miss Tredgold
+and Mr. Dale, I have come here to-day to say that we mean to take her."
+
+"Can I see her?" asked Miss Tredgold. "I have nothing to say. Perhaps I
+did wrong that time. We all make mistakes sometimes. I ought to have
+known you better, Mr. King. But that time is over. The important thing
+now is to restore the balance of Pauline's mind. Can I see her?"
+
+"You can, madam, when the right time comes; but that is not to-day, and
+it won't be to-morrow. This is my business now, madam, and you must leave
+it to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CLEANSING WATERS.
+
+
+That very day Farmer King went away with his daughter and Pauline. They
+went to a small village called Rosestairs, not many miles from
+Easterhaze. The farmer was immensely proud and pleased at having the care
+of Pauline, and he was determined that if man could restore her to
+health, he would be that individual. Rosestairs was a very pretty little
+place, and quite sheltered. The Kings took lodgings in a tiny cottage,
+where they lived as plainly as people could. Here Pauline rested and took
+long walks, and, as she expressed it afterwards, found herself again. But
+although day by day the weight in her head grew less, the haunting words
+still clung to her: "Wash and be clean." One night they entered into her
+dreams, and she awoke quite early with the words hovering on her lips:
+"Wash, Pauline; wash and be clean." Nancy was sleeping peacefully by her
+side. Pauline raised her head. She felt well--absolutely well--but for
+those haunting words. She stole out of bed and went and stood by the
+window.
+
+The sea was only a few yards off, and the waves were coming in fresh and
+lovely and sparkling. "Come, wash," they seemed to say, and each soft
+thud of a wave on the shore seemed to repeat the words.
+
+"I will--I will; I must," thought the young girl.
+
+She opened her trunk very softly, took out her bathing-dress, put it on,
+and ran down to the beach. There was no one about. In a moment she had
+entered the waves. She breasted them as far as her waist; she ducked and
+covered herself with the invigorating salt water. And as the sparkling
+salt water rolled over her, it seemed to her fancy that a load rolled off
+her mind. She felt light of heart and gay. She felt cheerful and happy. A
+few minutes later she was back in the cottage. Nancy turned in her sleep,
+started, opened her sleepy eyes, and looked at the dripping figure
+standing in the middle of the room.
+
+"Why, Paulie," she cried, "what are you doing? Oh, you are dripping wet;
+your hair and all. What have you been at?"
+
+"I am wet because I have washed. I have washed and I am clean. Oh, Nancy,
+Nancy! it is as right as possible. The terrible, haunting words have
+gone, and the longing for the sea has gone. I know that I am forgiven.
+Nancy, do you hear? I am washed, and I am clean. Oh! I know at last what
+it means."
+
+"For goodness' sake take off those wet things and get back into bed and
+let me warm you up. You will catch your death."
+
+"My death!" cried Pauline, "when I am so happy I scarcely know how to
+contain myself."
+
+Nancy sprang out of bed, dragged Pauline towards her, and helped her to
+pull off her wet things. Then she wrapped her up in her warm night-dress,
+made her cuddle down in bed, and kissed her and hugged her.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said, "you are the queerest girl; but your face looks as
+it did long ago."
+
+"I feel as I did long ago--or, rather, I feel different. I was a child
+then and did not understand much. Now, it seems to me, I understand a
+great deal--yes, a great deal. Oh! and there is your father in the
+garden. I must dress; I must go to him."
+
+So Pauline jumped out of bed, got quickly into her clothes, and ran out
+to join the farmer.
+
+"Mr. King," she cried, "I am quite well again."
+
+"It looks like it, little missy," said the farmer.
+
+"I am," repeated Pauline. "I am as perfectly well as a girl can be. You
+know how often I told you I wanted to wash and be clean. I had my wash
+this morning, and it was really what I did want, for that dull feeling
+has left my head. I know just everything, and how I behaved, and all the
+rest, and I am prepared to take the bitter as well as the sweet. It is
+very, very sweet living here with you and Nancy, and whatever happens,
+you will be my friends as long as I live. And it is very bitter to think
+that I must tell Aunt Sophia and Verena and the rest of them the whole
+truth; but, bitter or not, I am going to do it, and I am going back to
+them, for it is right. I want to go back to them this very day. May I?"
+
+"Yes, my lass; I understand you," said the farmer gravely.
+
+                    *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a lovely day for the time of year; although it was November, the
+sun shone brilliantly. Miss Tredgold stood on the lawn in front of the
+house and talked to Verena, who stood by her side.
+
+"I understand all of you now, Verena," she said, "except Pauline. I never
+did understand her, and I sometimes think I never shall, poor child!"
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," said Verena. "When Paulie comes back she will be as
+you never knew her--as she used to be, her sweetest and best. In some
+ways she is stronger and better and braver than any of us. I think she
+ought to make a splendid woman some day, for she has so much character
+and so much determination."
+
+"I think I have done the rest of you good by coming here; but if I have
+done Pauline harm, I sometimes wonder if I can ever be happy again," said
+the poor lady.
+
+"You have not done her harm. Only wait until she comes back. She is just
+getting the right treatment now. She felt everything so terribly that her
+mind was quite numb and incapable of conducting her right for a time; but
+wait until she returns."
+
+"Day after day I long and hope for her return," said Miss Tredgold, "but
+day after day there is a fresh excuse."
+
+"And yet you say you want her to return," said Verena. "Oh, aunty, aunty!
+who is this coming up the path? Here she is--Paulie herself; and Nancy is
+following her, and there is Farmer King. They have entered by the
+wicket-gate and are coming up through the plantation. Oh, look, look! And
+she is well. I know by the way she walks, by the way she runs, by the way
+she smiles. She is as well as ever she was in all her life."
+
+"Better--far better than ever!" cried Pauline's gay and almost rollicking
+voice. "Here I am, stronger than ever, and quite, quite well."
+
+The next moment Pauline's arms were flung round her aunt's neck.
+
+"You must forgive me first of all," she said. "I have come back to
+confess, and I want to get my confession over. I want all the others to
+stand round and listen. Ah! here they come. Don't rush at me for a
+moment, girls. Don't hug me or do anything of that sort. Stand still and
+listen, listen, listen. I was rebellious, and I did wrong, and----"
+
+"My darling," interrupted Miss Tredgold, "we know the whole story. We
+only want you to confess that you did wrong, and then never, never to
+allude to it again; for I see, Pauline, by your eyes that you mean to do
+right now."
+
+"I will obey you because I love you," said Pauline.
+
+"There, madam! I think she is pretty well restored," cried the farmer.
+"And she is the best young lady in the world. Nancy and I have brought
+her home, and now, with your permission, madam, we will take our leave."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" cried Miss Tredgold. "If you did wrong, Pauline, I
+was by no means altogether in the right. I little knew when I told you,
+my dears, to have nothing more to do with Farmer King and his daughter,
+that I was preventing your enjoying the society of a gentleman. Please
+shake hands with me, Mr. King."
+
+Farmer King's face was quite pale with emotion.
+
+"I admire you; I thank you," said Miss Tredgold. "You are a man in a
+thousand;" and again she held out her hand.
+
+This time Farmer King wrung it. But he was absolutely speechless; not a
+single word passed his lips.
+
+"Nancy," said Miss Tredgold, "I revoke what I said. You must come and see
+my girls whenever you like."
+
+"On condition, madam," said the farmer, "that the young ladies sometimes
+come to see Nancy and me."
+
+"Certainly," said Miss Tredgold; "but I also must put in a condition."
+
+"What is that, madam?"
+
+"That I occasionally accompany them."
+
+But at this the farmer gave such a cheer of hearty goodwill that all the
+children joined in in spite of themselves.
+
+"Was there ever anything quite so jolly in all the world?" cried Pauline.
+"I feel younger than ever, and jollier than ever. Here comes father, too.
+We are all together. Father, I am back again, and it is all owing to
+Farmer King and Nancy that I am cured. Whom shall we cry three cheers
+for? You give the word."
+
+"Aunt Sophy, of course," cried Verena.
+
+"Hip! hip! hurrah!" shouted the Dale family.
+
+"And I should like to suggest a hearty cheer for my good old friend,
+Farmer King," said Mr. Dale.
+
+"And for his cure," said Pauline.
+
+And then the Dale family and the King family joined hands and shouted
+"Hip! hip! hurrah!" once more.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Girls of the Forest, by L. T. Meade
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Girls of the Forest
+
+Author: L. T. Meade
+
+Release Date: June 22, 2008 [EBook #25872]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIRLS OF THE FOREST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.8em;'>GIRLS OF THE FOREST</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illus-emb.png' alt='' title='' /><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.6em; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em;'>GIRLS OF THE FOREST</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>L. T. MEADE</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AUTHOR OF ALWYN&#8217;S FRIENDS, BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS,</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>GOOD LUCK, PLAYMATES, PRETTY GIRL AND</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE OTHERS, THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL, ETC.</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AKRON, OHIO</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>MACLELLAN&nbsp;·N·Y·&nbsp;COMPANY</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:2em;'>PUBLISHERS</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1em;'>BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin: 0 5em; font-size:smaller;'>
+
+<p>L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina
+Smith), English novelist, was born at Bandon,
+County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev.
+R. T. Meade, rector at Novohal, County Cork,
+and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She wrote
+her first book, <i>Lettie&#8217;s Last Home</i>, at the age of
+17, and since then has been an unusually prolific
+writer, her stories attaining wide popularity on
+both sides of the Atlantic.
+</p>
+<p>She worked in the British Museum, lived in
+Bishopsgate Without, making special studies of
+East London life, which she incorporated in her
+stories. She edited the <i>Atlanta</i>, a magazine, for
+six years. Her pictures of girls, especially in the
+influence they exert on their elders, are drawn
+with intuitive fidelity, pathos, love, and humor,
+as in <i>Girls of the Forest</i>, flowing easily from
+her pen. She has traveled extensively, and is
+devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports.
+</p>
+<p>Among more than fifty novels she has written,
+dealing largely with questions of home life, are:
+<i>A Knight of To-day</i> (1877), <i>Bel-Marjory</i> (1878),
+<i>Mou-setse: a Negro Hero</i> (1880), <i>Mother Herring&#8217;s
+Chickens</i> (1881), <i>A London Baby: The
+Story of King Roy</i> (1883), <i>Two Sisters</i> (1884),
+<i>The Angel of Life</i> (1885), <i>A World of Girls</i>
+(1886), <i>Sweet Nancy</i> (1887), <i>Nobody&#8217;s Neighbors</i>
+(1887), <i>Deb and The Duchess</i> (1888), <i>Girls
+of the Forest</i> (1908), <i>Aylwyn&#8217;s Friends</i> (1909),
+<i>Pretty Girl and the Others</i> (1910).
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div><span class='pagenum'><a id='page_1' name='page_1'></a>1</span></div>
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.8em;'>GIRLS OF THE FOREST.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 0em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<h3>THE GUEST WHO WAS NEITHER OLD NOR YOUNG.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful summer&#8217;s afternoon, and the girls were
+seated in a circle on the lawn in front of the house. The
+house was an old Elizabethan mansion, which had been
+added to from time to time&mdash;fresh additions jutting out
+here and running up there. There were all sorts of unexpected
+nooks and corners to be found in the old house&mdash;a
+flight of stairs just where you did not look for any, and
+a baize door shutting away the world at the moment when
+you expected to behold a long vista into space. The house
+itself was most charming and inviting-looking; but it was
+also, beyond doubt, much neglected. The doors were nearly
+destitute of paint, and the papers on many of the walls had
+completely lost their original patterns. In many instances
+there were no papers, only discolored walls, which at one
+time had been gay with paint and rendered beautiful with
+pictures. The windows were destitute of curtains; the carpets
+on the floors were reduced to holes and patches. The
+old pictures in the picture gallery still remained, however,
+and looked down on the young girls who flitted about there
+on rainy days with kindly, or searching, or malevolent eyes
+as suited the characters of those men and women who were
+portrayed in them.
+</p>
+<p>But this was the heart of summer, and there was no need
+to go into the musty, fusty old house. The girls sat on the
+grass and held consultation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She is certainly coming to-morrow,&#8221; said Verena.
+&#8220;Father had a letter this morning. I heard him giving
+directions to old John to have the trap patched up and the
+harness mended. And John is going to Lyndhurst Road to
+meet her. She will arrive just about this time. Isn&#8217;t it too
+awful?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind, Renny,&#8221; said her second sister; &#8220;the sooner
+she comes, the sooner she&#8217;ll go. Briar and Patty and I have
+put our heads together, and we mean to let her see what
+we think of her and her interfering ways. The idea of
+Aunt Sophia interfering between father and us! Now, I
+should like to know who is likely to understand the education
+of a girl if her own father does not.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_2' name='page_2'></a>2</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It is all because the Step has gone,&#8221; continued Verena.
+&#8220;She told us when she was leaving that she meant to write
+to Aunt Sophia. She was dreadfully cross at having to go,
+and the one mean thing she ever did in all her life was to
+make the remark she did. She said it was very little short
+of disgraceful to have ten girls running about the New
+Forest at their own sweet will, without any one to guide
+them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, what a nuisance the Step is!&#8221; said Rose, whose pet
+name was Briar. &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t I like to scratch her! Dear
+old Paddy! of course he knows how to manage us. Oh, here
+he comes&mdash;the angel! Let&#8217;s plant him down in our midst.
+Daisy, put that little stool in the middle of the circle; the
+Padre shall sit there, and we&#8217;ll consult as to the advent of
+precious Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty, Briar, and Verena now jumped to their feet and
+ran in the direction where an elderly gentleman, with a
+stoop, gray hair hanging over his shoulders, and a large
+pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his nose, was walking.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paddy, Paddy! you have got to come here at once,&#8221; called
+out Briar.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Verena took one of his arms, Patty clasped the
+other, Briar danced in front, and so they conducted him into
+the middle of the group.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s your stool, Paddy,&#8221; cried Briar. &#8220;Down you
+squat. Now then, squatty-<i>vous</i>.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale took off his spectacles, wiped them and gazed
+around him in bewilderment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was construing a line of Virgil,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You have
+interrupted me, my dears. Whatever is the matter?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have brought the culprit to justice,&#8221; exclaimed
+Pauline. &#8220;Paddy, forget the classics for the time being.
+Think, just for a few moments, of your neglected&mdash;your
+shamefully neglected&mdash;daughters. Ten of them, Paddy, all
+running wild in the Forest glades. Aren&#8217;t you ashamed of
+yourself? Don&#8217;t you feel that your moment of punishment
+has come? Aunt Sophia arrives to-morrow. Now, what
+have you got to say for yourself?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, my dear children, we can&#8217;t have your Aunt Sophia
+here. I could not dream of it. I remember quite well she
+came here once a long time ago. I have not got over it yet.
+I haven&#8217;t really.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But she is coming, Paddy, and you know it quite well,
+for you got the letter. How long do you think you can
+put up with her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Only for a very short time, Pauline; I assure you, my
+darling, she is not&mdash;not a pleasant person.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Describe her, Paddy&mdash;do,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>She spoke in her very gentlest tone, and held out one of
+her long white hands and allowed her father to clasp it.
+Verena was decidedly the best-looking of the eight girls
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_3' name='page_3'></a>3</span>
+sitting on the grass. She was tall; her complexion was fair;
+her figure was naturally so good that no amount of untidy
+dressing could make it look awkward. Her hair was golden
+and soft. It was less trouble to wind it up in a thick rope
+and hairpin it at the back of her head than to let it run
+wild; therefore she was not even untidy. Verena was
+greatly respected by her sisters, and Briar was rather afraid
+of her. All the others sat silent now when she asked the
+old Padre to describe Aunt Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear,&#8221; he answered, &#8220;I have not the slightest idea
+what her appearance is like. My memory of her is that she
+was fashionable and very conventional.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What on earth is &#8216;conventional&#8217;?&#8221; whispered Pat.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t interrupt, Patty,&#8221; said Verena, squeezing her
+father&#8217;s hand. &#8220;Go on, Paddy; go on, darling of my heart.
+Tell us some more. Aunt Sophia is fashionable and conventional.
+We can look out the words in the dictionary
+afterwards. But you must know what she is like to look at.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t, my dears; I cannot remember. It was a good
+many years ago when she came to visit us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He must be prodded,&#8221; said Briar, turning to Renny.
+&#8220;Look at him; he is going to sleep.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me, girls,&#8221; said the Squire, half-rising, and then
+sitting down again as Verena&#8217;s young hand pushed him into
+his seat. &#8220;I have just made a most interesting discovery
+with regard to Virgil&mdash;namely, that&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, father! we don&#8217;t want to know about it,&#8221; said Briar.
+&#8220;Now, then, Renny, begin.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Her appearance&mdash;her appearance!&#8221; said Verena gently.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whose appearance, dear?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Aunt Sophia&#8217;s; the lady who is coming to-morrow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, dear!&#8221; said Mr. Dale; &#8220;but she must not come. This
+cannot be permitted; I cannot endure it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paddy, you have given John directions to fetch her.
+Now, then, what is she like?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, children. I haven&#8217;t the slightest idea.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Prod, Renny! Prod!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Padre,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;is she old or young?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Old, I think; perhaps neither.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Write it down, Briar. She is neither old nor young.
+Paddy, is she dark or fair?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I really can&#8217;t remember, dear. A most unpleasant
+person.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Put down that she is&mdash;not over-beautiful,&#8221; said Verena.
+&#8220;Paddy, must we put on our best dresses when she comes&mdash;our
+Sunday go-to-meeting frocks, you know?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Children, wear anything on earth you like, but in
+Heaven&#8217;s name let me go away now! Only to think that
+she will be here to-morrow! Why did Miss Stapleton leave
+us? It is really too terrible.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_4' name='page_4'></a>4</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;She left,&#8221; said Briar, her eyes twinkling, &#8220;because we
+would call her Step, which means step-mother. She was
+so dreadfully, dreadfully afraid that you might find it out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, children, how incorrigible you are! The poor
+woman! I&#8217;d sooner have married&mdash;&mdash; I&mdash;I never mean to
+marry anybody.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you don&#8217;t, Padre. And you may go now,
+darling,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Go, and be happy, feeling that your
+daughters will look after you. You are not lonely, are you,
+darling, with so many of us? Now go and be very
+happy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Eight pairs of lips blew kisses to the departing figure.
+Mr. Dale shambled off, and disappeared through the open
+window into his study.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor dear!&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;he has forgotten our existence
+already. He only lives when he thinks of Virgil. Most
+of his time he sleeps, poor angel! It certainly is our bounden
+duty to keep him away from Aunt Sophia. What a terror
+she must be! Fancy the situation. Eight nieces all in a
+state of insurrection, and two more nieces in the nursery
+ready to insurrect in their turn!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Something must be done,&#8221; interrupted Pauline. &#8220;Nurse
+is the woman to help us. Forewarned is forearmed. Nurse
+must put us up to a wrinkle or two.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then let&#8217;s go to her at once,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>They all started up, and, Verena leading the way, they
+went through the little paddock to the left of the house, and
+so into a yard, very old-fashioned and covered with weeds
+and cobble-stones. There were tumble-down stables and
+coach-houses, hen-houses, and buildings, useful and otherwise,
+surrounding the yard; and now in the coach-house,
+which for many years had sheltered no carriage of any sort,
+sat nurse busy at work, with two little children playing at
+her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t mind the babies at present,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Don&#8217;t
+snatch them up and kiss them, Briar. Patty, keep your
+hands off. Nurse, we have come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I see, Miss Verena,&#8221; said nurse.
+</p>
+<p>She lifted her very much wrinkled old face and looked
+out of deep-set, black eyes full at the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, my darling child?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How are we to bear it? Shall we fall on our knees and
+get round you in a little circle? We must talk to you. You
+must advise us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh, dears!&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;I am nearly past that sort of
+thing. I&#8217;m not as young as I wor, and master and me we&#8217;re
+both getting old. It doesn&#8217;t seem to me to matter much now
+whether a body&#8217;s pretty or not, or whether you dress beautiful,
+or whether a thing is made to look pretty or otherwise.
+We&#8217;re all food for worms, dears, all of us, and where&#8217;s
+the use of fashing?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_5' name='page_5'></a>5</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;How horrid of you, nurse!&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;We have got
+beautiful bodies, and our souls ought to be more beautiful
+still. What about the resurrection of the body, you dreadful
+old nurse?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, never mind me, dears; it was only a sort of dream
+I were dreaming of the funeral of your poor dear mother,
+who died when this dear lamb was born.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Here nurse patted the fat arm of the youngest hope of
+the house of Dale, little Marjorie, who looked round at her
+with rosy face and big blue eyes. Marjorie was between
+three and four years old, and was a very beautiful little
+child. Verena, unable to restrain herself any longer, bent
+down and encircled Marjorie with her strong young arms
+and clasped her in an ecstatic embrace.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There, now,&#8221; she said; &#8220;I am better. I forbid all the
+rest of you girls to touch Marjorie. Penelope, I&#8217;ll kiss you
+later.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope was seven years old&mdash;a dark child with a round
+face&mdash;not a pretty child, but one full of wisdom and audacity.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever we do,&#8221; Verena had said on several occasions,
+&#8220;we must not let Penelope out of the nursery until she is
+quite eight years old. She is so much the cleverest of us
+that she&#8217;d simply turn us all round her little finger. She
+must stay with nurse as long as possible.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know what you are talking about,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;It&#8217;s
+about her, and she&#8217;s coming to-morrow. I told nurse, and
+she said she oughtn&#8217;t never to come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, that she oughtn&#8217;t,&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;The child is
+alluding to Miss Tredgold. She haven&#8217;t no call here, and
+I don&#8217;t know why she is coming.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look here, nurse,&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;she is coming, and
+nothing in the world will prevent her doing so. The thing
+we have to consider is this: how soon will she go?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;ll go, I take it,&#8221; said nurse, &#8220;as soon as ever she
+finds out she ain&#8217;t wanted.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how are we to tell her that?&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Now,
+do put on your considering-cap at once, you wise old
+woman.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, do show us the way out, for we can&#8217;t have her here,&#8221;
+said Briar. &#8220;It is absolutely impossible. She&#8217;ll try to turn
+us into fine ladies, and she&#8217;ll talk about the dresses we
+should have, and she&#8217;ll want father to get some awful woman
+to come and live with us. She&#8217;ll want the whole house to
+be turned topsy-turvy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh!&#8221; said nurse, &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what it is. Ladies like
+Miss Tredgold need their comforts. She won&#8217;t find much
+comfort here, I&#8217;m thinking. She&#8217;ll need her food well
+cooked, and that she won&#8217;t get at The Dales. She&#8217;ll need
+her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won&#8217;t get much
+of that sort of thing at The Dales. My dear young ladies,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_6' name='page_6'></a>6</span>
+you leave the house as it is, and, mark my words, Miss Tredgold
+will go in a week&#8217;s time at the latest.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<h3>A HANDFUL.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The girls looked full at nurse while she was talking. A
+look of contentment came into Verena&#8217;s face. She shook
+herself to make sure she was all there; she pinched herself
+to be certain that she was not dreaming; then she settled
+down comfortably.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There never was anybody like you, nursey,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;You always see the common-sense, possible side of
+things.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh!&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;If I hadn&#8217;t seen the common-sense,
+possible side of things many years ago, where would I be
+with the handling and bringing up of you ten young ladies?
+For, though I say it that shouldn&#8217;t, there ain&#8217;t nicer or
+bonnier or straighter children in the whole Forest; no, nor
+better-looking either, with cleaner souls inside of them;
+but for all that, anybody else&#8221;&mdash;and here nurse gave a little
+sort of wink that set Pauline screaming&mdash;&#8220;anybody else
+would say that you were a handful. You are a handful, too,
+to most people. But what I say now is this. You needn&#8217;t
+take any notice of me; you can keep your own counsel and
+say nothing; but if you want her to go&mdash;the lady that has
+no call to be here&mdash;the lady that&#8217;s forced herself where she
+ain&#8217;t wanted&mdash;why, you have <i>got</i> to be handfuls. And now
+I&#8217;ll go into the house with my two precious lambs.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The elder &#8220;precious lamb&#8221; looked very cross at being
+suddenly informed that she was to go indoors while the
+sun shone so brightly and the summer warmth surrounded
+her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I am going to stay out
+with the others. I&#8217;m a very big girl; I am not a baby any
+longer. And you aren&#8217;t to keep me in the nursery any
+longer, Verena. And I won&#8217;t be naughty. I&#8217;ll make up to
+Aunt Sophia like anything&mdash;that I will&mdash;if you keep me
+in the nursery any longer.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>This was such a daring threat that, although Penelope
+was not thought much of as a rule, the girls looked at her
+now with a sort of awe.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She might as well stay for a quarter of an hour longer,
+mightn&#8217;t she, nursey?&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, that she ain&#8217;t to do, Miss Rose. She comes right
+indoors and prepares for her bed like a good child. Is it
+me that&#8217;s to be shortened of my hours of rest by a naughty
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span>
+little thing like this? Come along this minute, miss, and
+none of your nonsense.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So Penelope, her heart full of rage, retired into the house
+with nurse and baby Marjorie.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope she won&#8217;t do anything mean and nasty,&#8221; said
+Pauline. &#8220;It&#8217;s the sort of thing she would do, for she&#8217;s
+frightfully clever.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, we needn&#8217;t consider her,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Do let&#8217;s
+make up our minds what to do ourselves.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have all sorts of things in my head,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;The
+pony-carriage might break down as it was coming from
+the station. I don&#8217;t mean her to be badly hurt, but I thought
+she might get just a little bit hurt, so that she could stay
+in her bed for twenty-four hours. An aunt in bed wouldn&#8217;t
+be so bad, would she, Renny?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;I suppose we must be
+polite. She is mother&#8217;s half-sister, you know. If mother
+were alive she would give her a welcome. And then Padre
+will have to talk to her. He must explain that she must go.
+If he doesn&#8217;t, we will lead him a life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls talked a little longer. They walked round and
+round the ugly, ill-kept lawn; they walked under the beautiful
+trees, entwined their arms round each other&#8217;s waists,
+and confabbed and confabbed. The upshot of it all was that
+on the following day a very large and very shabby bedroom
+was got ready after a fashion for Miss Tredgold&#8217;s arrival;
+and John, the sole factotum of the establishment&mdash;the man
+who cleaned the boots and knives, and swept up the avenue,
+removed the weeds from the flower-beds, cleaned the steps
+whenever they were cleaned, and the windows whenever
+they were cleaned&mdash;appeared on the scene, leading a tumble-down,
+knock-kneed pony harnessed to a very shabby pony-cart.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m off now, miss,&#8221; he said to Verena, pulling a wisp
+of hair as he spoke. &#8220;No, miss, there ain&#8217;t any room. You
+couldn&#8217;t possibly sit on the back seat, for it&#8217;s as much as
+ever I&#8217;ll do to bring the lady home in this tumble-down
+conveyance. Our own is too bad for use, and I had to borrow
+from Farmer Treherne, and he said he wouldn&#8217;t trust any
+horse but old Jock; this carriage will just keep together
+until the lady&#8217;s here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But whatever he thinks,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;do you suppose
+we can have a smart, neat carriage ready to take Miss Tredgold
+back again this day week? You will see about that,
+won&#8217;t you, John?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will, miss. There&#8217;ll be no difficulty about that; we&#8217;ll
+get the lady away whenever she wants to go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well. You had better be off now. You must wait
+outside the station. When she comes out you are to touch
+your hat and say, &#8216;This is the carriage from The Dales.&#8217;
+Be sure you say that, John. And look as important as ever
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_8' name='page_8'></a>8</span>
+you can. We must make the best of things, even if we are
+poor.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You never saw me, miss, demeaning the family,&#8221; said
+John.
+</p>
+<p>He again touched his very shabby hat, whipped up the
+pony, and disappeared down the avenue.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, then,&#8221; said Briar, &#8220;how are we to pass the next
+two hours? It will take them quite that time to get here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what are we going to give her to eat when she does
+come?&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;She&#8217;ll be awfully hungry. I expect
+she&#8217;ll want her dinner.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dinner!&#8221; cried Josephine. &#8220;Dinner! So late. But
+we dine at one.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You silliest of silly mortals,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;Aunt Sophia
+is a fashionable lady, and fashionable ladies dine between
+eight and nine o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do they?&#8221; said Josephine. &#8220;Then I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;m not a
+fashionable lady. Fancy starving all that long time! I&#8217;m
+always famished by one o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s Penelope!&#8221; suddenly said Patty. &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t she
+look odd?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope was a very stout child. She had black eyes and
+black hair. Her hair generally stood upright in a sort of
+halo round her head; her face was very round and rosy&mdash;she
+looked like a kind of hard, healthy winter-apple. Her
+legs were fat, and she always wore socks instead of stockings.
+Her socks were dark blue. Nurse declared that she
+could not be fashed with putting on white ones. She wore a
+little Turkey-red frock, and she had neither hat nor coat on.
+She was going slowly and thoughtfully round the lawn,
+occasionally stooping and picking something.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a perfect mystery,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Let&#8217;s run up
+to her and ask her what she&#8217;s about.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Catching Patty&#8217;s hand, the two girls scampered across the
+grass.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Pen, and what are you doing now? What curious
+things are you gathering?&#8221; they asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Grasses,&#8221; replied Penelope slowly. &#8220;They&#8217;re for Aunt
+Sophia&#8217;s bedroom. I&#8217;m going to make her bedroom ever so
+pretty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You little horror!&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;If you dare to go
+against us you will lead a life!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope looked calmly up at them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll make a bargain,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll throw them all away,
+and be nastier than you all&mdash;yes, much nastier&mdash;if you will
+make me a schoolroom girl.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked at her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We may be low,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and there is no doubt we
+are very poor, but we have never stooped to bribery and
+corruption yet. Go your own way, Penelope. If you think
+you can injure us you are very much mistaken.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span></p>
+<p>Penelope shook her fat back, and resumed her peregrinations
+round and round the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Really she is quite an uncomfortable child,&#8221; said Pauline,
+returning to her other sisters. &#8220;What do you think she is
+doing now? Picking grasses to put in Aunt Sophia&#8217;s room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, let her alone,&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;it&#8217;s only her funny
+little way. By the way, I wonder if Padre has any idea that
+Aunt Sophia is coming to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s invade him,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;The old dear wants his
+exercise; he hasn&#8217;t had any to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The eight girls ran with whoops and cries round the
+house. Penelope picked her grasses with more determination
+than ever. Her small, straight mouth made a scarlet
+line, so tightly was it shut.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am only seven, but I&#8217;m monstrous clever,&#8221; she whispered
+to herself. &#8220;I am going to have my own way. I&#8217;ll
+love poor Aunt Sophy. Yes, I will. I&#8217;ll kiss her, and I&#8217;ll
+make up to her, and I&#8217;ll keep her room full of lovely grasses.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the other girls burst into the study. A voice
+was heard murmuring rapidly as they approached. A silvery-white
+head was bending over a page, and some words
+in Latin came like a stream, with a very beautiful pronunciation,
+from the scholar&#8217;s lips.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Verena!&#8221; he said, &#8220;I think I have got the right lines
+now. Shall I read them to you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale began. He got through about one line when
+Patty interrupted him:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It can&#8217;t possibly be done, Paddy. We can&#8217;t listen to another
+line&mdash;I mean yet. You have got to come out. Aunt
+Sophia is coming to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh? I beg your pardon; who did you say was coming?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophia&mdash;Miss Tredgold. She&#8217;s coming to-day on
+a visit. She&#8217;ll be here very soon. She&#8217;s coming in an old
+cart that belongs to Farmer Treherne. She&#8217;ll be here in an
+hour; therefore out you come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dears, I cannot. You must excuse me. My years of
+toil have brought to light an obscure passage. I shall write
+an account of it to the <i>Times</i>. It is a great moment in my
+life, and the fact that&mdash;&mdash; But who did you say was coming,
+my dears?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Really, Paddy, you are very naughty,&#8221; said Verena.
+&#8220;You must come out at once. We want you. You can&#8217;t
+write another line. You must not even think of the subject.
+Come and see what we have done for Aunt Sophia.
+If you don&#8217;t come she&#8217;ll burst in here, and she&#8217;ll stay here,
+because it&#8217;s the most comfortable room in the house. And
+she&#8217;ll bring her work-basket here, and perhaps her mending.
+I know she&#8217;ll mend you as soon as she arrives. She&#8217;ll make
+you and mend you; and you need mending, don&#8217;t you, dear
+old Padre?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, my dears. I&#8217;m a stupid old man, and don&#8217;t
+care about dress. Who is the person you said was coming?
+Give her some tea and send her away. Do you hear, Verena?
+Give her tea, my darling, and&mdash;and toast if you like,
+and send her away. We can&#8217;t have visitors here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Patty!&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>Patty&#8217;s eyes were shining.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The two girls came forward as though they were little
+soldiers obeying the command of their captain.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take Padre by the right arm, Pauline. Patty, take
+Padre by the left arm. Now then, Paddy, quick&#8217;s the word.
+March!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Poor Mr. Dale was completely lifted from his chair by
+his two vigorous daughters, and then marched outside his
+study into the sunshine.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are not going to be cross,&#8221; said Verena, kissing him.
+&#8220;It is only your Renny.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And your Paulie,&#8221; said the second girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And your Rose Briar,&#8221; said the third.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And your Patty,&#8221; said the fourth.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And your Lucy,&#8221; &#8220;And your Josephine,&#8221; &#8220;And your
+Helen,&#8221; &#8220;And your Adelaide,&#8221; said four more vigorous pairs
+of lips.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And we all want you to stand up,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good heavens! I did think I had come to the end of
+my worries. And what on earth does this mean? Penelope,
+my child, what a hideous bouquet you have in your hand!
+Come here and kiss father, my little one.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope trotted briskly forward.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you like my red frock, father?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is very nice indeed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought it wor. And is my hair real tidy, father?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It stands very upright, Penelope.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought it did. And you like my little blue stockings,
+father?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very neat, dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought they wor.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You look completely unlike yourself, Penelope. What
+is the matter?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want to be a true, kind lady,&#8221; said the little girl. &#8220;I
+am gathering grasses for my aunty; so I are.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She trotted away into the house.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a pretty, neat, orderly little girl Penelope has become!&#8221;
+said Mr. Dale. &#8220;But&mdash;&mdash; You really must excuse
+me, my dear girls. You are most charming, all of you. Ah,
+my dears!&mdash;so fresh, so unsophisticated, so&mdash;yes, that is the
+word&mdash;so unworldly. But I must get back to my beloved
+Virgil. You don&#8217;t know&mdash;you can never know&mdash;what a moment
+of triumph is mine. You must excuse me, darlings&mdash;Verena,
+you are nearly grown up; you will see to the others.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span>
+Do what you can to make them happy&mdash;a little treat if
+necessary; I should not mind it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give us fourpence to buy a pound of golden syrup for
+tea, please, Padre,&#8221; suddenly said Briar. &#8220;If there is a thing
+I love, it is golden syrup. A pound between us will give us
+quite a feast&mdash;won&#8217;t it, Renny?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Only we must save a little for the aunt,&#8221; cried Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do hope one thing,&#8221; said Pauline: &#8220;that, whatever her
+faults, she won&#8217;t be greedy. There isn&#8217;t room for any one
+to be greedy in this house. The law of this house is the
+law of self-denial; isn&#8217;t it, Padre?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I begin to perceive that it is, Pauline. But whom are
+you talking of?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Padre,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;if you don&#8217;t wake and rouse
+yourself, and act like a decent Christian, you&#8217;ll be just
+prodded&mdash;you&#8217;ll be just shaken. We will do it. There are
+eight of us, and we&#8217;ll make your life a burden.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh&mdash;eh!&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;Really, girls, you are enough
+to startle a man. And you say&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, Paddy, that Miss Sophia Tredgold is on her way
+here. Each instant she is coming nearer. She is coming
+in the old pony cart, and the old pony is struggling with all
+his might to convey her here. She is coming with her luggage,
+intending to stay, and our object is to get her to go
+away again. Do you hear, Padre?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, my dear, I hear. I comprehend. It takes a great
+deal to bring a man back down the ages&mdash;down&mdash;down to
+this small, poor, parsimonious life; it takes a great deal. A
+man is not easily roused, nor brought back; but I am back
+now, darlings.&mdash;Excuse me, Briar; no more prodding.&mdash;Hands
+off, Pauline.&mdash;Hands off, Patty. Perhaps I had better
+tidy myself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You certainly would look nicer, and more like the owner
+of The Dales, if you got into your other coat,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall we all come up and help you, Padre?&#8221; called out
+the eight in a breath.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no, dears. I object to ladies hovering about my
+room. I&#8217;ll run away now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes; and you&#8217;d better be quick, Padre, for I hear
+wheels.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am going, loves, this moment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale turned and absolutely ran to the shelter of the
+house, for the wheels were getting near&mdash;rumbling, jumping,
+uncertain. Now the rumbling and the jumping and the
+uncertainty got into the avenue, and came nearer and nearer;
+and finally the tumble-down pony cart drew up at the house.
+The pony printed his uncertain feet awkwardly but firmly
+on the weed-grown sweep in front of the unpainted hall
+door, and Miss Tredgold gazed around her.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold was a very thin, tall woman of about forty-five
+years of age. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span>
+She wore a perfectly immaculate traveling dress of
+dark-gray tweed. It fitted her well-proportioned figure like
+a glove. She had on a small, very neat black hat, and a
+spotted veil surrounded her face. She stepped down from
+the pony cart and looked around her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; she said, seeing Verena, &#8220;will you kindly mention
+to some of the ladies of the family that I have arrived?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I need not mention it, because we all know,&#8221;
+said Verena. &#8220;I am your niece Verena.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her
+voice. Verena stepped back, and her pretty face grew first
+red and then pale. What she would have said next will
+never be known to history, for at that instant the very good
+child, Penelope, appeared out of the house.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is you my Aunty Sophy?&#8221; she said. &#8220;How are you,
+Aunty Sophy? I am very pleased to see you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Sophia stared for a moment at Penelope. Penelope
+was hideously attired, but she was at least clean. The
+other girls were anyhow. They were disheveled; they wore
+torn and unsightly skirts; their hair was arranged anyhow
+or not at all; on more than one face appeared traces of
+recent acquaintance with the earth in the shape of a tumble.
+One little girl with very black eyes had an ugly
+scratch across her left cheek; another girl had the gathers
+out of her frock, which streamed in the most hopeless
+fashion on the ground.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How do you do?&#8221; said Aunt Sophia. &#8220;Where is your
+father? Will you have the goodness, little girl, to acquaint
+your father with the fact that his sister-in-law, Sophia
+Tredgold, has come?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Please come into the house, Aunt Sophy, and I&#8217;ll take
+you to father&#8217;s study&mdash;so I will,&#8221; exclaimed champion
+Penelope.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<h3>PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Penelope held up a chubby hand, which Miss Tredgold
+pretended not to see.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go on in front, little girl,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t paw me.
+I hate being pawed by children.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope&#8217;s back became very square as she listened to
+these words, and the red which suffused her face went right
+round her neck. But she walked solemnly on in front without
+a word.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunties are unpleasant things,&#8221; she said to herself;
+&#8220;but, all the same, I mean to fuss over this one.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her
+parent:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paddy, here comes Aunt Sophia Tredgold.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>But she spoke to empty air&mdash;Mr. Dale was still busy over
+his toilet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whom are you addressing by that hideous name?&#8221; said
+Miss Sophia. &#8220;Do you mean to tell me you call your father
+Paddy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We all do,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course we do,&#8221; said Verena, who had followed behind.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is our name for the dear old boy,&#8221; said Pauline, who
+stood just behind Verena, while all the other children stood
+behind Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>It was in this fashion that the entire party invaded Mr.
+Dale&#8217;s sanctum. Miss Tredgold gazed around her, her face
+filled with a curious mixture of amazement and indignation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had an intuition that I ought to come here,&#8221; she said
+aloud. &#8220;I did not want to come, but I obeyed what I now
+know was the direct call of duty. I shall stay here as long as
+I am wanted. My mission will be to bring order out of
+chaos&mdash;to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to submission&mdash;to
+try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into
+ladies.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, oh! I say, aunty, that is hard on us!&#8221; burst from
+Josephine.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear, I don&#8217;t know your name, but it is useless for
+you to make those ugly exclamations. Whatever your remarks,
+whatever your words, I shall take no notice. You
+may struggle as you will, but I am the stronger. Oh! here
+comes&mdash;&mdash; Is it possible? My dear Henry, what years it is
+since we met! Don&#8217;t you remember me&mdash;your sister-in-law
+Sophia? I was but a little girl when you married my dear
+sister. It is quite affecting to meet you again. How do
+you do?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. Mr.
+Dale put both his hands behind his back.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you sorry to see me?&#8221; asked Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Oh,
+dear, this is terrible!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The next instant the horrified man found that Miss Tredgold
+had kissed him calmly and with vigor on each cheek.
+Even his own children were never permitted to kiss Mr.
+Dale. To tell the truth, he was the last sort of person anybody
+would care to kiss. His face resembled a piece of
+parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried
+up. There was an occasion in the past when Verena had
+taken his scholarly hand and raised it to her lips, but even
+that form of endearment he objected to.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I forgive you, dear,&#8221; he said; &#8220;but please don&#8217;t do it
+again. We can love each other without these marks of an
+obsolete and forgotten age. Kissing, my dear, is too silly
+to be endured in our day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>That Miss Tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity
+which the miserable man was scarcely likely to
+get over as long as he lived.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And now, girls,&#8221; said the good lady, turning round and
+facing her astonished nieces, &#8220;I have a conviction that your
+father and I would have a more comfortable conversation if
+you were not present. Leave the room, therefore, my
+dears. Go quietly and in an orderly fashion.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps, children, it would be best,&#8221; said Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>He felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made
+an effort not to show his feelings.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is no other possible way out of it,&#8221; he said to
+himself. &#8220;I must be very frank. I must tell her quite
+plainly that she cannot stay. It will be easier for me to be
+frank without the children than with them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So the girls left the room. Penelope, going last, turned a
+plump and bewildered face towards her aunt.
+</p>
+<p>But Miss Tredgold took no more notice of Penelope than
+she did of the others. When the last pair of feet had vanished
+down the passage, she went to the door and locked it.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you doing that for?&#8221; asked Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear Henry, I locked the door because I wish to have
+a quiet word with you. I have come here&mdash;I will say it
+plainly&mdash;for the sole purpose of saving you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of saving me, Sophia! From what?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;From the grievous sin you are committing&mdash;the sin of
+absolutely and completely neglecting the ten daughters given
+to you by Providence. Do you do anything for them? Do
+you try in the least to help them? Are you in any sense
+of the word educating them? I scarcely know the children
+yet, but I must say frankly that I never came across more
+terribly neglected young people. Their clothes are in rags,
+they are by no means perfectly clean in their persons, and
+they look half-starved. Henry, you ought to be ashamed of
+yourself! I wonder my poor sister doesn&#8217;t turn in her
+grave! When I think that Alice was their mother, and that
+you are bringing them up as you are now doing, I could
+give way to tears. But, Henry, tears are not what are required.
+Action is the necessary thing. I mean to act, and
+nothing will turn me from that resolution.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, my dear Sophia, I have not met you for years. To
+be frank with you, I had almost forgotten your existence.
+I am a terribly busy man, Sophia&mdash;a scholar&mdash;at least, I
+hope so. I do not think the children are neglected; they are
+well, and no one is ever unkind to them. There is no doubt
+that we are poor. I am unable to have the house done up
+as poor Alice would have liked to see it; and I have let the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span>
+greater part of the ground, so that we are not having dairy
+produce or farm produce at present. The meals, therefore,
+are plain.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And insufficient; I have no doubt of that,&#8221; said Miss
+Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They are very plain,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;Perhaps you like
+dainty food; most ladies of your age do. I must be as frank
+with you as you are with me. You won&#8217;t like our table.
+Sometimes we do without meat for a week at a time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do not care if you never touch meat again,&#8221; said Miss
+Sophia. &#8220;Thank goodness, with all my faults, I am not
+greedy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a pity!&#8221; murmured Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was that you said? Do you like greedy women?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Sophia; but I want to put matters so straight before
+you that you will consider it your bounden duty to leave The
+Dales.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where my duty calls me I stay, whatever the circumstances,
+and however great the inconveniences,&#8221; remarked
+Miss Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress
+me considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am
+busy now over a most important matter. I have just discovered&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A gold mine on your estate?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; something fifty times more valuable&mdash;a new rendering&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of what, may I ask?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;The noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.&#8217;
+Bowen is quite wrong in his translation; I am about to
+prove it. I allude to Virgil&#8217;s <i>Æneid</i>.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good heavens!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Tredgold, &#8220;is the man
+staring mad? Now, my dear fellow, you have got to put up
+with me. I can tell you plainly that it will be no treat to
+live with you. If it were not for my sister I would leave this
+house and let you and your family go your own way to destruction;
+but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best
+for me when I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for
+your children.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I
+am poor. I cannot afford a governess. Verena can darn
+quite nicely, and she knows a little about plain needlework.
+She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her work
+seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or
+the other.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you man&mdash;you man!&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And the other children are also learning to use the
+needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that
+I happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves.
+The girls can read, they can write, and they can
+use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span>
+healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold
+of winter. The food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant,
+but they are satisfied with it. They don&#8217;t worry me
+much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am not well
+enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the
+comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear
+Sophia, if you would be kind enough to leave The Dales.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and
+only force will turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming
+by the carrier to-morrow. I brought a small trunk in
+that awful little conveyance which you sent to meet me.
+As to the money question, it needn&#8217;t trouble you, for I shall
+pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries,
+I am indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to
+eat their food like ladies, and I mean the food to be well
+cooked; and also everything in the house shall be clean,
+and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the
+ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay
+here for at least three months, and if at the end of that time
+you do not say to me, &#8216;Sophia, I can never thank you enough
+for what you have done,&#8217; I shall be surprised. Now I have
+stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear Henry,
+you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study
+your beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for
+goodness&#8217; sake come to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean
+that I&mdash;I have not put on an evening coat for years.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You probably have one at the back of nowhere,&#8221; said
+Miss Tredgold in a contemptuous tone. &#8220;But, anyhow, put
+on the best you have got. Believe me, I have not come to
+this house to sit down with my hands before me. I have
+come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another
+word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutshell,
+and you and your children must learn to submit to the arrival
+of Sophia Tredgold.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>At these words the good lady unlocked the door and
+stepped out.
+</p>
+<p>As she walked down the passage she heard the quick
+trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some
+of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t allow that sort of thing again,&#8221; she said to herself.
+&#8220;But now&mdash;shall I take notice?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into
+her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For my sister&#8217;s sake I will put up with a good deal,&#8221;
+was her final comment; and then she went into the hall.
+</p>
+<p>There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and
+in this hall now stood the good child Penelope. She had
+brought in a quantity of fresh grasses, and had a piteous
+and beseeching expression on her face. Miss Tredgold took
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span>
+no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and
+looked out.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Might be made a pretty place,&#8221; she said aloud.
+</p>
+<p>Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so.
+Penelope echoed the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss
+Tredgold was arrested by the sound, and looked down.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, little girl!&#8221; she said. &#8220;What are you doing here?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought perhaps you&#8217;d like me to help you,&#8221; said Penelope.
+&#8220;I wor waiting for you to come out of Pad&#8217;s
+room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t use that hideous word &#8216;wor.&#8217; W-a-s, was. Can
+you spell?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; and I don&#8217;t want to,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you
+take me to my room?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I hold of your hand?&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May you hold my hand, not <i>of</i> my hand. Certainly not.
+You may go on in front of me. You have got clearly to understand&mdash;&mdash; But
+what did you say your name was?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Penelope.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not
+pet children. I expect them to be good without sugar-plums.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious.
+She had heard of them, and at Christmas-time she used to
+dream of them, but very few had hitherto come into her life.
+She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I are good for a long time without them, will you
+give me two or three?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll see,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I never make rash promises.
+Oh! so this is my room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She looked around her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No carpet,&#8221; she said aloud; &#8220;no curtains; no pictures on
+the walls. A deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin
+covering much the worse for dirt and wear. Hum! You do
+live plain at The Dales.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; don&#8217;t us?&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;And your room is
+much the handsomest of all the rooms. We call it very
+handsome. If you wor to see our rooms&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Were to see&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, were to see,&#8221; repeated Penelope, who found this
+constant correction very tiresome.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And may I ask,&#8221; exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not
+paying any heed to the little girl&#8217;s words, &#8220;what on earth is
+that in the blue mug?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was
+a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor Penelope&#8217;s
+grasses.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What horror is this?&#8221; she said. &#8220;Take it away at once,
+and throw those weeds out.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span></p>
+<p>At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her
+allegiance to Aunt Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling.
+In the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took
+her to her room, did you? And what did she say? Did she
+tell you when she was going away?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, did she?&#8221; came from Verena&#8217;s lips; and Pauline&#8217;s
+eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the
+same question.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought I&#8217;d be the goodest of you all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I
+maded up my mind that I just would; but I doesn&#8217;t like
+Aunt Sophia, and I think I&#8217;ll be the naughtiest.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can.
+She can&#8217;t possibly stay long, for we can&#8217;t afford it,&#8221; said
+Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;ll stay,&#8221; answered Penelope. &#8220;She have made up
+her mind. She throwed away my lovely grasses; she called
+them weeds, my darlings that I did stoop so much to pick,
+and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she said
+she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did
+so want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I&#8217;d
+get sugar-plums and perhaps pennies. And I thought she&#8217;d
+let me tell her when you was all bad. Oh, I hate her now!
+I don&#8217;t think I care to be took out of the nursery if she&#8217;s
+about.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You certainly are a caution, Penny,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;It
+is well that you have told us what your motives are. Believe
+me, there are worse places than that despised nursery
+of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort of dinner
+or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her
+head aches, and if&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, come along; let&#8217;s go and find out,&#8221; said Pauline.
+&#8220;I feel so desperate that I have the courage for anything.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>It is to be owned that the Dales did not keep an extensive
+establishment. Old John pottered about the gardens and did
+what little gardening he thought necessary. He also did
+odd jobs about the house. Besides John, there was Betty.
+Betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen.
+Betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered
+necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without.
+As a rule she did without. She said that cooking was
+bad for her&mdash;that it made her head and back ache. On the
+days when Betty&#8217;s head or back ached there was never any
+dinner. The family did not greatly mind. They dined on
+these occasions on bread, either with butter or without.
+Betty managed to keep them without dinner certainly at
+the rate of once or twice a week. She always had an excellent
+excuse. Either the boiler was out of gear, or the
+range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or
+the butcher had failed to come. Sometimes the children
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span>
+managed to have jam with their bread-and-butter, and then
+they considered that they had a very fine meal indeed. It
+mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they
+only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough.
+This more constantly happened in the winter than in the
+summer, for in the summer there was always plenty of milk
+and always plenty of fruit and vegetables.
+</p>
+<p>When Betty heard that Miss Tredgold was coming to stay
+she immediately gave Verena notice. This was nothing at
+all extraordinary, for Betty gave notice whenever anything
+annoyed her. She never dreamed of acting up to her own
+words, so that nobody minded Betty&#8217;s repeated notices.
+But on the morning of the day when Miss Tredgold was expected,
+Betty told nurse that she was about to give a real,
+earnest notice at last.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am going,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I go this day month. I march
+out of this house, and never come back&mdash;no, not even if a
+dook was to conduct me to the hymeneal altar.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises.
+She was seldom so low in health as to condescend
+to a &#8220;hearl,&#8221; and there had even been a moment when she
+got herself to believe that royalty might aspire to her
+hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She must be really going,&#8221; said Verena when nurse repeated
+Betty&#8217;s speech. &#8220;She would not say that about the
+duke if she was not.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You leave her alone,&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;But she&#8217;s dreadful
+put out, Miss Renny; there&#8217;s no doubt of that. I doubt if
+she&#8217;ll cook any dinner for Miss Tredgold.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena, Pauline, and Penelope now rushed round to the
+kitchen premises. They were nervous, but at the same
+time they were brave. They must see what Betty intended
+to do. They burst open the door. The kitchen was not too
+clean. It was a spacious apartment, which in the days when
+the old house belonged to rich people was well taken care
+of, and must have sent forth glorious fires&mdash;fires meant to
+cook noble joints. On the present occasion the fire was dead
+out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of ashes lying in a
+forlorn manner at its feet. Betty was sitting at the opposite
+side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious
+person on another. She was busily engaged devouring the
+last number of the <i>Family Paper</i>. She had come to a most
+rousing portion in her story&mdash;that part in which the duke
+marries the governess. Betty was, as she said, all in a twitter
+to see how matters would end; but just at this crucial
+moment the girls burst in.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Betty, do stop reading,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;She&#8217;s come,
+Betty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know,&#8221; cried Betty. &#8220;I&#8217;m not deaf, I suppose. John
+told me. He brought her, drat him! He says she&#8217;s the
+sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. I&#8217;ll have none of her.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span>
+I won&#8217;t alter my ways&mdash;no, not a hand&#8217;s-turn&mdash;for the like
+of her, and I go this day month.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Betty!&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do, my dear; I do. I can&#8217;t put up with the ways of
+them sort&mdash;never could. I like you well enough, young
+ladies, and your pa; and I&#8217;d stop with you willing&mdash;so I
+would, honey&mdash;but I can&#8217;t abide the likes of her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All the same, she&#8217;s come, Betty, and we must have something
+for dinner. Have you anything in the house?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not a blessed handful.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Betty!&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;and I told you this morning,
+and so did nurse. We said we must have dinner to-night
+at seven o&#8217;clock. You should have got something for
+her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I ain&#8217;t done it. The stove&#8217;s out of order; we want
+the sweep. I have a splitting headache, and I&#8217;m just reading
+to keep my mind off the pain.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what are we to do? We must get her something.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t she have tea and bread-and-butter? We&#8217;ve half-a-pound
+of cooking butter in the house.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are there any eggs?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No. I broke the last carrying it across the kitchen an
+hour ago. My hands were all of a tremble with the pain,
+and the egg slipped.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Betty, you are too dreadful! Won&#8217;t you put that paper
+down and try to help us?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Betty looked at the three faces. In their shabby dresses,
+and with their pretty, anxious eyes, Verena having a frown
+between her charming brows, they made a picture that
+struck the cook&#8217;s heart. With all her odd and peculiar
+ways, she was affectionate.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you fretting about it, Miss Renny?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>As she spoke she put down her feet and pushed the
+tempting number of the <i>Family Paper</i> from her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There!&#8221; she said; &#8220;poor little Miss Dunstable may
+marry the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton just as soon
+as she pleases, but I won&#8217;t have you put out, Miss Renny.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I did want something nice for dinner,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then I&#8217;ll manage it. There ain&#8217;t a better cook than I
+anywhere when I&#8217;m put on my mettle. Miss Penny, will
+you help me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, run into the garden and pick all the peas you can
+find. There&#8217;s a nice little joint in the larder, and I&#8217;ll roast
+it, and you shall have a beautiful dinner. Now off you go,
+dears. You shall have custard-pudding and cream and
+strawberry-jam afterwards.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, how nice!&#8221; cried Penelope, with a little gasp. &#8220;Be
+sure you give us <i>plenty</i> of strawberry-jam, and make a
+very large custard-pudding, for there&#8217;s such a lot of us to
+eat the things, and I generally get the teeniest little bit.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a nursery child, and it&#8217;s in the nursery you&#8217;ll
+have your tea,&#8221; said Verena in a stern tone. &#8220;Go and pick
+the peas.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not me,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>She sat down just where she was, in an obstinate heap,
+in the middle of the floor.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I are not to eat those peas I don&#8217;t pick &#8217;em,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;I wor going to be kind, but I won&#8217;t be kind if I&#8217;m to be
+turned into a nursery child.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! do let her come to the dining-room just for to-night,&#8221;
+pleaded Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well, then; just for once,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h3>THE LIFE OF MISRULE.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dinner went off better than the girls had expected. But
+to Miss Tredgold it was, and ever would be, the most awful
+meal she had eaten in the whole course of her existence.
+The table was devoid of all those things which she, as a
+refined lady, considered essential. The beautiful old silver
+spoons were dirty, and several of them bent almost out of
+recognition. A like fate had befallen the forks; the knives
+were rusty, the handles disgracefully dirty; and the tablecloth,
+of the finest damask, was almost gray in color, and
+adorned with several large holes. The use of serviettes had
+been long abolished from The Dales.
+</p>
+<p>The girls, in honor of the occasion, had put on their best
+frocks, and Verena looked fairly pretty in a skimpy white
+muslin made in an obsolete style. The other girls each presented
+a slightly worse appearance than their elder sister,
+for each had on a somewhat shabbier frock, a little more
+old-fashioned and more outgrown. As to Mr. Dale, it had
+been necessary to remind him at least three times of his
+sister-in-law&#8217;s arrival; and finally Verena had herself to
+put him into his very old evening-coat, to brush him down
+afterwards, and to smooth his hair, and then lead him into
+the dining-room.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold, in contradistinction to the rest of the
+family, was dressed correctly. She wore a black lace dress
+slightly open at the neck, and with elbow sleeves. The children
+thought that she looked dazzlingly fashionable. Verena
+seemed to remember that she had seen figures very like
+Aunt Sophia&#8217;s in the fashion books. Aunt Sophia&#8217;s hair in
+particular absorbed the attention of four of her nieces. How
+had she managed to turn it into so many rolls and spirals
+and twists? How did she manage the wavy short hair on
+her forehead? It seemed to sit quite tight to her head, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span>
+looked as if even a gale of wind would not blow it out of
+place. Aunt Sophia&#8217;s hands were thin and very white, and
+the fingers were half-covered with sparkling rings, which
+shone and glittered so much that Penelope dropped her
+choicest peas all over her frock as she gazed at them.
+</p>
+<p>John was requisitioned to wait at table, and John had no
+livery for the purpose. The family as a rule never required
+attendance at meals. On this occasion it was supposed to be
+essential, and as Betty refused point-blank to stir from the
+kitchen, John had to come to the fore.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no, Miss Renny,&#8221; said Betty when poor Verena begged
+and implored of the good woman to put in an appearance.
+&#8220;No, you don&#8217;t. No, you certain sure don&#8217;t. Because you
+looked pretty and a bit coaxing I gave up Miss Dunstable
+and the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton two hours ago,
+but not another minute will I spare from them. It&#8217;s in their
+select society that I spend my haristocratic evening.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena knew that it would be useless to coax Betty any
+further. So John appeared with the potatoes in a large
+dish on a rusty tray, each potato having, as Betty expressed
+it, a stone inside. This she declared was the proper
+way to cook them. The peas presently followed the potatoes.
+They were yellow with age, for they ought to have
+been eaten at least a week ago. The lamb was terribly underdone,
+and the mint sauce was like no mint sauce that
+Miss Tredgold had ever dreamed of. The pudding which
+followed was a pudding that only Betty knew the recipe for,
+and that recipe was certainly not likely to be popular in
+fashionable circles. But the strawberry-jam was fairly
+good, and the cream was excellent; and when, finally, Miss
+Tredgold rose to the occasion and said that she would make
+some coffee, which she had brought down from town, in her
+own coffee-pot on her own etna, the girls became quite
+excited.
+</p>
+<p>The coffee was made, and shed a delicious aroma over the
+room. Mr. Dale was so far interested that he was seen to
+sniff twice, and was found to be observing the coffee as
+though he were a moth approaching a candle. He even
+forgot his Virgil in his desire to partake of the delicious
+stimulant. Miss Tredgold handed him a cup.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There,&#8221; she said. &#8220;If you were ever young, and if there
+was ever a time when you cared to act as a gentleman, this
+will remind you of those occasions.&mdash;And now, children, I
+introduce you to &#8216;Open sesame;&#8217; and I hope, my dear
+nieces, by means of these simple cups of coffee you will
+enter a different world from that which you have hitherto
+known.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls all drank their coffee, and each pronounced it
+the nicest drink they had ever taken.
+</p>
+<p>Presently Miss Tredgold went into the garden. She invited
+Verena and Pauline to accompany her.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;The rest of you can stay behind,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You can
+talk about me to each other as much as you like. I give
+you leave to discuss me freely, knowing that, even if I did
+not do so, you would discuss me all the same. I am quite
+aware that you all hate me for the present, but I do not
+think this state of things will long continue. Come, Verena;
+come, Pauline. The night is lovely. We will discuss nature
+a little, and common sense a great deal.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The two girls selected to walk with Miss Tredgold looked
+behind at the seven girls left in the dining-room, and the
+seven girls looked back at them with a mixture of curiosity
+and pity.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind your sisters now,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;We
+want to talk over many things. But before we enter into
+any discussion I wish to ask a question.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Verena in her gentle voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Verena,&#8221; said her aunt suddenly, &#8220;how old are you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fifteen,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Precisely. And on your next birthday you will be sixteen,
+and on the following seventeen, and on the next one
+again eighteen. You have, therefore, nearly three years in
+which to be transformed from a little savage into a lady.
+The question I now want to ask you is: Do you prefer to
+remain a savage all your days, uneducated, uncultured, your
+will uncontrolled, your aspirations for good undeveloped;
+or do you wish to become a beautiful and gracious lady,
+kind, sympathetic, learned, full of grace? Tell me, my dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How can I?&#8221; replied Verena. &#8220;I like my life here; we
+all suit each other, and we like The Dales just as it is.
+Yes, we all suit each other, and we don&#8217;t mind being barbarians.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold sighed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I perceive,&#8221; she said, &#8220;that I shall have uphill work before
+me. For you of all the young people, Verena, are the
+easiest to deal with. I know that without your telling me.
+I know it by your face. You are naturally gentle, courteous,
+and kind. You are easy to manage. You are also the most
+important of all to be brought round to my views, for whatever
+you do the others will do. It is on you, therefore,
+that I mean to exercise my greatest influence and to expend
+my heaviest forces.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t quite understand you, Aunt Sophia. I know, of
+course, you mean kindly, but I would much rather&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I went away? That I left you in the disgraceful
+state in which I have found you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t consider it disgraceful; and&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes? You would rather I went?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena nodded. After a moment she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It seems unkind,&#8221; she said&mdash;&#8220;and I don&#8217;t wish to be unkind&mdash;but
+I <i>would</i> rather you went.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And so would I, please, Aunt Sophia,&#8221; said Pauline.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span></p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold looked straight before her. Her face became
+a little pinched, a little white round her lips.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Once,&#8221; she said slowly, &#8220;I had a sister&mdash;a sister whom I
+loved. She was my half-sister, but I never thought of
+that. She was to me sister and mother in one. She brought
+me up from the time I was a little child. She was good to
+me, and she instilled into me certain principles. One of
+these principles can be expressed in the following words:
+God put us into the world to rise, not to sink. Another of
+her principles was that God put us into the world to be
+good, to be unselfish. Another one, again, was as follows:
+We must give account for our talents. Now, to allow the
+talent of beauty, for instance, to degenerate into what it
+is likely to do in your case, Verena, is distinctly wicked.
+To allow you to sink when you might rise is sinful. To
+allow you to be selfish when you might be unselfish is also
+wrong. Your talents, and the talents of Pauline, and the
+talents of your other sisters must be cultivated and brought
+to the fore. I want to tell you now, my dear girls, that for
+years I have longed to help you; that since your mother&#8217;s
+death you have scarcely ever been out of my mind. But
+circumstances over which I had no control kept me away
+from you. At last I am free, and the children of my sister
+Alice are the ones I think most about. I have come here
+prepared for your rebellion, prepared for your dislike, and
+determined not to be discouraged by either the one or the
+other. I have come to The Dales, Verena and Pauline, and
+I mean to remain here for at least three months. If at the
+end of the three months you ask me to go, I will; although
+even then I will not give you up. But until three months
+have expired you can only turn me out by force. I don&#8217;t
+think you will do that. It is best that we should understand
+each other clearly; is it not, Verena?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena&#8217;s face was very white; her big brown eyes were
+full of tears.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ought to be glad and to say &#8216;Welcome.&#8217; But I am not
+glad, and I don&#8217;t welcome you, Aunt Sophia. We like our
+own way; we don&#8217;t mind being savages, and it is untrue
+that we are selfish. We are not. Each would give up anything,
+I think, for the other. But we like our poverty and
+our rough ways and our freedom, and we&mdash;we don&#8217;t want
+you, Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nevertheless you will have to put up with me,&#8221; said
+Miss Tredgold. &#8220;And now, to start matters, please tell me
+exactly how you spend your day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Our life is not yours, Aunt Sophia. It would not interest
+you to know how we spend our day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow, Verena, when the life of rule succeeds the
+life of misrule, I should take umbrage at your remark, but
+to-night I take no umbrage. I but repeat my question.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I will tell you,&#8221; said Pauline in her brisk voice.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span>
+&#8220;We get up just when we like. We have breakfast when
+we choose&mdash;sometimes in the garden on the grass, sometimes
+not at all. We walk where we please, and lose ourselves
+in the Forest, and gather wild strawberries and wild
+flowers, and watch the squirrels, and climb the beech-trees.
+When it is fine we spend the whole day out, just coming
+back for meals, and sometimes not even then, if Betty gives
+us a little milk and some bread. Sometimes we are lazy and
+lie on the grass all day. We do what we like always, and
+always just when we like. Don&#8217;t we, Renny?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;We do what we like, and in our
+own way.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In future,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, &#8220;you will do things in
+my way. I hope you will not dislike my way; but whether
+you like or dislike it, you will have to submit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Aunt Sophia,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;what authority have
+you over us? I am exceedingly sorry to seem rude, but I
+really want to know. Father, of course, has authority over
+us, but have you? Has anybody but father? That is what
+I want to know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought you might ask something of that sort,&#8221; said
+Miss Tredgold&mdash;&#8220;or, even if you did not ask it, you might
+think it&mdash;and I am prepared with my answer. I quite recognize
+that in the case of girls like you I have no authority,
+and I cannot act fairly by you until I have. Now, my dear
+girls, please understand that before I go to bed to-night I get
+that authority. I shall get it m writing, too, so that you
+can none of you gainsay it, or slip past it, or avoid it. When
+the authority comes, then will also come the happy life of
+rule, for the life of misrule can never be really happy&mdash;never
+for long. Believe me, I am right.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline pulled her hand away from Aunt Sophia&#8217;s. She
+ran to the other side of Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like you, Aunt Sophia,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and I don&#8217;t
+want you to stay. Renny, you don&#8217;t like her either, and you
+don&#8217;t want her to stay. We don&#8217;t believe all the things you
+are saying, Aunt Sophia. You can&#8217;t look into our hearts, and
+although you are clever, you can&#8217;t know all about us. Why
+shouldn&#8217;t we be wild in our own fashion? We are very
+happy. To be happy is everything. We have only been
+unhappy since we knew you were coming. Please go away;
+please do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You cannot influence me, Pauline. I love you too well
+to desert you. Now I am going into the house. You can
+discuss me then with your sister to your heart&#8217;s content.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold went very slowly towards the old and
+dilapidated house. When she reached the hall door she
+turned and looked around her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I certainly have tough work before me. How am I to
+manage? If I were not thinking so much of Alice, I should
+leave these impertinent, neglected, silly girls to their fate.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span>
+But no&mdash;I seem to see my sister&#8217;s eyes, to hear her voice.
+I can so well understand what she would really want me to
+do. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved sister.
+I am free, hampered by no ties. I will reform these wild
+young nieces. I will not be easily deterred.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold clasped her hands before her. The moon
+was rising in a silvery bow in the sky; the air was deliciously
+fresh and balmy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The place is healthy, and the children are strong,&#8221; she
+thought, &#8220;notwithstanding their bad food and their disreputable,
+worn-out clothes. They are healthy, fresh, good-looking
+girls. But this is summer-time, and in summer-time
+one puts up with discomforts for the sake of air like
+this. But what about winter? I have no doubt they have
+scarcely any fires, and the house must be damp. As the
+children grow older they will develop rheumatism and all
+kinds of troubles. Yes, my duty is plain. I must look
+after my nieces, both soul and body, for the future.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Miss Tredgold thought these last thoughts she re-entered
+the house. She walked through the desolate rooms.
+It was now twilight, but no one thought of lighting lamps,
+or drawing curtains, or shutting windows. Miss Tredgold
+stumbled as she walked. Presently she found that she had
+wandered in the neighborhood of the kitchen. She had
+no intention of bearding Betty in her den&mdash;she had no idea
+that there was a Betty&mdash;but as she was near the kitchen,
+and as under that doorway alone there streamed a light,
+she opened the door.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is there any one inside?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>A grunt in the far distance came by way of response.
+The fire was out in the stove, and as Miss Tredgold grew
+accustomed to the gloom she saw in the farthest corner something
+that resembled the stout form of a woman, whose legs
+rested on one chair and her body on another. A guttering
+dip candle was close to her side, and a paper book was held
+almost under her nose.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry to disturb you,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, &#8220;but I
+have come for a light. Will you kindly inform me where
+I can get a candle?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There ain&#8217;t none in the house.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The book was put down, and the angry face of Betty appeared
+to view.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then I fear I must trouble you to resign the one you
+yourself are using. I must have a light to see my way to my
+bedroom.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There ain&#8217;t no candles. We don&#8217;t have &#8217;em in summer.
+This one I bought with my own money, and I don&#8217;t give it
+up to nobody, laidy or no laidy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I addressing the cook?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are, ma&#8217;am. And I may as well say I am cook and
+housemaid and parlor-maid and kitchen-maid and scullery-maid
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span>
+all in one; and I does the laundry, too, whenever it&#8217;s
+done at all. You may gather from my words, ma&#8217;am, that I
+have a deal to do, so I&#8217;ll thank you to walk out of my
+kitchen; for if I am resting after my day of hard work, I
+have a right to rest, and my own candle shall light me, and
+my own book shall amuse me. So have the goodness to go,
+ma&#8217;am, and at once.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will go,&#8221; replied Miss Tredgold very quietly, &#8220;exactly
+when I please, and not a moment before. I wish to say now
+that I require breakfast to be on the table at nine o&#8217;clock,
+and there must be plenty of good food. Do you mean to say
+that you have not got food in the house? You can, I presume,
+send out for it. Here is a half-sovereign. Spend it
+in what is necessary in order to provide an abundant meal
+on the table to-morrow morning for the use of Mr. Dale,
+myself, and my nieces.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>What Betty would have said had there been no half-sovereign
+forthcoming history will never relate. But half-sovereigns
+were very few and very precious at The Dales.
+It was almost impossible to get any money out of Mr. Dale;
+he did not seem to know that there was such a thing as
+money. If it was put into his hand by any chance, he spent
+it on books. Betty&#8217;s wages were terribly in arrears. She
+wanted her wages, but she was too generous, with all her
+faults, to press for them. But, all the same, the touch of the
+gold in her hand was distinctly soothing, and Miss Tredgold
+immediately rose in her estimation. A lady who produced
+at will golden half-sovereigns, and who was reckless enough
+to declare that one of these treasures might be spent on a
+single meal, was surely not a person to be sniffed at. Betty
+therefore stumbled to her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon, I&#8217;m sure, ma&#8217;am; and it&#8217;s badly we
+does want some things here. I&#8217;ll get what I can, although
+the notice is short, and the dook&#8217;s nuptials, so to speak, at
+the door.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon again, ma&#8217;am, but my head aches and
+I&#8217;m a bit confused. I&#8217;m reading a most wonderful account
+of the wedding of the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never heard of him.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s marrying a young girl quite in my own station of
+life&mdash;one that was riz from the cottage to the governess-ship,
+and from the governess-ship to the ducal chair. My
+head is full of Her Grace, ma&#8217;am, and you&#8217;ll excuse me if
+I didn&#8217;t rightly know to whom I had the honor of talking.
+I&#8217;ll do what I can. And perhaps you&#8217;d like to borrow one of
+my dip candles for the present night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should very much,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;And please
+understand, Betty&mdash;I think you said your name was Betty&mdash;please
+understand that if you are on my side I shall be on
+your side. I have come here meaning to stay, and in future
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span>
+there will be a complete change in this establishment. You
+will receive good wages, paid on the day they are due. There
+will be plenty of money and plenty of food in the house, and
+the cook who pleases me stays, and the cook who displeases
+me goes. You understand?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sakes!&#8221; muttered Betty, &#8220;it&#8217;s nearly as exciting as the
+doocal romance.&mdash;Well, ma&#8217;am, I&#8217;m of your way of thinking;
+and here&#8217;s your candle.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<h3>IN THE STUDY.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Tredgold was the sort of woman who never let the
+grass grow under her feet. She felt, therefore, altogether
+out of place at The Dales, for at The Dales there was time
+for everything. &#8220;Time enough&#8221; was the motto of the establishment:
+time enough for breakfast, time enough for
+dinner, time enough for supper, time enough for bed, time
+enough for getting up, time enough for mending torn garments;
+surely, above all things, time enough for learning.
+To judge by the manner in which the family at The Dales
+went on, life was to last for ever and a day. They never
+hurried; they put things off when it pleased them; they
+stopped in the middle of one pursuit and turned to something
+else when the fancy took them; they were unruffled
+by the worries of life; they were, on the whole, gay, daring,
+indifferent. There was no money&mdash;or very little&mdash;for the
+future of these girls; they were absolutely uneducated;
+they were all but unclothed, and their food was poor and
+often insufficient. Nevertheless they were fairly happy.
+&#8220;Let well alone&#8221; was also their motto. &#8220;Never may care&#8221;
+was another. As to the rush and toil and strain of modern
+life, they could not even comprehend it. The idea of not being
+able to put off an engagement for a week, a month, or a
+year seemed to them too extraordinary to be believed. They
+were too young, too healthy, too happy to need to kill time;
+for time presented itself to them with an agreeable face, and
+the hours were never too long.
+</p>
+<p>But although they were so indifferent to weighty matters,
+they had their own enthusiasms, and in their idle way
+they were busy always and forever. To have, therefore, a
+person like Aunt Sophia put suddenly into the middle of
+their gay and butterfly lives was something which was
+enough to madden the eight healthy girls who lived at The
+Dales. Aunt Sophia was, in their opinion, all crotchets, all
+nervousness, all fads. She had no tact whatsoever; at least,
+such was their first opinion of her. She put her foot down
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span>
+on this little crotchet, and pressed this passing desire out
+of sight. She brought new rules of life into their everyday
+existence, and, what is more, she insisted on being obeyed.
+With all their cleverness they were not half so clever as
+Aunt Sophia; they were no match for this good lady, who
+was still young at heart, who had been highly educated, who
+was full of enthusiasm, full of method, and full of determination.
+Aunt Sophia brought two very strong essentials
+with her to The Dales, and there was certainly little chance
+of the girls getting the victory over her. One thing which
+she brought was determination, joined to authority; the
+other thing was money. With these two weapons in her
+hand, what chance had the girls?
+</p>
+<p>It might have been supposed that Miss Tredgold had done
+enough on the first night of her arrival. She had to a great
+extent vanquished the cook; and she had, further, told
+Verena and Pauline what lay before them. Surely she might
+have been contented, and have taken her dip candle in its
+tin candlestick and retired to her own room. But that was
+not Aunt Sophia&#8217;s way. She discovered a light stealing from
+under another door, and she made for that door.
+</p>
+<p>Now, no one entered Mr. Dale&#8217;s room without knocking.
+None of the girls would have ventured to do so. But Aunt
+Sophia was made of sterner stuff. She did not knock. She
+opened the door and entered. The scholar was seated at the
+far end of the room. A large reading-lamp stood on the
+table. It spread a wide circle of light on the papers and
+books, and on his own silvery head and thin aquiline features.
+The rest of the room was in shadow. Miss Tredgold
+entered and stood a few feet away from Mr. Dale. Mr. Dale
+had already forgotten that such a person as Miss Sophia existed.
+It was his habit to work for a great many hours each
+night. It was during the hours of darkness that he most
+thoroughly absorbed himself in his darling occupation. His
+dinner had been better than usual, and that delicious coffee
+had stimulated his brain. He had not tasted coffee like that
+for years. His brain, therefore, being better nourished, was
+keener than usual to go on with his accustomed work. As
+Miss Sophia advanced to his side he uttered one or two
+sighs of rapture, for again a fresh rendering of a much-disputed
+passage occurred to him. Light was, in short,
+flooding the pages of his translation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The whole classical world will bless me,&#8221; murmured Mr.
+Dale. &#8220;I am doing a vast service.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry to interrupt you, Henry,&#8221; said the sharp, incisive
+tones of his sister-in-law.
+</p>
+<p>At Miss Tredgold&#8217;s words he dropped his pen. It made a
+blot on the page, which further irritated him; for, untidy as
+he was in most things, his classical work was exquisitely
+neat.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do go away,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I am busy. Go away at once.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry, Henry, but I must stay. You know me, don&#8217;t
+you? Your sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go away, Sophia. I don&#8217;t want to be rude, but I never
+see any one at this hour.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Henry, you are forced to see me. I shall go when I
+choose, not before.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Madam!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale sprang to his feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Madam!&#8221; he repeated, almost sputtering out his words,
+&#8220;you surely don&#8217;t wish me to expel you. You don&#8217;t intend
+to stand there all night. I can&#8217;t have it. I don&#8217;t allow people
+in my study. I am sorry to be discourteous to a lady,
+but I state a fact; you must go immediately. You don&#8217;t
+realize what it is to have a brain like mine, nor to have undertaken
+such a herculean task. Ah! the beautiful thought
+which meant so much has vanished. Madam, you are responsible.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Stop!&#8221; interrupted Miss Tredgold. &#8220;I will go the moment
+you do what I want.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you? I&#8217;ll do anything&mdash;anything that keeps you out
+of this room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is precisely what I require. I don&#8217;t wish to come
+into this room&mdash;that is, for the present. By-and-by it must
+be cleaned, for I decline to live in a dirty house; but I give
+you a fortnight&#8217;s grace.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And the rendering of the passage is beyond doubt, according
+to Clericus&mdash;&mdash; I beg your pardon; are you still
+speaking?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Henry. I am annoying you, I know; and, all things
+considered, I am glad, for you need rousing. I intend to sit
+or stand in this room, close to you, until morning if necessary.
+Ah! here is a chair.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Miss Tredgold spoke she drew forward an unwieldy
+arm-chair, which was piled up with books and papers.
+These she was calmly about to remove, when a shriek from
+the anguished scholar stopped her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t touch them,&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;You destroy the
+work of months. If you must have a chair, take mine.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold did take it. She now found herself seated
+within a few yards of the scholar&#8217;s desk. The bright light
+from the lamp fell on her face; it looked pale, calm, and
+determined. Mr. Dale was in shadow; the agony on his face
+was therefore not perceptible.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take anything you want; only go, woman,&#8221; he said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Henry, you are a difficult person to deal with, and I am
+sorry to have to speak to you as I do. I am sorry to have
+to take, as it were, advantage of you; but I intend to stay
+in this house.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are not wanted, Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not wished for, Henry; but as to being wanted, no
+woman was ever more wanted.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;That you are not.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say I am; and, what is more, I intend to remain. We
+need not discuss this point, for it is settled. I take up my
+sojourn in this house for three months.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Three months!&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;Oh, my word! And
+this is only June. From June to July, from July to August,
+from August to September! It is very cruel of you, Sophia.
+I did not think my poor wife&#8217;s sister would torture me like
+this.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For the sake of your family I intend to stay, Henry.
+You will have to submit. I do not leave this room until
+you submit. What is more, you have to do something further.
+I want you to give me authority over your children.
+The moment I have it&mdash;I want it in writing, remember&mdash;I
+will leave you; and I will trouble you in the future as little
+as woman can trouble man. You will have better meals;
+but that you won&#8217;t care about.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The coffee,&#8221; murmured Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you will have plenty of that delicious coffee. You
+will also have cleaner rooms.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This room is not to be touched; you understand?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For the present we will let that matter lie in abeyance.
+Come, give me your authority in writing, and I leave
+the room; but if you don&#8217;t, I stay in this chair&mdash;your
+chair, Henry Dale&mdash;all night if necessary.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>If ever there was a poor, bewildered man, it was Mr. Dale
+at that moment. He did not give many thoughts to anything
+on earth but his beloved studies; but, all the same,
+when he had time for a momentary reflection that he possessed
+girls, he felt that he quite liked them. In his own
+fashion he was fond of Verena; and once when Briar had a
+very bad cold he sat with her for a very few minutes, and
+recommended her to try snuff. He did not wish to make his
+children unhappy, and he thought that the advent of Miss
+Tredgold would have that effect on them. But, after all,
+a determined woman like her must be humored; and what
+were the children compared to his own most valuable work?
+In the days to come they would be proud to own him. He
+would be spoken of as the very great English scholar whose
+rendering of Virgil was the most perfect that had ever been
+put into English prose. Oh! it was impossible to hesitate
+another moment. The woman was in his chair, and his
+thoughts were leaving him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; he said, &#8220;you have taken me at a cruel disadvantage.
+I am seriously sorry for my poor children.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind about that now, Henry. You are, I perceive,
+a wise man. You can rest assured that I will do what is best
+both for you and for them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well, madam, I yield.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You give me absolute authority to do what I think best
+for your children?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye&mdash;s.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To reorganize this household?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not this room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With the exception of this room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose so.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will uphold my authority when the girls come to
+you, as perhaps they will, and ask you to interfere?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Sophia, you won&#8217;t be hard on the poor children?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will be just to them. You will uphold my authority?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye&mdash;s.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I think it necessary to punish them, you won&#8217;t condemn
+the punishment?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, please, Sophia, do go away! The night is passing
+quickly. I never think well by daylight.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Put it on paper, Henry. Or stay! that will take too
+long. Give me a sheet of paper; I will write what I require.
+I only want your signature.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Poor Mr. Dale had to search among his papers for a blank
+sheet. Miss Sophia seized his special stylographic pen,
+pressed very hard on the nib, and wrote what she required.
+Mr. Dale felt certain he would find it quite spoilt when he
+came to use it again. But at last all her requirements were
+on paper, and Henry Dale wrote his signature at the end.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, Henry; you have acted wisely. You have
+your study now to yourself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold bowed as she left the room.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<h3>TOPSY-TURVYDOM.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fortnight that followed was not likely to be forgotten
+by the young Dales. It would live in the remembrance of
+each child old enough to notice. Even Penelope found the
+course of events interesting&mdash;sometimes irritating, it is
+true; sometimes also delightful; but at least always exciting.
+Miss Tredgold never did things by halves. She had
+got the absolute authority which she required from the
+master of the house, and having got it she refrained from
+annoying him, in any way whatsoever. His meals were
+served with punctuality, and were far more comfortable
+than they had ever been before. He was always presented
+with a cup of strong, fragrant, delicious coffee after his dinner.
+This coffee enabled him to pursue his translation with
+great clearness and accuracy. His study up to the present
+was left undisturbed. His papers were allowed to remain
+thick with dust; his chairs were allowed to be laden with
+books and papers; the carpet was allowed to remain full of
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span>
+holes; the windows were left exactly as the scholar liked
+them&mdash;namely, tightly screwed down so that not even the
+faintest breath of heaven&#8217;s air could come in and disarrange
+the terrible disorder.
+</p>
+<p>But the rest of the house was truly turned topsy-turvy.
+It was necessary, Miss Tredgold assured the girls, to have
+topsy-turvydom before the reign of order could begin.
+</p>
+<p>At first the young Dales were very angry. For the whole
+of the first day Verena wept at intervals. Pauline sulked.
+Briar wept one minute and laughed the next. The other
+children followed in the footsteps of their elders. Penelope
+was now openly and defiantly a grown-up child. She belonged
+to the schoolroom, although no schoolroom as yet
+existed at The Dales. She defied nurse; she took her meals
+with her sisters, and pinched baby whenever she found her
+alone. Miss Tredgold, however, took no notice of the tears
+or smiles or groans or discontented looks. She had a great
+deal to do, and she performed her tasks with rectitude and
+skill and despatch. New furniture was ordered from Southampton.
+She drove to Lyndhurst Road with Verena in the
+shabby trap which had first brought her to The Dales. She
+went from there to Southampton and chose new furniture.
+Verena could not help opening her eyes in amazement. Such
+very pretty white bedsteads; such charming chests of drawers;
+such nice, clean-looking carpets!
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Surely, Aunt Sophia,&#8221; she said, &#8220;these things are not
+for us?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They certainly are, my dear,&#8221; replied her aunt; &#8220;for in
+future I hope you will live as a lady and a Christian, and no
+longer as a savage.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The furniture arrived, and was put into the rooms. Pretty
+white curtains were placed at the windows; the paint was
+washed, and the paper rubbed down with bread.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fresh decoration and repainting must wait until I get
+the children to London for the winter,&#8221; thought Aunt
+Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>But notwithstanding the fact that paint and paper were
+almost non-existent by this time at The Dales, the house
+assumed quite a new air. As to Betty, she was in the most
+extraordinary way brought over absolutely to Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+part of the establishment. Miss Tredgold not only
+raised her wages on the spot, but paid her every farthing
+that was due in the past. She spoke to her a good deal about
+her duty, and of what she owed to the family, and of what
+she, Miss Tredgold, would do for her if she proved equal to
+the present emergency. Betty began to regard Miss Tredgold
+as a sort of marchioness in disguise. So interested was
+she in her, and so sure that one of the real &#8220;haristocrats&#8221;
+resided on the premises, that she ceased to read the <i>Family
+Paper</i> except at long intervals. She served up quite good
+dinners, and by the end of the fortnight few people would
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span>
+have known The Dales. For not only was the house clean
+and sweet&mdash;the drawing-room quite a charming old room,
+with its long Gothic windows, its tracery of ivy outside, and
+its peep into the distant rose-garden; the hall bright with
+great pots of flowers standing about&mdash;but the girls themselves
+were no longer in rags. The furniture dealer&#8217;s was
+not the only shop which Miss Tredgold had visited at Southampton.
+She had also gone to a linen draper&#8217;s, and had
+bought many nice clothes for the young folks.
+</p>
+<p>The house being so much improved, and the girls being
+clothed afresh, a sufficient staff of servants arrived from a
+neighboring town. Betty was helped in the kitchen by a
+neat kitchen-maid; there were two housemaids and a parlor-maid;
+and John had a boy to help in the garden.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Verena,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold on the evening of the
+day when the new servants were pronounced a great success,
+&#8220;what do you think of everything?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have made the place quite pretty, Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you like it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think you mean to be very kind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear Verena, do talk sense. Don&#8217;t tell me that you
+don&#8217;t feel more comfortable in that pale-gray, nicely fitting
+dress, with the blush-rose in your belt, and that exceedingly
+pretty white hat on your head, than you did when you
+rushed up to welcome me, little savage that you were, a
+fortnight ago.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was so happy as a savage!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you are not happy now?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think you are kind, Aunt Sophia, and perhaps&mdash;I shall
+get accustomed to it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Her aunt whisked round with some impatience.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope so,&#8221; she said; &#8220;for, whether you like it or not,
+you will have to put up with it. I fully intend to be kind,
+but I also mean to be very firm. I have now got the home
+in which you live into decent order, and you yourselves are
+respectably clothed. But I have not yet tackled the most
+important part of my duties, my dear Verena.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, please, Aunt Sophia, what else is necessary?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold threw up her hands.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A great, great deal more,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;I have not yet
+touched your minds; and I fear, from the way you speak,
+that I have scarcely touched your hearts. Well, your bodies
+at least are attended to, and now come your minds. Lastly,
+I hope to reach the most important of all&mdash;your hearts.
+Verena, I must probe your ignorance in order to stimulate
+you to learn. You, my dear, will be grown up in three
+years, so that you in particular have a vast lot to do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I hate learning, and I shouldn&#8217;t like to be a learned
+woman,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Mother knew a lot of things, but
+she wasn&#8217;t learned like father.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good gracious, child! I don&#8217;t want you to be like your
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span>
+father. To tell the truth, a bookworm such as he is is one
+of the most irritating persons in existence. But there!
+What am I saying? I oughtn&#8217;t to speak against him in your
+presence. And your poor mother loved him, oh, so much!
+Now then, dear, to return to yourself and your sisters. I
+presume that you would like to be a useful and valuable
+member of society&mdash;a woman who has been trained to do
+her best, and to exercise the highest influence over all those
+with whom she comes in contact. Influence, which springs
+from character, my dear Verena, is the highest power that
+any one can get. Now, an ignorant person has little or no
+influence; therefore, to be kind and sympathetic and useful
+in the future, you must know many things. You have
+not a minute to lose. I appeal to you for your mother&#8217;s
+sake; for my dear, dear sister would have liked her eldest
+child to be&mdash;ah, Verena!&mdash;so good and so true!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You touch me, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;when you
+talk of mother. You touch me more than words can say.
+Yes, I will try to be good; but you must bear with me if
+I don&#8217;t take the yoke too kindly at first.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor child! I will try to make it light for you. Now
+what is the matter, Penelope?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Please, please, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; said that young person,
+rushing up at the moment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hold yourself erect, my dear; don&#8217;t run quite so fast.
+There! you have got a rent already in your new frock.
+Now what do you want?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you now?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nursey says I&#8217;m nursery. But I don&#8217;t want to be nursery;
+I want to stay always with my own good Aunty Sophy.
+That is what I want. May I be a schoolroom child?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In the first place, you are not to call me &#8216;aunty.&#8217; I am
+Aunt Sophia to you. I dislike abbreviations.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s them?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, &#8216;What are they?&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are they?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will tell you another time. How old are you, Penelope?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wor seven my last birthday, one month agone.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your grammar is disgraceful, child. Please understand
+that the schoolroom has its penalties.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s them?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Again I shall have to correct you. &#8216;What are they?&#8217; is
+the sentence you ought to use. But now, my dear, I don&#8217;t
+approve of little girls learning much when they are only
+seven years old; but if you wish to be a schoolroom girl
+you will have to take your place in the schoolroom, and you
+will have to learn to submit. You will have to be under
+more discipline than you are now with nurse.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All the same, I&#8217;ll be with my own aunt,&#8221; said Penelope,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span>
+raising her bold black eyes and fixing them on Miss Sophia&#8217;s
+face.
+</p>
+<p>But Miss Tredgold was not the sort of person to be influenced
+by soft words. &#8220;Deeds, not words,&#8221; was her motto.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have said enough, Penelope,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Take your
+choice; you may be a schoolroom child for a month if you
+like.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t if I were you, Pen,&#8221; said Josephine.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I will,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>In her heart of hearts she was terrified at the thought of
+the schoolroom, but even more did she fear the knowledge
+that nurse would laugh at her if she returned to the nursery.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will stay,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I am a schoolroom child;&#8221; and
+she pirouetted round and round Aunt Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, please, Aunt Sophia,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;who is going
+to teach us?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I intend to have that honor,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>If there were no outward groans among her assembled
+nieces at these words, there were certainly spirit groans,
+for the girls did not look forward to lessons with Aunt
+Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are all displeased,&#8221; she said; &#8220;and I am scarcely
+surprised. The fact is, I have not got any efficient teacher
+to come here just yet. The person I should wish for is not
+easy to find. I myself know a great deal more than you do,
+and I have my own ideas with regard to instruction. I may
+as well tell you at once that I am a very severe teacher, and
+somewhat cranky, too. A girl who does not know her lessons
+is apt to find herself seated at my left side. Now, my
+right side is sunshiny and pleasant; but my left side faces
+due northeast. I think that will explain everything to you.
+We will meet in the schoolroom to-morrow at nine o&#8217;clock
+sharp. Now I must go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When Miss Tredgold had vanished the girls looked at each
+other.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Her northeast side!&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;It makes me
+shudder even to think of it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>But notwithstanding these remarks the girls did feel a
+certain amount of interest at the thought of the new life
+that lay before them. Everything had changed from that
+sunny, languorous, <i>dolce far niente</i> time a fortnight back.
+Now the girls felt keen and brisk, and they knew well that
+each moment in the future would be spent in active employment.
+</p>
+<p>The next day, sharp at nine o&#8217;clock, the young people who
+were to form Miss Tredgold&#8217;s school entered the new schoolroom.
+It was suitably and prettily furnished, and had a
+charming appearance. Large maps were hung on the walls;
+there was a long line of bookshelves filled partly with story
+books, partly with history books, and partly with ordinary
+lesson books. The windows were draped with white muslin,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span>
+and stood wide open. As the girls took their seats at the
+baize-covered table they could see out into the garden.
+A moment after they had arrived in the schoolroom Miss
+Tredgold made her appearance.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We will begin with prayers,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>She read a portion from the Bible, made a few remarks,
+and then they all knelt as she repeated the Lord&#8217;s prayer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, my dears,&#8221; said their new governess as they rose
+from their knees, &#8220;lessons will begin. I hope we shall proceed
+happily and quietly. It will be uphill work at first;
+but if we each help the other, uphill work will prove to
+have its own pleasures. It&#8217;s a long pull, and a strong pull,
+and a pull all together that masters difficulties. If we are all
+united we can accomplish anything; but if there is mutiny
+in the camp, then things may be difficult. I warn you all,
+however, that under any circumstances I mean to win the
+victory. It will be much easier, therefore, to submit at first.
+There will be no use in sulkiness, in laziness, in inattention.
+Make a brave effort now, all of you, and you will never regret
+this day. Now, Verena, you and I will have some conversation
+together. The rest of you children will read this
+page in the History of England, and tell me afterwards what
+you can remember about it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Here Miss Tredgold placed a primer before each child,
+and she and Verena retired into the bay-window. They
+came out again at the end of ten minutes. Verena&#8217;s cheeks
+were crimson, and Miss Tredgold decidedly wore a little of
+her northeast air. Pauline, on the whole, had a more successful
+interview with her new governess than her sister.
+She was smarter and brighter than Verena in many ways.
+But before the morning was over Miss Tredgold announced
+that all her pupils were shamefully ignorant.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know more about you now than I did,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You
+will all have to work hard. Verena, you cannot even read
+properly. As to your writing, it is straggling, uneven, and
+faulty in spelling.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<h3>NANCY KING.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The rest of the day passed in a subdued state. The girls
+hardly knew themselves. They felt as though tiny and invisible
+chains were surrounding them. These chains pulled
+them whenever they moved. They made their presence felt
+when they spoke, when they sat down, and when they rose
+up. They were with them at dinner; they were with them
+whenever Miss Tredgold put in an appearance. Perhaps
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span>
+they were silken chains, but, all the same, they were intensely
+annoying. Verena was the most patient of the
+nine. She said to her sisters:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have never had any discipline. I was reading the
+other day in one of mother&#8217;s books that discipline is good.
+It is the same thing as when you prune the fruit trees.
+Don&#8217;t you remember the time when John got a very good
+gardener from Southampton to come and look over our
+trees? The gardener said, &#8216;These trees have all run to
+wood; you must prune them.&#8217; And he showed John how,
+and we watched him. Don&#8217;t you remember, girls?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t I!&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;And he cut away a lot of
+the little apples, and hundreds of tiny pears, and a lot of
+lovely branches; and I began to cry, and I told him he was
+a horrid, horrid man, and that I hated him.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what did he answer?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, he got ruder than ever! He said, &#8216;If I was your
+pa I&#8217;d do a little pruning on you.&#8217; Oh, wasn&#8217;t I angry!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena laughed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But think a little more,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you remember
+the following year how splendid the pears were? And we
+had such heaps of apples; and the gooseberries and raspberries
+were equally fine. We didn&#8217;t hate the man when we
+were eating our delicious fruit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline made a slight grimace.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Renny,&#8221; she said suddenly; &#8220;for goodness&#8217;
+sake don&#8217;t begin to point morals. It&#8217;s bad enough to have an
+old aunt here without your turning into a mentor. We all
+know what you want to say, but please don&#8217;t say it. Haven&#8217;t
+we been scolded and directed and ordered about all day long?
+We don&#8217;t want you to do it, too.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well, I won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hullo!&#8221; suddenly cried Briar; &#8220;if this isn&#8217;t Nancy
+King! Oh, welcome, Nancy&mdash;welcome! We are glad to
+see you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy King was a spirited and bright-looking girl who
+lived about a mile away. Her father had a large farm which
+was known as The Hollies. He had held this land for many
+years, and was supposed to be in flourishing circumstances.
+Nancy was his only child. She had been sent to a fashionable
+school at Brighton, and considered herself quite a young
+lady. She came whenever she liked to The Dales, and the
+girls often met her in the Forest, and enjoyed her society
+vastly. Now in the most fashionable London attire, Nancy
+sailed across the lawn, calling out as she did so:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hullo, you nine! You look like the Muses. What&#8217;s up
+now? I have heard most wonderful, astounding whispers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Nancy, we&#8217;re all so glad to see you!&#8221; said Briar.
+She left her seat, ran up to the girl, and took her hand.
+&#8220;Come and sit here&mdash;here in the midst of our circle. We
+have such a lot to say to you!&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how
+grand we are!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy&#8217;s twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval
+at Verena&#8217;s plain but very neat gray dress, and at the
+equally neat costumes of the other girls. Then finally she
+gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an ugly dress
+of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black
+and defiant as her own.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I ask,&#8221; said Nancy slowly, &#8220;what has this nursery
+baby to do in the midst of the grown-ups?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not nursery,&#8221; said Penelope, her face growing crimson;
+&#8220;I&#8217;m schoolroom. Don&#8217;t tell me I&#8217;m nursery, because
+I&#8217;m not. We&#8217;re all schoolroom, and we&#8217;re having a right
+good time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don&#8217;t look
+like it. You look, the whole nine of you, awfully changed,
+and as prim as prim can be. &#8216;Prunes and prisms&#8217; wouldn&#8217;t
+melt in your mouths. You&#8217;re not half, nor quarter, as nice
+as you were when I saw you last. I&#8217;ve just come home for
+good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by.
+And oh! my boy cousins and my two greatest
+chums at school are staying with me now at The Hollies.
+The girls&#8217; names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh,
+they&#8217;re fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls.
+You are frightfully stand-off and prim.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sit close to me, Nancy,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;We&#8217;re not a bit
+changed to you,&#8221; she added.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, that&#8217;s all right, honey, for I&#8217;m not changed to you.
+Even if I am a very rich girl, I&#8217;m the sort to always cling
+to my old friends; and although you are as poor as church
+mice, you are quite a good sort. I have always said so&mdash;always.
+I&#8217;ve been talking a lot about you to Amelia and
+Rebecca, and they&#8217;d give their eyes to see you. I thought
+you might ask us all over.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I daren&#8217;t, Nancy,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;We are not our
+own mistresses now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, that&#8217;s exactly what I heard,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Oh,
+how hot it is! Pen, for goodness&#8217; sake run and fetch me
+a cabbage-leaf to fan my face.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope ran off willingly enough. Nancy turned to the
+others.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I sent her off on purpose,&#8221; she said. &#8220;If we can&#8217;t come
+to you, you must come to us. We three girls at The Hollies,
+and my two boy cousins, Tom and Jack, have the most daring,
+delightful scheme to propose. We want to have a midnight
+picnic.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Midnight picnic!&#8221; cried Verena. &#8220;But we can&#8217;t possibly
+come, Nancy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My good girl, why not? You know I talked about it last
+year. We want to have one on a very grand scale; and
+there are a few friends at Southampton that I would ask to
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span>
+join us. You won&#8217;t have any expense whatever. I&#8217;ll stump
+up for the whole. Father gives me so much money that I
+have at the present moment over five pounds in the savings-bank.
+We will light fires in a clearing not far from
+here, and we will have tea and supper afterwards; and we
+shall dance&mdash;dance by the light of the moon&mdash;and I will
+bring my guitar to make music. Can you imagine anything
+in all the world more fascinating?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Nancy, it does sound too lovely!&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;I&#8217;d
+just give the world to go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, you shall come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But Aunt Sophy would not hear of it,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense!&#8221; cried Briar; &#8220;we must go. It would be
+such a jolly treat!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy favored the eight girls with a sharp glance.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have heard of that dreadful old body,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;Father told me. He said you&#8217;d be frumped up like anything,
+and all the gay life taken out of you. I came over on
+purpose. I pity you from the very bottom of my heart.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Nancy, you can&#8217;t think how things are changed,&#8221;
+said Pauline. &#8220;All our time is occupied. Lessons began to-day.
+They are going to take hours and hours.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But these are holiday times,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;All the
+world has a holiday in the middle of the summer.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s true enough,&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;but then we had
+holidays for over a year, and Aunt Sophia says we must
+begin at once. She is quite right, I&#8217;m sure; although of
+course we scarcely like it. And anyhow, Nancy, she won&#8217;t
+allow us to go to a midnight picnic; there&#8217;s no use thinking
+about it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But suppose you don&#8217;t ask her. Of course, if she&#8217;s an
+old maid she&#8217;ll refuse. Old maids are the queerest, dumpiest
+things on the earth. I&#8217;m really thankful I&#8217;m not bothered
+with any of them. Oh! here comes Pen. It&#8217;s nonsense to
+have a child like that out of the nursery. We&#8217;d best not say
+anything before her. Verena and Briar, will you walk down
+to the gate with me? I thought perhaps we might have the
+picnic in a week. It could be easily managed; you know it
+could.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, we must go!&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going,&#8221; said Josephine.
+</p>
+<p>But Verena was silent.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s your cabbage-leaf. How red your face looks!&#8221;
+said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>Nancy turned and gazed at her. She was a bold-looking
+girl, and by no means pretty. She snatched the leaf angrily
+from Penelope&#8217;s hand, saying:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my dear, go away! How you do worry, jumping and
+dancing about! And what a stupid, good-for-nothing leaf
+you&#8217;ve brought! Fetch me one that&#8217;s not completely riddled
+with caterpillar holes.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span></p>
+<p>Penelope&#8217;s black eyes flashed fire, and her face flushed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I could, I would just,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you could you would what?&#8221; said Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know&mdash;I know! And I&#8217;ll do it, too.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>A provoking smile visited the lips of the child. She
+danced backwards and forwards in an ecstasy of glee.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can punish you all fine,&#8221; said Penelope; &#8220;and I&#8217;ll do it,
+too.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She vanished out of sight. Now, it must be admitted that
+Penelope was not a nice child. She had her good points,
+for few children are without them; but in addition to being
+thoroughly untrained, to never having exercised self-control,
+she had by nature certain peculiarities which the other
+children had not. It had been from her earliest days her
+earnest desire to curry favor with those in authority, and
+yet to act quite as naughtily as any one else when she
+thought no one was looking. Even when quite a tiny child
+Penelope was wont to sit as still as a mouse in nurse&#8217;s
+presence. If nurse said, &#8220;Miss Penelope, you are not to
+move or you will wake baby,&#8221; then nurse knew that Penelope
+would not stir. But if this same child happened to be left
+with baby, so strong would be her jealousy that she would
+give the infant a sharp pinch and set it howling, and then
+run from the room.
+</p>
+<p>These peculiarities continued with her growth. Nurse
+was fond of her because she was quiet and useful in the
+nursery, fairly tidy in her habits, and fairly helpful. But
+even nurse was wont to say, &#8220;You never can get at Miss
+Penelope. You can never see through what is brewing in
+her mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Now, when Aunt Sophia appeared on the scene, Penelope
+instantly determined to carry out the darling wish of her
+heart. This was no less than to be removed from the dullness
+of the nursery to the fascinating life that she supposed
+the elder children led. To accomplish this she thought it
+would be only necessary to make a great fuss about Aunt Sophia,
+to attend to her fads, and to give her numerous little
+attentions. In short, to show that she, Penelope, cared very
+much for her new aunt. But Aunt Sophia did not care for
+Penelope&#8217;s fusses, and disliked her small attentions. Nevertheless,
+the small girl persevered, and in the end she did
+win a triumph, for she was promoted to the schoolroom,
+with its superior privileges and&mdash;alas! alas!&mdash;also its undoubted
+drawbacks. She, who hated lessons, must now try
+to read; she must also try to write, and must make valiant
+efforts to spell. Above and beyond all these things, she had
+to do one yet harder&mdash;she had to sit mute as a mouse for
+a couple of hours daily, with her hands neatly folded in her
+lap; and by-and-by she had to struggle with her clumsy
+little fingers to make hideous noises on the cracked old
+piano. These things were not agreeable to the wild child,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span>
+and so uncomfortable and restrained had she felt during the
+first morning&#8217;s lessons that she almost resolved to humble
+her pride and return to the nursery. But the thought of
+her sisters&#8217; withering, sarcastic remarks, and of nurse&#8217;s
+bitterly cold reception, and nurse&#8217;s words, &#8220;I told you so,&#8221;
+being repeated for ever in her ears, was too much for
+Penelope, and she determined to give a further trial to the
+schoolroom life. Now it occurred to her that a moment of
+triumph was before her. In the old days she had secretly
+adored Nancy King, for Nancy had given her more than one
+lollypop; but when Nancy asked what the nursery child was
+doing with the schoolroom folk, and showed that she did
+not appreciate Penelope&#8217;s society, the little girl&#8217;s heart
+became full of anger.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell about her. I&#8217;ll get her into trouble. I&#8217;ll get
+them all into trouble,&#8221; she thought.
+</p>
+<p>She ran into the shrubbery, and stood there thinking for
+a time. She was a queer-looking little figure as she stood
+thus in her short holland overall, her stout bare legs, brown
+as berries, slightly apart, her head thrown back, her hair
+awry, a smudge on her cheek, her black eyes twinkling.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will do it,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;Aunt Sophy shall
+find out that I am the good one of the family.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope ran wildly across the shrubbery, invaded the
+kitchen-garden, invaded the yard, and presently invaded
+the house. She found Miss Sophia sitting by her writing-table.
+Miss Sophia had a headache; teaching was not her
+vocation. She had worked harder that day than ever in her
+life before, and she had a great many letters to write.
+</p>
+<p>It was therefore a very busy and a slightly cross person
+who turned round and faced Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t slam the door, Penelope,&#8221; she said; &#8220;and don&#8217;t
+run into the room in that breathless sort of way.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I thought you ought for to know. I done it &#8217;cos
+of you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I did it because of you,&#8217; you should say.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I did it because of you. I am very fond of you, aunt.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope so; and I trust you will prove your affection by
+your deeds.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bovver deeds!&#8221; remarked Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is that you said, my dear?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, bovver deeds!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I confess I do not understand. Run away, now, Penelope;
+I am busy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you ought for to know. Nancy King has come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is Nancy King?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A girl. She&#8217;s squatting up close to Renny on the lawn,
+and her arm is twisted round Pauline&#8217;s waist. She&#8217;s big,
+and dressed awful grand. She has gold bangles on her arms,
+and tinkling gold things round her neck, and she&#8217;s here, and
+I thought course you ought for to know. I thought so &#8217;cos
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span>
+I love you. Aren&#8217;t you pleased? Aren&#8217;t I the sort of little
+girl you could perhaps give a lollypop to?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, you are not, Penelope. I do not wish you to tell
+tales of your sisters. Go away, my dear; go away.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope, in some wonder, and with a sense of disgust,
+not only with Nancy King and Miss Tredgold, but also with
+herself, left the room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t tell her any more,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;She never
+seems to like what I do for her. She&#8217;d be pretty lonesome
+if it wasn&#8217;t for me; but she don&#8217;t seem to care for anybody.
+I&#8217;ll just rush away to nursey this very minute and tell her
+how I love being a schoolroom girl. I&#8217;ll tell her I dote on
+my lessons, and that I never for the big, big, wide world
+would be a nursery child again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Queer little child, Penelope,&#8221; thought Miss Tredgold
+when her small niece had left her.
+</p>
+<p>She sat with her pen suspended, lost in thought.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very queer child,&#8221; she soliloquized; &#8220;not the least like
+the others. I can&#8217;t say that I specially care for her. At
+present I am not in love with any of my nieces; but of all
+of them, Penelope is the child I like the least. She tells
+tales; she tries to curry favor with me. Is she truthful? Is
+she sincere? I have a terrible fear within me that occasions
+may arise when Penelope would prove deceitful. There!
+what am I saying? A motherless child&mdash;my own niece&mdash;surely
+I ought to love her. Yes, I do love her. I will try
+to love them all. What did she say about a girl sitting on
+the lawn with my girls? It is nice to talk of the Dales as
+my girls; it gives me a sort of family feeling, just as though
+I were not an old maid. I wonder what friends my girls
+have made for themselves round here. Nancy King. I don&#8217;t
+know any people of the name of King who live about here.
+If Henry were any one else he would probably be able to
+tell me. I will go and see the girl for myself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold left the room. She had a very stately walk.
+The girls always spoke of her movements as &#8220;sailing.&#8221; Miss
+Tredgold now sailed across the lawn, and in the same dignified
+fashion came up to the secluded nook where the girls,
+with Nancy King in their midst, were enjoying themselves.
+They were all talking eagerly. Nancy King was seated
+almost in the center of the group; the other girls were bending
+towards her. As Miss Tredgold appeared in view Josephine
+was exclaiming in her high-pitched, girlish voice:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I say, Nancy! What screaming fun!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When Josephine spoke Lucy clapped her hands, Helen
+laughed, Verena looked puzzled, and Pauline&#8217;s expression
+seemed to say she longed for something very badly indeed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dears, what are you all doing?&#8221; suddenly cried Aunt
+Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>She had come up quietly, and they had none of them heard
+her. It was just as if a pistol had gone off in their ears.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span>
+The whole nine jumped to their feet. Nancy&#8217;s red face became
+redder. She pushed her gaily trimmed hat forward
+over her heated brows. She had an instinctive feeling that
+she had never before seen any one so dignified and magnificent
+as Miss Sophia Tredgold. She knew that this was
+the case, although Miss Sophia&#8217;s dress was almost dowdy, and
+the little brown slipper which peeped out from under the
+folds of her gray dress was decidedly the worse for wear.
+Nancy felt at the same time the greatest admiration for
+Miss Tredgold, the greatest dislike to her, and the greatest
+terror of her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophia,&#8221; said Verena, who could be a lady if she
+chose, &#8220;may I introduce our special friend&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And crony,&#8221; interrupted Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Our special friend, Nancy King,&#8221; repeated Verena. &#8220;We
+have known her all our lives, Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How do you do, Miss King?&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>She favored &#8220;the young person,&#8221; as she termed Miss King,
+with a very distant bow.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girls,&#8221; she said, turning to the others, &#8220;are you aware
+that preparation hour has arrived? Will you all go quietly
+indoors?&mdash;Miss King, my nieces are beginning their studies
+in earnest, and I do not allow the hour of preparation to be
+interfered with by any one.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know all about that,&#8221; said Nancy in a glib voice. &#8220;I
+was at a first-rate school myself for years. Weren&#8217;t we kept
+strict, just! My word! we couldn&#8217;t call our noses our own.
+The only language was <i>parlez-vous</i>. But it was a select
+school&mdash;very; and now that I have left, I like to feel that I
+am accomplished. None of you girls can beat me on the
+piano. I know nearly all the girls&#8217; songs in <i>San Toy</i> and the
+<i>Belle of New York</i>. Father loves to hear me when I sing
+&#8216;Rhoda Pagoda.&#8217; Perhaps, Miss Tredgold, you&#8217;d like to hear
+me play on the pianoforte. I dote on dance music; don&#8217;t
+you, Miss Tredgold? Dance music is so lively; it warms the
+cockles of the heart&mdash;don&#8217;t it, Miss Tredgold?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t dance, so it is impossible for me to answer,&#8221; said
+Miss Tredgold. &#8220;I am sorry, Miss King, to disturb a pleasant
+meeting, but my girls are under discipline, and the hour
+for preparation has arrived.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy shrugged her capacious shoulders.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose that means <i>congé</i> for poor Nancy King,&#8221; she
+said. &#8220;Very sorry, I&#8217;m sure. Good-day, madam.&mdash;Good-bye,
+Renny. I&#8217;ll look you up another day.&mdash;Good-bye to all. I&#8217;m
+off to have a bit of fun with my boy cousins.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy swung round and left the group. She walked
+awkwardly, switching her shoulders and swaying from side
+to side, a dirty train trailing after her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I ask who your friend really is?&#8221; said Miss Tredgold
+when she had watched the departure of this most undesirable
+acquaintance.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;She is Nancy King, Aunt Sophia. We have known her all
+our lives,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear Verena, I have heard that statement before.
+Nevertheless, the fact that you have known that young
+person since you were little children does not reply to my
+question. Who is she? Where does she come from? Who
+is her father? I don&#8217;t remember to have heard of any gentlefolks
+of the name of King residing in this part of the New
+Forest.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She is not gentlefolk,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline came a step nearer as she spoke. Her eyes were
+bright, and there was a red spot on each cheek.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But although she is not born a lady, she is our friend,&#8221;
+she continued. &#8220;She is the daughter of Farmer King, who
+keeps a very jolly house; and they have plenty of money.
+We have often and often been at The Hollies.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! we get delicious apples there,&#8221; interposed Adelaide;
+&#8220;the juiciest you ever tasted&mdash;the cherry-and-brandy sort.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have never heard of that special apple, and I dislike its
+name,&#8221; said Miss Sophia.&mdash;&#8220;Now come into the house, all of
+you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She did not question them further. She walked on in
+front.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t stand too much of this,&#8221; whispered Briar to
+Verena.
+</p>
+<p>But Verena said &#8220;Hush!&#8221; and clasped Briar&#8217;s little hand
+as it lay on her arm.
+</p>
+<p>They entered the house and proceeded to the pleasant
+schoolroom.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is now four o&#8217;clock,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;At five tea
+is served. As the evening is so fine, I have ordered it to be
+laid under the cedar-tree on the lawn. For the next hour
+I expect close attention to lessons. I shall not stay in the
+room, but you, Verena, are monitress during my absence.
+Please understand that I expect honor. Honor requires that
+you should study, and that you should be silent. Here are
+your books. Prepare the lessons I shall require you to know
+to-morrow morning. Those girls who have not made due
+preparation will enter into Punishment Land.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What in the world is that?&#8221; burst from the lips of the
+irrepressible Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t ask me,&#8221; answered Miss Tredgold. &#8220;I hope you
+may never have a personal acquaintance with that gloomy
+country. Now farewell. For an hour fix your attention on
+your tasks; and adieu.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Never before had the Dale girls found themselves in such
+a quandary. For a whole long hour they were prohibited
+by a code of honor from speaking. They were all just
+bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery torrent, but
+they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as
+monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span>
+things that even untrained girls, provided they are ladies,
+understand by intuition. The Dales were ladies by birth.
+Their home had belonged to their father&#8217;s family for generations.
+There was a time in the past when to be a Dale
+of The Dales meant to be rich, honored, and respected.
+But, alas! the Dales, like many other old families, had gone
+under. Money had failed; purses had become empty; lands
+had been sold; the house had dwindled down to its present
+shabby dimensions; and if Miss Tredgold had not appeared
+on the scene, there would have been little chance of Mr.
+Dale&#8217;s ten daughters ever taking the position to which their
+birth entitled them. But there are some things which an
+ancient race confers. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>, for one thing. These
+girls were naughty, rebellious, and angry; their hearts were
+very sore; their silken chains seemed at this moment to assume
+the strength of iron fetters; but during the hour that
+was before them they would not disobey Miss Tredgold. Accordingly
+their dreary books were opened. Oh, how ugly
+and dull they looked!
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What does it matter whether a girl knows how to spell,
+and what happened long, long ago in the history-books?&#8221;
+thought Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophia was downright horrid about poor Nancy,&#8221;
+was Pauline&#8217;s angry thought. &#8220;Oh! must I really work out
+these odious sums, when I am thinking all the time of poor
+Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall never keep my head if this sort of thing goes on
+for long,&#8221; thought Verena as she bent over her page of
+English history. &#8220;Oh, dear! that midnight picnic, and
+Nancy&#8217;s face, and the dancing in the glades of the Forest.
+It would have been fun. If there is one thing more than
+another that I love, it is dancing. I think I could dance
+for ever.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena could not keep her pretty little feet still. They
+moved restlessly under her chair. Pauline saw the movement,
+and a wave of sympathy flashed between the sisters.
+Pauline&#8217;s eyes spoke volumes as they encountered the soft
+brown ones of pretty Verena.
+</p>
+<p>But an hour&mdash;even the longest&mdash;is quickly over. Five
+o&#8217;clock struck, and quick to the minute each girl sprang to
+her feet. Books were put away, and they all streamed out
+into the open air. Now they could talk as much as they
+liked. How their tongues wagged! They flew at each other
+in their delight and embraced violently. Never before, too,
+had they been so hungry for tea; and certainly never before
+had they seen such a delightful and tempting meal as that
+which was now laid for them on the lawn. The new parlor-maid
+had brought it out and placed it on various little tables.
+A silver teapot reposed on a silver tray; the cups and
+saucers were of fine china; the teaspoons were old, thin,
+and bright as a looking-glass. The table-linen was also
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span>
+snowy white; but what the girls far more appreciated were
+the piles of fruit, the quantities of cakes, the stacks of sandwiches,
+and the great plates of bread-and-butter that waited
+for them on the festive board.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well!&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;Did you ever? It looks just like a
+party, or a birthday treat, or something of that sort. I will
+say there are some nice things about Aunt Sophia. This
+is certainly better than squatting on the ground with a
+basket of gooseberries and a hunch of bread.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I liked the gooseberries,&#8221; said Pauline, &#8220;but, as you say,
+Briar, this is nice. Ah! here comes the aunt.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold sailed into view. She took her seat opposite
+the hissing urn and began to pour out cups of tea.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For a week,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I take this place. At the end
+of that time Verena occupies my throne.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I couldn&#8217;t!&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why in the world not, Renny? You aren&#8217;t quite a goose.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t use those expressions, Pauline; they are distinctly
+vulgar,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bother!&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>She frowned, and the thought of the gooseberries and the
+hard crusts that used to constitute tea on many days when
+there was no Aunt Sophia came back to her with a sense of
+longing and appreciation of the golden past.
+</p>
+<p>Nevertheless the girls were hungry, and the tea was excellent;
+and when Miss Tredgold had seen that each plate
+was piled with good things, and that every girl had her
+cup of tea made exactly as she liked it, she began to speak.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know little or nothing of the world, my dear girls,
+so during tea I intend to give you some pleasant information.
+I attended a tea-party last year in a house not far
+from London. You would like to hear all about it, would
+you not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you are sure it is not lessons,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is not lessons in the ordinary acception of the word.
+Now listen. This garden to which I went led down to the
+Thames. It was the property of a very great friend of mine,
+and she had invited what I might call a select company.
+Now will you all listen, and I will tell you how things were
+done?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold then proceeded to tell her story. No one
+could tell a story better. She made her narrative quite
+absorbing. For these girls, who had never known anything
+of life, she drew so vivid and fascinating a picture that they
+almost wished to be present at such a scene as she described.
+She spoke of the girls of the London world in their pretty
+dresses, and the matrons in their richer garments; of the
+men who moved about with polite deference. She spoke of
+the summer air, the beautiful appearance of the river, the
+charming punts and boats which disported themselves on
+the bosom of the waters.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It must have been pretty; but rather stiff, wasn&#8217;t it?&#8221;
+said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To you, my dear, it would have been stiff, for you are
+not yet accustomed to self-restraint, but to those who belong
+to that world it was nothing short of enchantment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you were in fetters,&#8221; said Pauline; &#8220;and I should
+hate fetters however jolly they looked.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean by that?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, you know you are putting them on us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush, Paulie!&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are, Aunt Sophy; and you can&#8217;t be angry with me if
+I speak. I can&#8217;t imagine any one getting accustomed to fetters;
+it is quite beyond me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and looked with her downright
+face full at Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said that lady after a pause. &#8220;I can&#8217;t expect
+you to understand everything all at once; but my description
+of a real bit of the world can do you no harm.
+The world has its good points; you will find that out presently.
+Perhaps you may not like it, but some people do. In
+your case there is no saying. To-morrow I will tell you
+another story, but it shall be of the graver and sadder side
+of life. That story will also introduce the nobler side of life.
+But now the time has come for me to ask you a question,
+and I expect an answer. The time has come for me to ask
+a very straight question.&mdash;Verena, you are the eldest; I shall
+speak to you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes?&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>She felt herself coloring. She said afterwards she knew
+exactly what was coming. Pauline must have known also,
+for she pinched Verena&#8217;s arm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes?&#8221; repeated the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are surprised at the story I have just related to
+you,&#8221; continued Miss Tredgold. &#8220;You think that the courtly
+grace, the sweet refinement, the elegant manners, the words
+that speak of due knowledge of life and men and women,
+represent a state of fetterdom; but you must also have felt
+their charm.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To a certain extent,&#8221; said Verena slowly, &#8220;what you have
+said excited me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You feel it possible that, under certain circumstances,
+you, too, could belong to such a group?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is not a doubt of it, my dear. A few years&#8217; training,
+a little of that discipline which you call fetters, pretty
+manners, and suitable dress would make you quite the sort
+of girl who would appear amongst my cultivated friends in
+the garden by the River Thames. But now for my question:
+Could your friend, Nancy King, ever figure in such an assembly?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It would not perhaps be her world,&#8221; said Verena.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You have answered me. Now I am going to say something
+that may annoy you; nevertheless I must say it. Your
+acquaintanceship with that girl as a friend must cease,
+and absolutely. She is not your equal. You are not to know
+her as a friend. If you meet her, there is no reason why
+you should not be civil, but civility and friendship are
+different things. If the time comes when she is in need or
+in trouble, I should be deeply sorry to think you would not
+help her, but as a friend she is to cease to exist for you.
+This is my firm command to all of you girls. There are to
+be no two voices on the subject. You may not agree with
+me now, and you may think me hard, but I insist on having
+my own way. You cease to know Nancy King as a friend.
+I shall myself write to that young person and forbid her to
+visit here. I will try not to hurt her; but there are certain
+distinctions of class which I for one must insist upon preserving.
+She is not a lady, she was not born a lady, and she
+never can be a lady; therefore, my dear nieces, you are not
+to know her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<h3>MUSIC HATH CHARMS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of
+routine had fatigued them; although, of course, it would
+soon cease to do so. Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+startling announcement with regard to Nancy King,
+they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine o&#8217;clock
+struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons
+neat, their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes
+beaming with intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very
+best in a clean brown holland frock, and she went quite
+creditably through her alphabet, and did not squiggle her
+pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous
+day.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the
+girls, told them she was much pleased with their performances,
+and said further that, if only they would meet her
+half-way by being attentive and intelligent and earnest in
+their work, she on her part would do all in her power to
+make lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way
+which would be sure to arouse their interest, and she would
+vary the work with play, and give them as gay a time as the
+bright weather and their own happy hearts would permit.
+</p>
+<p>The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper
+one to another that Aunt Sophia was developing more and
+more good points as days went on.
+</p>
+<p>On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span>
+beautiful new piano was to arrive from Broadwood&#8217;s, and
+Aunt Sophia announced that she meant to play on it for the
+benefit of the entire household that evening.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For, my dears,&#8221; said that good lady, &#8220;I have forgotten
+neither my playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned
+songs to-night, and I quite hope that I may lure
+your father from his retirement. There was a time when
+he was musical&mdash;very musical.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The dad musical!&#8221; cried Briar. &#8220;Aunt Sophia, what do
+you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother
+and he and I spent happy times together, he played his
+violin better than any other amateur that I happen to
+know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is an old violin in one of the attics,&#8221; said Verena.
+&#8220;We have never touched it. It is in a case all covered
+with dust.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;His Stradivarius,&#8221; murmured Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Oh dear!
+How are the mighty fallen! My dears, you had better say
+no more to me about that or I shall lose my temper.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold&#8217;s eyes
+grew full of a certain mistiness and her cheeks were very
+pink with color. The next moment she looked full at her
+nieces.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When your mother died she took a great deal away
+with her,&#8221; she said. &#8220;What would you have done, poor
+children! if I had not been able to come to the rescue? It
+does seem almost impossible that your father, my brother-in-law,
+has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, aren&#8217;t you glad you comed?&#8221; said Penelope,
+marching up and standing before the good lady. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you
+like to feel you are so useful, the grand piano coming, and
+all the rest? Then you has us under your thumb. Don&#8217;t you
+like that?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t understand you, Penny. You are talking in a
+very naughty way.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I aren&#8217;t. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey
+said last night, &#8216;Well, well, drat it all! They are under her
+thumb by this time.&#8217; I asked nursey what it meant, and she
+said, &#8216;Miss Penny, little girls should be seen, and not heard.&#8217;
+Nursey always says that when I ask her questions that I
+want special to know. But when I comed down this morning
+I asked Betty what being under your thumb meant, and
+she said, &#8216;Oh, lor&#8217;, Miss Penny! You had better look out,
+miss. It means what you don&#8217;t like, miss.&#8217; Then she said,
+Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of having little
+girls under their thumbs. So I &#8217;spect you like it; and I
+hope you won&#8217;t squeeze us flat afore you have done.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold had turned very red.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How old are you, Pen?&#8221; she said when the loquacious
+child became silent.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span></p>
+<p>Penelope tossed her head. &#8220;You knows of my age quite
+well.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent
+nurse&mdash;&#8216;Little girls should be seen, and not heard.&#8217; I
+will add to that remark by saying that little girls are sometimes
+impertinent. I shall not say anything more to-day;
+but another time, if you address me as you have just done,
+I shall be obliged to punish you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if I don&#8217;t dress you,&#8221; said Penelope&mdash;&#8220;if I&#8217;m awful
+good&mdash;will you give me sugar-plums?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is a treat in the very far distance,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.&mdash;&#8220;But
+now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this
+lovely air the better.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>They did all enjoy it; after their hard work&mdash;for lessons
+were hard to them&mdash;freedom was sweet. With each moment
+of lesson-time fully occupied, leisure was delicious. They
+wandered under the trees; they opened the wicket-gate
+which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its
+deep and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned
+with hungry appetites.
+</p>
+<p>The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation
+hour was no longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed
+appetites to enjoy tea. And in the midst of tea a wild
+dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came slowly down the
+rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at the
+gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the
+avenue, and John and two other men carried the beautiful
+Broadwood into the big drawing-room.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with
+loving fingers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will play to you to-night when it is dusk,&#8221; she said to
+the girls.
+</p>
+<p>After this they were so eager to hear the music that they
+could scarcely eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared
+for the evening meal. He took the foot of the table,
+and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt Sophia. So fond
+was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve the
+joint which was set before him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wake up, Henry,&#8221; said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice;
+&#8220;the children are hungry, and so am I.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and
+fork, and make frantic dashes at whatever the joint might
+happen to be. It must be owned that he carved very badly.
+Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then she desired
+the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the
+table where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour
+was wont to progress very satisfactorily. To-day it went
+quickly by. Then Verena went up to her aunt.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; she said, &#8220;the gloaming has come,
+and music is waiting to make us all happy in the drawing-room.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I will play for you, my dears,&#8221; said Aunt Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena
+say:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room.
+Aunt Sophia has got her new piano. She means to
+play on it. Do come; you know you love music.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Indeed, I do nothing of the kind,&#8221; said Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and
+looked abstractedly at Miss Sophia, who was standing in the
+twilight just by the open door.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You remind me, Sophia&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; said Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could have sworn that you were she. No music,
+thanks; I have never listened to it since she died. Your
+mother played beautifully, children; she played and she
+sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the present
+day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of
+the original text become more and more full of light. I
+shall secure a vast reputation. Music! I hate music. Don&#8217;t
+disturb me, any of you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed
+chair. His lamp was already lit; it burned brightly,
+for Miss Tredgold herself trimmed it each morning. His
+piles of books of reference lay in confusion by his side. An
+open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen.
+Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of
+his studies; the door into another world would open and
+shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present
+century, to his present life, to his children, to the home in
+which he lived.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could have sworn,&#8221; he muttered to himself, &#8220;that Alice
+had come back. As Sophia stood in the twilight I should
+scarcely have known them apart. She is not Alice. Alice
+was the only woman I ever loved&mdash;the only woman I could
+tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of
+them women yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they
+will have to go. I could not stand any other woman but
+Alice to live always in the house. But now to forget her.
+This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But
+before they could shut Mr. Dale within their portals there
+came a sound that caused the scholar to start. The soft
+strains of music entered through the door which Verena
+had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet
+masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick
+rhythm that seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible
+as it may appear, Mr. Dale forgot the ancient
+classics and the dim world of the past. He lay back in his
+chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on
+the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So
+perfect was his ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span>
+out of tune, would be detected by him. The least
+jarring sound would cause him agony. But there was no
+jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I might have known that Alice&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; he began; but then
+he remembered that Alice had never played exactly like
+that, and he ceased to think of her, or of any woman, and
+became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole along the
+passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him
+like lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their
+charm; in his left ear they completed their work. Virgil
+was forgotten; old Homer might never have existed.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the
+room and opened the door wide. There was a very bright
+light streaming down the passage. In the old days this
+passage was always dark; no one ever thought of lighting
+the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the
+house wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time
+it gave him a sense of comfort.
+</p>
+<p>Suddenly a voice began to sing:
+</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0em;'>&#8220;I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows.&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards
+him. Suddenly he stretched out his arms.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am coming, Alice,&#8221; he said aloud. &#8220;Yes, I am coming.
+Don&#8217;t call me with such insistence. I come, I tell
+you; I come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall;
+he burst into the drawing-room. His eyes were full of
+excitement. He strode across the room and sank into a
+chair close to the singer.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Henry!&#8221; she said; &#8220;so you are there. I hoped that
+this would draw you. Now I am going to sing again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A song of the past,&#8221; he said in a husky voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will this do?&#8221; she said, and began &#8220;Annie Laurie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet.
+&#8220;Annie Laurie&#8221; melted into &#8220;Home, Sweet Home&#8221;; &#8220;Home,
+Sweet Home&#8221; into &#8220;Ye Banks and Braes o&#8217; Bonny Doon&#8221;;
+&#8220;Ye Banks and Braes&#8221; wandered into the delicious notes of
+&#8220;Auld Lang Syne.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano,
+and then turned and faced her audience.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No more to-night,&#8221; she said. &#8220;By-and-by you girls shall
+all play on this piano. You shall also sing, for I have not
+the slightest doubt that most of you have got voices. You
+ought to be musical, for music belongs to both sides of your
+house. There was once a time when your father played
+the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By
+the way, Henry, is that violin still in existence?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me,&#8221; said Mr. Dale; &#8220;I never touch it now. I
+have not touched it for years. I would not touch it for the
+world.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no
+more music to-night. Those who are tired had better go to
+bed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold
+then went up to Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go back to your study and your Virgil,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t
+waste your precious time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him,
+but he took her at her word and returned to his study.
+</p>
+<p>The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment.
+Miss Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary
+in regard to it. She only played as a special treat. She
+would by no means give them the great pleasure of her
+singing and playing every night.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you have all had a good day I will sing and play
+to you,&#8221; she said to the girls; &#8220;but when you neglect your
+work, or are idle and careless, or cross and sulky, I don&#8217;t intend
+to amuse you in the evenings. I was brought up on a
+stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I mean
+while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I
+prefer it to the lax way in which young people are now
+reared.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>For a time Miss Tredgold&#8217;s plans went well. Then there
+came a day of rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly
+rebel against Aunt Sophia. There came a morning when
+Pauline absolutely refused to learn her lessons. She was a
+stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very dark in
+complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a
+handsome woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a
+somewhat sallow face, heavy black brows, and eyes that
+could scowl when anything annoyed her. She was the next
+eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her birthday
+would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays
+were considered auspicious events. There was always
+some sort of present, even though it was worth very little
+in itself, given by each member of the family to the possessor
+of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this happy
+person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with
+great pomp, and invariably made the same speech:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;God bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns
+of the day. And now for goodness&#8217; sake don&#8217;t detain
+me any longer.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as
+a sovereign would be to girls in happier circumstances. It
+was eked out to its furthest dimensions, and was as a rule
+spent on good things to eat. Now, under Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+reign, Pauline&#8217;s birthday would be a much more important
+event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span>
+Patty, Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline
+knew quite well that she was talked about. She knew when,
+the girls retired into corners that she was the object of their
+eager conversations. The whole thing was most agreeable
+to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared
+round a corner and perceived that work was put out of sight,
+that the eager whisperers started apart, and that the girls
+looked conscious and as if they wished her out of the way,
+she quite congratulated herself on the fact that hers was the
+first birthday in the immediate future, and that on that day
+she would be a very great personage indeed. As these
+thoughts came to her she walked with a more confident
+stride, and thought a great deal of her own importance. At
+night she lay awake thinking of the happy time, and wondering
+what this coming birthday, when she would have
+been fourteen whole years in the world, would bring
+forth.
+</p>
+<p>There came a lovely morning about a week before the
+birthday. Pauline had got up early, and was walking by
+herself in the garden. She felt terribly excited, and almost
+cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;After all,&#8221; thought Pauline, &#8220;Aunt Sophia has done
+something for us. How horrid it would be to go back to the
+old shilling birthdays now!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine,
+arm-in-arm and talking in low tones, crossed her path.
+They did not see her at first, and their words reached
+Pauline&#8217;s ears.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know she&#8217;d rather have pink than blue,&#8221; said Patty&#8217;s
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, mine will be trimmed with blue,&#8221; was Josephine&#8217;s
+answer.
+</p>
+<p>Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered
+shrieks, and disappeared down a shady walk.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Something with pink and something with blue,&#8221; thought
+Pauline. &#8220;The excitement is almost past bearing. Of
+course, they&#8217;re talking about my birthday presents. I do
+wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don&#8217;t know how I shall
+exist for a whole week.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>At that moment Miss Tredgold&#8217;s sharp voice fell on her
+ears:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for
+want of punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her
+own delightful reflections was anything but agreeable to
+Pauline. She felt, as she expressed it, like a cat rubbed
+the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one of her most
+ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There
+she lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her
+hair and put on her house-shoes. In consequence she was
+quite a quarter of an hour late when she appeared in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span>
+schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished morning
+prayers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline,&#8221; she
+said. &#8220;There was no reason for this inattention. I shall
+be obliged to punish you. You cannot have your usual hour
+of recreation before dinner. You will have to write out
+the first page of Scott&#8217;s <i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>; and you
+must do it without making any mistake either in spelling
+or punctuation. On this occasion you can copy from the
+book. Now, no words, my dear&mdash;no words. Sit down immediately
+to your work.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger.
+Was she, an important person who was soon to be queen
+of a birthday, one about whom her sisters talked and whispered
+and made presents for, to be treated in this scant and
+ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it. Accordingly
+she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to
+listen when she should, played atrociously on the piano,
+could not manage her sums, and, in short, got more and
+more each moment into Miss Tredgold&#8217;s black books.
+</p>
+<p>When recreation hour arrived she felt tired and headachy.
+The other girls now went out into the pleasant
+sunshine. Pauline looked after them with longing. They
+would sit under the overhanging trees; they would eat
+fruit and talk nonsense and laugh. Doubtless they would
+talk about her and the birthday so near at hand. At noon
+the schoolroom was hot, too, for the sun beat hard upon the
+windows, and Pauline felt more stifled and more headachy
+and sulky than ever.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! please,&#8221; she said, as Miss Tredgold was leaving the
+room, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do this horrid writing to-day. Please forgive
+me. Do let me go out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Pauline; you must take your punishment. You
+were late this morning; you disobeyed my rules. Take
+the punishment which I am obliged to give you as a lady
+should, and make no more excuses.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The door was shut upon the angry girl. She sat for a
+time absolutely still, pressing her hand to her aching
+brow; then she strolled across the schoolroom, fetched
+some paper, and sat down to her unwelcome task. She
+wrote very badly, and when the hour was over she had
+not half copied the task assigned to her. This bad beginning
+went on to a worse end. Pauline declined to learn
+any lessons in preparation hour, and accordingly next
+morning she was absolutely unprepared for her tasks.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold was now thoroughly roused.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must make an example,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I
+shall have no influence over these girls if I let them think
+I am all softness and yielding. The fact is, I have shown
+them the south side of my character too long; a little
+touch of the northeast will do them no harm.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span></p>
+<p>Accordingly she called the obstinate and sulky Pauline
+before her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am very much displeased with you. You have done
+wrong, and you must be punished. I have told you and
+your sisters that there is such a place as Punishment
+Land. You enter it now, and live there until after breakfast
+to-morrow morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what do you mean?&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I mean exactly what I say. You have been for the last
+twenty-four hours extremely naughty. You will therefore
+be punished for the next twenty-four hours. You are a
+very naughty girl. Naughty girls must be punished, and
+you, Pauline, are now under punishment. You enter Punishment
+Land immediately.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But where is it? What is it? I don&#8217;t understand.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will soon. Girls, I forbid you to speak to your
+sister while she is under punishment. Pauline, your meals
+will be sent to you in this room. You will be expected to
+work up your neglected tasks and learn them thoroughly.
+You must neither play with nor speak to your sisters. You
+will have no indulgence of any sort. When you walk, I
+wish you to keep in the north walk, just beyond the vegetable
+garden. Finally, you will go to bed at seven o&#8217;clock.
+Now leave the room. I am in earnest.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<h3>PUNISHMENT LAND.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Pauline did leave the room. She passed her sisters, who
+stared at her in horrified amazement. She knew that their
+eyes were fixed upon her, but she was doubtful if they
+pitied her or not. Just at that moment, however, she
+did not care what their feelings were. She had a momentary
+sense of pleasure on getting into the soft air. A gentle
+breeze fanned her hot cheeks. She took her old sailor hat
+from a peg and ran fast into a distant shrubbery. Miss
+Tredgold had said that she might take exercise in the north
+walk. If there was a dreary, ugly part of the grounds,
+it might be summed up in the north walk. The old garden
+wall was on one side of it, and a tattered, ugly box-hedge
+on the other. Nothing was to be seen as you walked between
+the hedge and the wall but the ground beneath your
+feet and the sky above your head. There was no distant
+view of any sort. In addition to this disadvantage, it was
+in winter an intensely cold place, and in summer, notwithstanding
+its name, an intensely hot place. No, Pauline
+would not go there. She would disobey. She would walk
+where she liked; she would also talk to whom she liked.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span></p>
+<p>She stood for a time leaning against a tree, her face scarlet
+with emotion, her sailor hat flung on the ground. Presently
+she saw Penelope coming towards her. She felt quite
+glad of this, for Penelope might always be bribed. Pauline
+made up her mind to disobey thoroughly; she would walk
+where she pleased; she would do what she liked; she
+would talk to any one to whom she wished to talk. What
+was Penelope doing? She was bending down and peering
+on the ground. Beyond doubt she was looking for something.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Pen?&#8221; called out her sister.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope had not seen Pauline until now. She stood upright
+with a start, gazed tranquilly at the girl in disgrace,
+and then, without uttering a word, resumed her occupation
+of searching diligently on the ground. Pauline&#8217;s face put on
+its darkest scowl. Her heart gave a thump of wild indignation.
+She went up to Penelope and shook her by the arm.
+Penelope, still without speaking, managed to extricate herself.
+She moved a few feet away. She then again looked
+full at Pauline, and, to the amazement of the elder girl,
+her bold black eyes filled with tears. She took one dirty,
+chubby hand and blew a kiss to Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt suddenly deeply touched. She very nearly
+wept herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, dear Penny,&#8221; she said, &#8220;how good you are! I
+didn&#8217;t know you&#8217;d feel for me. I can bear things better if
+I know you feel for me. You needn&#8217;t obey her, need you?
+See, I&#8217;ve got three-ha&#8217;pence in my pocket. I&#8217;ll give you the
+money and you can buy lollypops. I will really if only you
+will say a few words to me now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I daren&#8217;t,&#8221; burst from Penelope&#8217;s lips. &#8220;You have no
+right to tempt me. I can&#8217;t; I daren&#8217;t. I am looking now
+for Aunt Sophy&#8217;s thimble. She was working here yesterday
+and she dropped it, she doesn&#8217;t know where. She&#8217;s awful
+fond of it. She&#8217;ll give me a penny if I find it. Don&#8217;t ask me
+any more. I&#8217;ve done very wrong to speak to you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So you have,&#8221; said Pauline, who felt as angry as ever.
+&#8220;You have broken Aunt Sophia&#8217;s word&mdash;not your own, for
+you never said you wouldn&#8217;t speak to me. But go, if you
+are so honorable. Only please understand that I hate every
+one of you, and I&#8217;m never going to obey Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope only shook her little person, and presently wandered
+away into a more distant part of the shrubbery. She
+went on searching and searching. Pauline could see her
+bobbing her little fat person up and down.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Even Penny,&#8221; she thought, &#8220;is incorruptible. Well, I
+don&#8217;t care. I won&#8217;t put up with this unjust punishment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The dinner-gong sounded, and Pauline, notwithstanding
+her state of disgrace, discovered that she was hungry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why should I eat?&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I won&#8217;t eat.
+Then perhaps I&#8217;ll die, and she&#8217;ll be sorry. She&#8217;ll be had up
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span>
+for manslaughter; she&#8217;ll have starved a girl to death. No,
+I won&#8217;t eat a single thing. And even if I don&#8217;t die I shall
+be awfully ill, and she&#8217;ll be in misery. Oh dear! why did
+mother die and leave us? And why did dreadful Aunt
+Sophy come? Mother was never cross; she was never hard.
+Oh mother! Oh mother!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was now so miserable that she flung herself on
+the ground and burst into passionate weeping. Her tears
+relieved the tension of her heart, and she felt slightly better.
+Presently she raised her head, and taking out her handkerchief,
+prepared to mop her eyes. As she did so she was attracted
+by something that glittered not far off. She stretched
+out her hand and drew Miss Tredgold&#8217;s thimble from where
+it had rolled under a tuft of dock-leaves. A sudden burst
+of pleasure escaped her lips as she glanced at the thimble.
+She had not seen it before. It certainly was the most
+beautiful thimble she had ever looked at. She put it on the
+tip of her second finger and turned it round and round.
+The thimble itself was made of solid gold; its base was
+formed of one beautifully cut sapphire, and round the margin
+of the top of the thimble was a row of turquoises. The
+gold was curiously and wonderfully chased, and the sapphire,
+which formed the entire base of the thimble, shone
+in a way that dazzled Pauline. She was much interested;
+she forgot that she was hungry, and that she had entered
+into Punishment Land. It seemed to her that in her possession
+of the thimble she had found the means of punishing
+Aunt Sophia. This knowledge soothed her inexpressibly.
+She slipped the lovely thimble into her pocket, and again
+a keen pang of downright healthy hunger seized her. She
+knew that food would be awaiting her in the schoolroom.
+Should she eat it, or should she go through the wicket-gate
+and lose herself in the surrounding Forest?
+</p>
+<p>Just at this moment a girl, who whistled as she walked,
+approached the wicket-gate, opened it, and came in. She
+was dressed in smart summer clothes; her hat was of a
+fashionable make, and a heavy fringe lay low on her forehead.
+Pauline looked at her, and her heart gave a thump
+of pleasure. Now, indeed, she could bear her punishment,
+and her revenge on Miss Tredgold lay even at the door.
+For Nancy King, the girl whom she was not allowed to
+speak to, had entered the grounds.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hullo, Paulie!&#8221; called out that young lady. &#8220;There
+you are! Well, I must say you do look doleful. What&#8217;s
+the matter now? Is the dear aristocrat more aristocratic
+than ever?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t, Nancy! I ought not to speak to you at all.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I&#8217;ve been told by the sweet soul herself,&#8221; responded
+Nancy. &#8220;She wrote me a letter which would have put another
+girl in such a rage that she would never have touched
+any one of you again with a pair of tongs. But that&#8217;s not
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span>
+Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that
+person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I
+came to-day to try to find one of you dear girls. I have
+found you. What is the matter with you, Paulie? You
+do look bad.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very unhappy,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Oh Nancy! we sort
+of promised that we wouldn&#8217;t have anything more to do
+with you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t keep your promise, can you, darling? So
+don&#8217;t say any more about it. Anyhow, promise or not, I&#8217;m
+going to kiss you now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy flung her arms tightly round Pauline&#8217;s neck and
+printed several loud, resounding kisses on each cheek; then
+she seated herself under an oak tree, and motioned to Pauline
+to do likewise.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline hesitated just for a moment; then scruples were
+forgotten, and she sat on the ground close to Nancy&#8217;s side.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me all about it,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Wipe your eyes
+and talk. Don&#8217;t be frightened; it&#8217;s only poor old Nancy, the
+girl you have known since you were that high. And I&#8217;m
+rich, Paulie pet, and although we&#8217;re only farmer-folk, we
+live in a much finer house than The Dales. And I&#8217;m going
+to have a pony soon&mdash;a pony of my very own&mdash;and my habit
+is being made for me at Southampton. I intend to follow
+the hounds next winter. Think of that, little Paulie. You&#8217;ll
+see me as I ride past. I&#8217;m supposed to have a very good
+figure, and I shall look ripping in my habit. Well, but
+that&#8217;s not to the point, is it? You are in trouble, you poor
+little dear, and your old Nancy must try and make matters
+better for you. I love you, little Paulie. I&#8217;m fond of you
+all, but you are my special favorite. You were always considered
+something like me&mdash;dark and dour when you liked,
+but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie?
+Tell your own Nancy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very fond of you, Nancy,&#8221; replied Pauline. &#8220;And
+I think,&#8221; she continued, &#8220;that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt
+Sophia to say that we are not to know you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s snobbish and mean and unlady-like,&#8221; retorted
+Nancy; &#8220;but her saying it doesn&#8217;t make it a fact, for you
+do know me, and you will always have to know me. And
+if she thinks, old spiteful! that I&#8217;m going to put up with
+her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she&#8217;s fine and mistaken.
+I&#8217;m not, and that&#8217;s flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn&#8217;t
+mind telling her so to her face.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, on the whole, she has been kind to us,&#8221; said Pauline,
+who had some sense of justice in her composition,
+angry as she felt at the moment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Has she?&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Then let me tell you she has
+not a very nice way of showing it. Now, Paulie, no more
+beating about the bush. What&#8217;s up? Your eyes are red;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span>
+you have a great smear of ink on your forehead; and your
+hands&mdash;my word! for so grand a young lady your hands
+aren&#8217;t up to much, my dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have got into trouble,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t do my
+lessons properly yesterday; I couldn&#8217;t&mdash;I had a headache,
+and everything went wrong. So this morning I could not
+say any of them when Aunt Sophia called me up, and she
+put me into Punishment Land. You know, don&#8217;t you, that I
+am soon to have a birthday?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t I?&#8221; interrupted Nancy. &#8220;Didn&#8217;t a little bird
+whisper it to me, and didn&#8217;t that same little bird tell me
+exactly what somebody would like somebody else to give
+her? And didn&#8217;t that somebody else put her hand into her
+pocket and send&mdash;&mdash; Oh, we won&#8217;t say any more, but she
+did send for something for somebody&#8217;s birthday. Oh, yes,
+I know. You needn&#8217;t tell me about that birthday, Pauline
+Dale.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are good,&#8221; said Pauline, completely touched. She
+wondered what possible thing Nancy could have purchased
+for her. She had a wild desire to know what it was. She
+determined then and there, in her foolish little heart, that
+nothing would induce her to quarrel with Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is something that you like, and something that will
+spite her,&#8221; said the audacious Nancy. &#8220;I thought it all
+out, and I made up my mind to kill two birds with one
+stone. Now to go on with the pretty little story. We didn&#8217;t
+please aunty, and we got into trouble. Proceed, Paulie pet.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t learn my lessons. I was cross, as I said, and
+headachy, and Aunt Sophia said I was to be made an example
+of, and so she sent me to Punishment Land for twenty-four
+hours.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my dear! It sounds awful. What is it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, none of my sisters are to speak to me, and I am
+only to walk in the north walk.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is this the north walk?&#8221; asked Nancy, with a merry
+twinkle in her black eyes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course it isn&#8217;t. She may say what she likes, but I&#8217;m
+not going to obey her. But the others won&#8217;t speak to me.
+I can&#8217;t make them. And I am to take my meals by myself
+in the schoolroom, and I am to go to bed at seven o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline told her sad narrative in a most lugubrious manner,
+and she felt almost offended at the conclusion when
+Nancy burst into a roar of laughter.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very unkind of you to laugh when I&#8217;m so unhappy,&#8221;
+said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear, how can I help it? It is so ridiculous to treat
+a girl who is practically almost grown up in such a baby
+fashion. Then I&#8217;d like to know what authority she has over
+you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the worst of it, Nancy. Father has given her
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span>
+authority, and she has it in writing. She&#8217;s awfully clever,
+and she came round poor father, and he had to do what
+she wanted because he couldn&#8217;t help himself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jolly mean, I call it,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;My dear, you are
+pretty mad, I suppose.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t you be if your father treated you like that?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My old dad! He knows better. I&#8217;ve had my swing since
+I was younger than you, Paulie. Of course, at school I had
+to obey just a little. I wasn&#8217;t allowed to break all the rules,
+but I did smuggle in a good many relaxations. The thing
+is, you can do what you like at school if only you are not
+found out. Well, I was too clever to be found out. And
+now I am grown up, eighteen last birthday, and I have
+taken a fancy to cling to my old friends, even if they have
+a snobby, ridiculous old aunt to be rude to me. My dear,
+what nonsense she did write!&mdash;all about your being of such
+a good family, and that I wasn&#8217;t in your station. I shall
+keep that letter. I wouldn&#8217;t lose it for twenty shillings.
+What have you to boast of after all is said and done? A
+tumble-down house; horrid, shabby, old-fashioned, old-maidy
+clothes; and never a decent meal to be had.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it isn&#8217;t like that now,&#8221; said Pauline, finding herself
+getting very red and angry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, so much the better for you. And did I make the
+little mousy-pousy angry? I won&#8217;t, then, any more, for
+Nancy loves little mousy-pousy, and would like to do what
+she could for her. You love me back, don&#8217;t you, mousy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Nancy, I do love you, and I think it&#8217;s a horrid
+shame that we&#8217;re not allowed to be with you. But, all the
+same, I&#8217;d rather you didn&#8217;t call me mousy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh dear, how dignified we are! I shall begin to believe
+in the ancient family if this sort of thing continues. But
+now, my dear, the moment has come to help you. The hour
+has arrived when your own Nancy, vulgar as she is, can lend
+you a helping hand. Listen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jump up, Paulie; take my hand, and you and I together
+will walk out through that wicket-gate, and go back
+through the dear old Forest to The Hollies, and spend the
+day at my home. There are my boy cousins from London,
+and my two friends, Rebecca and Amelia Perkins&mdash;jolly
+girls, I can tell you. We shall have larks. What do you
+say, Paulie? A fine fright she&#8217;ll be in when she misses
+you. Serve her right, though.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I daren&#8217;t come with you,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I&#8217;d love it
+more than anything in the world; but I daren&#8217;t. You
+mustn&#8217;t ask me. You mustn&#8217;t try to tempt me, Nancy, for
+I daren&#8217;t go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t know you were so nervous.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am nervous about a thing like that. Wild as I have
+been, and untrained all my life, I do not think I am out-and-out
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span>
+wicked. It would be wicked to go away without
+leave. I&#8217;d be too wretched. Oh, I daren&#8217;t think of it!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy pursed up her lips while Pauline was speaking;
+then she gave vent to a low, almost incredulous whistle.
+Finally she sprang to her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not the one to try and make you forget your
+scruples,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Suppose you do this. Suppose you
+come at seven o&#8217;clock to-night. Then you will be safe. You
+may be wicked, but at least you will be safe. She&#8217;ll never
+look for you, nor think of you again, when once you have
+gone up to bed. You have a room to yourself, have you
+not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline nodded.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought so. You will go to your room, lock the door,
+and she will think it is all right. The others won&#8217;t care to
+disturb you. If they do they&#8217;ll find the door locked.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I am forbidden to lock my room door.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They will call to you, but you will not answer. They
+may be angry, but I don&#8217;t suppose your sisters will tell on
+you, and they will only suppose you are sound asleep.
+Meanwhile you will be having a jolly good time; for I can
+tell you we are going to have sport to-night at The
+Hollies&mdash;fireworks, games, plans for the future, etc., etc.
+You can share my nice bed, and go back quite early in the
+morning. I have a lot to talk over with you. I want to
+arrange about our midnight picnic.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Nancy, we can&#8217;t have a midnight picnic.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t we? I don&#8217;t see that at all. I tell you what&mdash;we
+will have it; and we&#8217;ll have it on your birthday. Your
+birthday is in a week. That will be just splendid. The
+moon will be at the full, and you must all of you come. Do
+you suppose I&#8217;m going to be balked of my fun by a stupid
+old woman? Ah! you little know me. My boy cousins,
+Jack and Tom, and my friends, Becky and Amy, have made
+all arrangements. We are going to have a time! Of
+course, if you are not there, you don&#8217;t suppose our fun
+will be stopped! You&#8217;ll hear us laughing in the glades.
+You won&#8217;t like that, will you? But we needn&#8217;t say any more
+until seven o&#8217;clock to-night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m coming.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you are, Paulie. No one will know, and you must
+have a bit of fun. Perhaps I&#8217;ll show you the present I&#8217;m
+going to give you on your birthday; there&#8217;s no saying what
+I may do; only you must come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy had been standing all this time. Pauline had been
+reclining on the ground. Now she also rose to her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You excite me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I long to go, and yet I am
+afraid; it would be so awfully wicked.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It would be wicked if she was your mother, but she&#8217;s
+not. And she has no right to have any control over you.
+She just got round your silly old father&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t have dad called silly!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, your learned and abstracted father. It all comes
+to much the same. Now think the matter over. You needn&#8217;t
+decide just this minute. I shall come to the wicket-gate at
+half-past seven, and if you like to meet me, why, you can;
+but if you are still too good, and your conscience is too
+troublesome, and your scruples too keen, you need not come.
+I shall quite understand. In that case, perhaps, I&#8217;d best
+not give you that lovely, lovely present that I saved up so
+much money to buy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline clasped her hands and stepped away from Nancy.
+As she did so the breeze caught her full gray skirt and
+caused it to blow against Nancy. Nancy stretched out her
+hand and caught hold of Pauline&#8217;s pocket.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is this hard thing?&#8221; she cried. &#8220;Have you got
+a nut in your pocket?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Pauline, instantly smiling and dimpling. &#8220;Oh,
+Nancy, such fun!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She dived into her pocket and produced Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+thimble.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I say!&#8221; cried Nancy. &#8220;What a beauty! Who in
+the world gave you this treasure, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t mine at all; it belongs to Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You sly little thing! You took it from her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I didn&#8217;t. I&#8217;m not a thief. I saw it in the grass a
+few minutes ago and picked it up. It had rolled just under
+that dock-leaf. Isn&#8217;t it sweet? I shall give it back to her
+after she has forgiven me to-morrow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a charming, return-good-for-evil character you
+have suddenly become, Pauline!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Nancy spoke she poised the thimble on her second
+finger. Her fingers were small, white, and tapering. The
+thimble exactly fitted the narrow tip on which it rested.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never saw anything so lovely,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;Never
+mind, Paulie, about to-morrow. Lend it to me. I&#8217;d give
+my eyes to show it to Becky.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why should I lend it to you? I must return it to
+Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You surely won&#8217;t give it back to her to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, but to-morrow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let to-morrow take care of itself. I want to show this
+thimble to Becky and Amy. I have a reason. You won&#8217;t
+refuse one who is so truly kind to you, will you, little
+Paulie? And I tell you what: I know you are starving, and
+you hate to go into the house for your food. I will bring
+you a basketful of apples, chocolates, and a peach or two.
+We have lovely peaches ripe in our garden now, although
+we are such common folk.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt thirsty. Her hunger, too, was getting worse.
+She would have given a good deal to have been able to refuse
+the horrid meals which would be served to her in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span>
+schoolroom. Perhaps she could manage without any other
+food if she had enough fruit.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should like some very much,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Aunt Sophia
+has, as she calls it, preserved the orchard. We are not
+allowed to go into it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mean cat!&#8221; cried Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So will you really send me a basket of fruit?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will send Tom with it the instant I get home. He
+runs like the wind. You may expect to find it waiting for
+you in half-an-hour.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you. And you will take great care of the thimble,
+won&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course I will, child. It is a beauty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Without more ado Nancy slipped the thimble into her
+pocket, and then nodding to Pauline, and telling her that
+she would wait for her at the wicket-gate at half-past
+seven, she left her.
+</p>
+<p>Nancy swung her body as she walked, and Pauline stood
+and watched her. She thought that Nancy looked very
+grown-up and very stylish. To look stylish seemed better
+than to look pretty in the eyes of the inexperienced little
+girl. She could not help having a great admiration for her
+friend.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She is very brave, and so generous; and she knows
+such a lot of the world!&#8221; thought poor Pauline. &#8220;It is a
+shame not to be allowed to see her whenever one likes.
+And it would be just heavenly to go to her to-night, instead
+of spending hungry hours awake in my horrid bedroom.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<h3>DISCIPLINE.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The other girls were miserable; but Miss Tredgold had
+already exercised such a very strong influence over them
+that they did not dare to disobey her orders. Much as they
+longed to do so, none of them ventured near poor Pauline.
+In the course of the afternoon Miss Tredgold called Verena
+aside.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know well, my dear, what you are thinking,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;You believe that I am terribly hard on your sister.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena&#8217;s eyes sought the ground.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I quite know what you think,&#8221; repeated Miss Tredgold.
+&#8220;But, Verena, you are wrong. At least, if I am hard,
+it is for her good.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But can it do any one good to be downright cruel to
+her?&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not cruel, but I have given her a more severe punishment
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span>
+than she has ever received before in her life. We
+all, the best of us, need discipline. The first time we experience
+it when it comes from the hand of God we murmur
+and struggle and rebel. But there comes a time when we
+neither murmur nor struggle nor rebel. When that time
+arrives the discipline has done its perfect work, and God
+removes it. My dear Verena, I am a woman old enough to
+be your mother. You must trust me, and believe that I am
+treating Pauline in the manner I am to-day out of the experience
+of life that God has given me. We are so made,
+my dear, that we none of us are any good until our wills are
+broken to the will of our Divine Master.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But this is not God&#8217;s will, is it?&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;It is
+your will.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Consider for a moment, my child. It is, I believe, both
+God&#8217;s will and mine. Don&#8217;t you want Pauline to be a cultivated
+woman? Don&#8217;t you want her character to be balanced?
+Don&#8217;t you want her to be educated? There is a
+great deal that is good in her. She has plenty of natural
+talent. Her character, too, is strong and sturdy. But at
+present she is like a flower run to weed. In such a case
+what would the gardener do?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose he would prune the flower.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If it was a hopeless weed he would cast it out of his
+garden; but if it really was a flower that had degenerated
+into a weed, he would take it up and put it to some pain,
+and plant it again in fresh soil. The poor little plant might
+say it was badly treated when it was taken from its surroundings
+and its old life. This is very much the case with
+Pauline. Now, I do not wish her to associate with Nancy
+King. I do not wish her to be idle or inattentive. I want
+her to be energetic, full of purpose, resolved to do her best,
+and to take advantage of those opportunities which have
+come to you all, my dear, when I, your mother&#8217;s sister,
+took up my abode at The Dales. Sometime, dear, it is quite
+possible that, owing to what will be begun in Pauline&#8217;s
+character to-day, people will stop and admire the lovely
+flower. They will know that the gardener who put it to
+some pain and trouble was wise and right. Now, my dear
+girl, you will remember my little lecture. Pauline needs
+discipline. For that matter, you all need discipline. At
+first such treatment is hard, but in the end it is salutary.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;But perhaps,&#8221;
+she added, &#8220;you will try and remember, too, that kindness
+goes a long way. Pauline is perhaps the most affectionate
+of us all. In some ways she has the deepest feelings. But
+she can be awfully sulky, and only kindness can move her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I quite understand, my dear; and when the time comes
+kindness will not be wanting. Now go away and amuse
+yourself with your sisters.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena went away. She wondered as she did so where
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span>
+Pauline was hiding herself. The others had all settled down
+to their various amusements and occupations. They were
+sorry for Pauline, but the pleasant time they were enjoying
+in the middle of this lovely summer&#8217;s day was not to be
+despised, even if their sister was under punishment. But
+Verena herself could not rest. She went into the schoolroom.
+On a tray stood poor Pauline&#8217;s neglected dinner.
+Verena lifted the cover from the plate, and felt as though
+she must cry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline is taking it hardly,&#8221; thought the elder girl.
+</p>
+<p>Tea-time came, and Pauline&#8217;s tea was also sent to the
+schoolroom. At preparation hour, when the rest of the
+girls went into the room, Pauline&#8217;s tea remained just where
+it had been placed an hour before. Verena could scarcely
+bear herself. There must be something terribly wrong with
+her sister. They had often been hungry in the old days, but
+in the case of a hearty, healthy girl, to do without any food
+from breakfast-time when there was plenty to eat was
+something to regard with uneasiness.
+</p>
+<p>Presently, however, to her relief, Pauline came in. She
+looked rough and untidy in appearance. She slipped into
+the nearest chair in a sulky, ungainly fashion, and taking
+up a battered spelling-book, she held it upside down.
+</p>
+<p>Verena gave her a quick glance and looked away. Pauline
+would not meet Verena&#8217;s anxious gaze. She kept on
+looking down. Occasionally her lips moved. There was a
+red stain on her cheek. Penelope with one of her sharpest
+glances perceived this.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is caused by fruit,&#8221; thought the youngest of the
+schoolroom children. &#8220;I wonder who has given Pauline
+fruit. Did she climb the garden wall or get over the gate
+into the orchard?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nobody else noticed this stain. Miss Tredgold came in
+presently, but she took no more notice of Pauline than if
+that young lady did not exist.
+</p>
+<p>The hour of preparation was over. It was now six o&#8217;clock.
+In an hour Pauline was expected to go to bed. Now, Pauline
+and Verena had bedrooms to themselves. These were
+attic rooms at the top of the house. They had sloping roofs,
+and would have been much too hot in summer but for the
+presence of a big beech tree, which grew to within a few
+feet of the windows. More than once the girls in their
+emancipated days, as they now considered them, used to
+climb down the beech tree from their attic windows, and
+on a few occasions had even managed to climb up the same
+way. They loved their rooms, having slept in them during
+the greater part of their lives.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline, as she now went in the direction of the north
+walk, thought with a sense of satisfaction of the bedroom
+she had to herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will make things easier,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;They will all
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span>
+be on the lawn doing their needlework, and Aunt Sophia
+will be reading to them. I will go past them quite quietly
+to my room, and then&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>These thoughts made Pauline comparatively happy. Once
+or twice she smiled, and a vindictive, ugly expression visited
+her small face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She little knows,&#8221; thought the girl. &#8220;Oh, she little
+knows! She thinks that she is so clever&mdash;so terribly
+clever; but, after all, she has not the least idea of the right
+way to treat me. No, she has not the least idea. And perhaps
+by-and-by she will be sorry for what she has done.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Seven o&#8217;clock was heard to strike in the house. Pauline,
+retracing her steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss
+Tredgold. Miss Tredgold slightly raised her voice as the
+culprit appeared. She read aloud with more determination
+than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was hemming
+and watched Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I a&#8217;most wish I wor her,&#8221; thought the ex-nursery child.
+&#8220;Anything is better than this horrid sewing. How it pricks
+my fingers! That reminds me; I wonder where Aunt
+Sophy&#8217;s thimble has got to. I did look hard for it. I wish
+I could find it. I do want that penny so much! It was a
+beauty thimble, too, and she loves it. I don&#8217;t want to give
+it back to her &#8217;cos she loves it, but I should like my penny.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline had now nearly disappeared from view.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie is up to a lark,&#8221; thought Penelope, who was
+the sharpest of all the children, and read motives as
+though she was reading an open book. &#8220;She doesn&#8217;t walk
+as though she was tur&#8217;ble unhappy. I wonder what she&#8217;s
+up to. And that red stain on her cheek was fruit; course
+it was fruit. How did she get it? I wish I knew. I&#8217;ll try
+and find out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline had now reached her bedroom. There she hastily
+put on her best clothes. They were very simple, but, under
+Miss Tredgold&#8217;s regime, fairly nice. She was soon attired
+in a neat white frock; and an old yellow sash of doubtful
+cleanliness and a bunch of frowsy red poppies were folded
+in a piece of tissue paper. Pauline then slipped on her
+sailor hat. She had a great love for the old sash; and as to
+the poppies, she thought them far more beautiful than any
+real flowers that ever grew. She meant to tie the yellow
+sash round her waist when she reached the shrubbery, and
+to pin the poppies into her hat. The fact that Miss Tredgold
+had forbidden her to wear this sash, and had herself
+removed the poppies from her Sunday hat, gave her now a
+sense of satisfaction.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Young ladies don&#8217;t wear things of that sort,&#8221; Miss Tredgold
+had said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A young lady shall wear things of this sort to-night,&#8221;
+thought Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Having finished her toilet, she locked her door from the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span>
+outside and put the key into her pocket; but before she
+left the room she drew down the dark-green blind. She
+then slipped downstairs and went out through the back way.
+She had to go through the yard, but no one saw her except
+Betty, who, as she afterwards remarked, did observe the
+flutter of a white dress with the tail of her eye. But Betty
+at that moment was immersed in a fresh installment of the
+wonderful adventures of the Duke of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton
+and his bride, and what did it matter to her if the
+young ladies chose to run out in their best frocks?
+</p>
+<p>Pauline reached the shrubbery without further adventure.
+There she put on her extra finery. Her yellow sash
+was tied in a large bow, and her poppies nodded over her
+forehead.
+</p>
+<p>It was a very excited dark-eyed girl who presently met
+Nancy King on the other side of the wicket-gate.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here I am,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I expect I shall never have
+any luck again all my life; but I want to spite her at any
+cost, so here I am.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Delicious!&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it good to spite the old
+cat? Now then, let&#8217;s be off, or we may be caught. But I
+say, how fine we are!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You always admired this bunch of poppies, didn&#8217;t you,
+Nancy? Do you remember? Before you went to that grand
+school at Brighton you used to envy me my poppies. I
+found them among mother&#8217;s old things, and Verena gave
+them to me. I love them like anything. Don&#8217;t you like
+them very much, placed so in front of my hat?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t I say, &#8216;How fine we are&#8217;?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; but somehow your tone&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear Paulie, you are getting much too learned for
+my taste. Now come along. Take my hand. Let us run.
+Let me tell you, you look charming. The girls will admire
+you wonderfully. Amy and Becky are keen to make your
+acquaintance. You can call them by their Christian names;
+they&#8217;re not at all stiff. Surname, Perkins. Nice girls&mdash;brought
+up at my school&mdash;father in the pork line; jolly
+girls&mdash;very. And, of course, you met Jack and Tom last
+year. They&#8217;re out fishing at present. They&#8217;ll bring in
+beautiful trout for supper. Why, you poor little thing, you
+must be starved.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ravenous. You know I had only your fruit to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You shall have a downright jolly meal, and afterwards
+we&#8217;ll have fireworks; and then by-and-by you will share
+my bed. Amy and Becky will be in the same room. They
+think there&#8217;s a ghost at the other side of the passage, so
+they came along to my chamber. But you won&#8217;t mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t mind anything after my lonely day. You are
+quite sure that I&#8217;ll get back in time in the morning, Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Trust me for that. Haven&#8217;t you got the key of your
+room?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; it&#8217;s in my pocket. I left the window on the latch,
+and I can climb up the beech tree quite well. Oh! that reminds
+me, Nancy; you must let me have that thimble before
+I return to The Dales.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be sure I will, dear. But you needn&#8217;t think of returning
+yet, for you have not even arrived. Your fun is
+only beginning. Oh! you have done a splendid, spirited
+thing running off in this fashion. I only hope she&#8217;ll go to
+your room and tap and tap, and knock and knock, and shout
+and shout, and get, oh, so frightened! and have the door
+burst open; and then she&#8217;ll see for herself that the bird has
+flown. Won&#8217;t she be in a tantrum and a fright! Horrid old
+thing! She&#8217;ll think that you have run off forever. Serve
+her right. Oh! I almost wish she would do it&mdash;that I do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;If she did such a thing it
+would almost kill me. It&#8217;s all very well for you to talk in
+that fashion; you haven&#8217;t got to live with her; but I have,
+and I couldn&#8217;t stand her anger and her contempt. I&#8217;d be put
+into Punishment Land for a year. And as one day has very
+nearly killed me, what would a year of it do? If there
+is any fear of what you wish for, I&#8217;d best go back at once.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! and lose the trout, and the game pie, and the
+steak and onions, and the fried potatoes, and the apple
+turnovers, and the plum puffs, to say nothing of the most
+delicious lollypops you have ever tasted in your life? And
+afterwards fireworks; for Jack and Tom have bought a lot
+of Catherine-wheels and rockets to let off in your honor.
+And then a cosy, warm hug in my bed, with Amy and
+Becky telling ghost stories in the bed opposite. You don&#8217;t
+mean to tell me you&#8217;d rather have your lonely room and
+starvation than a program of that sort?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no. Of course I&#8217;ll go on with you. I&#8217;ve done it
+now, so I&#8217;ll stick to it. Oh, I&#8217;m madly hungry! I hope
+you&#8217;ll have supper the moment we get in.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Supper will be delayed as short a time as possible. It
+rather depends upon the boys and when they bring the trout
+home. But here is a queen cake. I stuffed it into my
+pocket for you. Eat it as we go along.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So Pauline ate it and felt better. Her courage returned.
+She no longer thought of going back. Had she done so, she
+knew well that she would not sleep. People never slept well
+if they were hungry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; she said to herself; &#8220;I will go on with it now.
+I&#8217;ll just trust to my good luck, and I&#8217;ll enjoy the time with
+Nancy. For, after all, she&#8217;s twice as kind as Aunt Sophia.
+Why should I make myself miserable on account of a woman
+who is not my mother?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The Hollies was a very snug, old-fashioned sort of farm.
+It had been in the King family for generations, and Mr.
+Josiah King was a very fine specimen of the British farmer.
+He was a big man with a red face, bushy whiskers, grizzled
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span>
+hair, and a loud laugh. The expression of his broad, square
+face was somewhat fierce, and the servants at the farm
+were afraid to anger him. He was a just enough master,
+however, and was always served well by his people. To
+only one person was he completely mild and gentle, and
+that person, it is needless to say, was his daughter Nancy.
+Nancy was his only child. Her mother was dead, and from
+her earliest days she had been able to twist her father
+round her little finger. He sent her to a smart boarding
+school, and no money was spared in order to give her pleasure.
+It was the dream of Farmer King, and Nancy&#8217;s dearest
+ambition also, that she should be turned into a lady. But,
+alas and alack! Miss Nancy could not overcome the stout
+yeoman blood in her veins. She was no aristocrat, and
+nothing could make her one. She was just a hearty, healthy
+happy-minded English girl; vulgar in voice and loud in
+speech, but fairly well-intentioned at heart. She was the
+sort of farmer&#8217;s daughter who would marry a farmer, and
+look after the dairy, and rear stalwart sons and hearty
+girls in her turn. Nature never intended her for a fine lady;
+but silly Nancy had learnt a great deal more at school than
+how to talk a little French very badly and how to recite
+a poem with false action and sentiment. She had learnt to
+esteem the world for the world&#8217;s own sake, and had become
+a little ashamed of the farmer and the farmer&#8217;s ways;
+and, finally, when she returned from school she insisted on
+the best parlor being turned into a sort of drawing-room,
+on her friends being regaled with late dinners, and on herself
+being provided with servants, so that she need not touch
+household work. She was playing, therefore, the game
+of being a lady, and was failing as she played it. She knew
+that she was failing, and this knowledge made her feel very
+cross. She tried hard to stifle it, and clung more than ever
+to her acquaintanceship with the Dale girls.
+</p>
+<p>In her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she would very
+much like to milk the cows, and superintend the dairy, and
+churn the butter. In her heart of hearts she would have
+adored getting up early in the morning and searching for
+the warm, pink eggs, and riding barebacked over the farm
+with her father, consulting him on the tilling of the land
+and the best way to make the old place profitable; for one
+day it would be her own, and she would be, for her class in
+life, a rich girl. Just at present, however, she was passing
+through a phase, and not a very pleasant one. She thought
+herself quite good enough to go into any society; and fine
+dress, loud-voiced friends, and the hollow, empty nothings
+which she and her acquaintances called conversation seemed
+the best things possible that could come into life. She was,
+therefore, not at all in the mood to give up her friendship
+with the Dale girls.
+</p>
+<p>Now, there never was a girl less likely to please Miss
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span>
+Tredgold than this vulgarly dressed, loud-voiced, and unlady-like
+girl. Nancy was desired to abstain from visiting
+at The Dales, and the Dale girls were told that they were
+not to talk to Nancy. Nancy&#8217;s rapture, therefore, when she
+was able to bring Pauline to The Hollies could scarcely be
+suppressed.
+</p>
+<p>Amy and Becky Perkins were standing in the old porch
+when the two girls appeared. Nancy called out to her
+friends, and they ran to meet her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is Paulie,&#8221; said Nancy; &#8220;in other words, Pauline
+Dale&mdash;Pauline Dale, the aristocrat. We ought to be proud
+to know her, girls. Pauline, let me introduce my special
+friend, Becky Perkins. She&#8217;s in pork, but that don&#8217;t matter.
+And my other special friend, Amy Perkins; also in
+pork, but at your service. Girls, you didn&#8217;t happen to notice
+if supper was being put on the table, did you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should think we did,&#8221; said Becky. &#8220;I smelt fish. The
+boys brought in a lot of trout. I&#8217;m as hungry as hungry can
+be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s run upstairs first,&#8221; said Nancy, turning to Pauline.
+&#8220;You&#8217;d like to take off your hat and wash your hands,
+wouldn&#8217;t you, my fine friend of aristocratic circles?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish you wouldn&#8217;t talk like that, Nancy,&#8221; said Pauline,
+flushing angrily, while the two Perkins girls looked at her
+with admiration.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, I won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Nancy; &#8220;but I&#8217;m always one
+for my joke. I meant no harm. And you know you are
+aristocratic, Paulie, and nothing will ever take it out of you.
+And I&#8217;m terribly afraid that nothing will take the other
+thing out of me. I only talk to you like this because I&#8217;m so
+jealous. So now come along and let&#8217;s be friends.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The two girls scampered up the old oak stairs. They ran
+down an uneven passage, and reached a door of black oak,
+which was opened with an old-fashioned latch. At the
+other side of the door they found themselves in a long
+and very low room, with a black oak floor and black oak
+walls. The floor of the room was extremely uneven, being
+up in one part and down in another, and the whole appearance
+of the room, although fascinating, was decidedly
+patchy. In an alcove at one end stood a four-post bedstead,
+with a gaudily colored quilt flung over it; and in the alcove
+at the other end was another four-post bedstead, also
+boasting of a colored quilt. There were two washstands in
+the room, and one dressing-table. The whole place was
+scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean, for the white dimity
+curtains rivalled the snow in winter, and the deal washstands
+and the deal dressing-table were as white as the
+scrubbing of honest hands could make them. The whole
+room smelt of a curious mixture of turpentine, soap, and
+fresh flowers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had the lavender sheets put on the bed for you and
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span>
+me,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;They are of the finest linen. My mother
+spun them herself, and she put them in lavender years and
+years ago. I am heartily glad to welcome you, little Paulie.
+This is the very first time you have ever slept under our
+humble roof. So kiss me, dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How snug and sweet it all is!&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I am
+glad that I came.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is better than lying down hungry in your own little
+room,&#8221; said Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, much better!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline skipped about. Her high spirits had returned;
+she was charmed with the room in which she was to repose.
+Through the lattice window the sweetest summer air was
+entering, and roses peeped all round the frame, and their
+sweet scent added to the charm of the old-fashioned
+chamber.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope you won&#8217;t mind having supper in the kitchen,&#8221;
+said Nancy. &#8220;I know it&#8217;s what a Dale is not expected to
+submit to; but, nevertheless, in Rome we do as the Romans
+do&mdash;don&#8217;t we?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; but I wish you wouldn&#8217;t talk like that, Nancy.
+As if I cared. Whether I am a lady or not, I am never too
+fine for my company; and it was when Aunt Sophia wanted
+us to give you up that I really got mad with her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a darling and a duck, and I love you like anything,&#8221;
+said Nancy. &#8220;Now come downstairs. We are all
+hungry, and the boys are mad to be at the fireworks.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have never seen fireworks in my life,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You poor little innocent! What a lot the world has to
+show you! Now then, come along.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline, deprived of her hideous hat, looked pretty and
+refined in her white dress. She made a contrast to the
+showy Nancy and the Perkins girls. The boys, Jack and
+Tom Watson, looked at her with admiration, and Jack put
+a seat for Pauline between himself and his brother.
+</p>
+<p>The farmer nodded to her, and said in his bluff voice:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Glad to welcome you under my humble roof, Miss Pauline
+Dale. &#8217;Eartily welcome you be. Now then, young folks,
+fall to.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The meal proceeded to the accompaniment of loud jokes,
+gay laughter, and hearty talking. The farmer&#8217;s voice topped
+the others. Each remark called forth fresh shouts of
+laughter; and when a number of dogs rushed in in the middle
+of supper, the din almost rose to an uproar.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline enjoyed it all very much. She laughed with the
+others; her cheeks grew rosy. Nancy piled her plate with
+every available dainty. Soon her hunger left her, and she
+believed that she was intensely happy.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<h3>THE BURNT ARM.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>After supper the excitement waxed fast and furious.
+The boys, aided by the farmer and one of his men, proceeded
+to send off the fireworks. This was done on a little
+plateau of smoothly cut lawn just in front of the best sitting-room
+windows. The girls pressed their faces against
+the glass, and for a time were satisfied with this way of
+looking at the fun. But soon Nancy could bear it no
+longer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is stupid to be mewed up in the close air,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;Let&#8217;s go out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>No sooner had she given utterance to the words than all
+four girls were helping the boys to let off the squibs, Catherine-wheels,
+rockets, and other fireworks. Pauline now
+became nearly mad with delight. Her shouts were the loudest
+of any. When the rockets went high into the air and
+burst into a thousand stars, she did not believe that the
+world itself could contain a more lovely sight. But presently
+her happiness came to a rude conclusion, for a bit
+of burning squib struck her arm, causing her fine muslin
+dress to catch fire, and the little girl&#8217;s arm was somewhat
+severely hurt. She put out the fire at once, and determined
+to hide the fact that she was rather badly burnt.
+</p>
+<p>By-and-by they all returned to the house. Nancy sat
+down to the piano and began to sing some of her most rollicking
+songs. Then she played dance music, and the boys
+and girls danced with all their might. Pauline, however,
+had never learned to dance. She stood silent, watching the
+others. Her high spirits had gone down to zero. She now
+began to wish that she had never come. She wondered if
+she could possibly get home again without being discovered.
+At last Nancy noticed her grave looks.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are tired, Paulie,&#8221; she said; &#8220;and for that matter,
+so are we. I say, it&#8217;s full time for bed. Good-night, boys.
+Put out the lamps when you are tired of amusing yourselves.
+Dad has shut up the house already. Come, Paulie;
+come, Amy; come, Becky.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The four girls ran upstairs, but as they were going down
+the passage which led to their pretty bedroom, Pauline&#8217;s
+pain was so great that she stumbled against Becky and
+nearly fell.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; said Becky. &#8220;Are you faint?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She put her arm around the little girl and helped her into
+the bedroom.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever can be wrong?&#8221; she said. &#8220;You seemed so
+lively out in the open air.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you do look bad, Paulie!&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;It is that
+terrible fasting you went through to-day. My dear girls,
+what do you think? This poor little aristocrat, far and
+away too good to talk to the likes of us&#8221;&mdash;here Nancy put
+her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh
+at the prostrate Pauline&mdash;&#8220;far too grand, girls&mdash;fact, I assure
+you&mdash;was kept without her food until I gave her a
+bit of bread and a sup of water at supper. All these things
+are owing to an aunt&mdash;one of the tip-top of the nobility.
+This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor internal
+arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the
+poor child into a place she calls Punishment Land, and kept
+her without food.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That isn&#8217;t true,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I could have had
+plenty to eat if I had liked.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That means that if you were destitute of one little
+spark of spirit you&#8217;d have crawled back to the house to take
+your broken food on a cold plate like a dog. But what is
+the matter now? Hungry again?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; it is my arm. Please don&#8217;t touch it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do look!&#8221; cried Amy Perkins. &#8220;Oh, Nancy, she has got
+an awful burn! There&#8217;s quite a hole through the sleeve of
+her dress. Oh, do see this great blister!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was a bit of one of the squibs,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;It lit
+right on my arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don&#8217;t
+suppose it&#8217;s much hurt, only I feel a little faint.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dear, dear!&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;What is to be done now? I
+don&#8217;t know a thing about burns, or about any sort of illness.
+Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps she can tell us
+something.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s put on a bandage,&#8221; said one of the other girls.
+&#8220;Then when you lie down in bed, Pauline, you will drop
+asleep and be all right in the morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep
+into bed. Her arm was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless
+it felt slightly more comfortable. Presently she
+dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that doze she awoke
+soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her
+side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming
+from the other end of the long room, and to observe
+also that there was not a chink of light anywhere; and,
+finally, to be all too terribly conscious of a great burning pain
+in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor Pauline&#8217;s
+slumbering conscience.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why did I come?&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I am a
+wretched, most miserable girl. And how am I ever to get
+back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree with this bad
+arm. Oh, how it does hurt me! I feel so sick and faint I
+scarcely care what happens.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline stretched out her uninjured arm and touched
+Nancy.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Oh, dear! I&#8217;d forgotten.
+It&#8217;s you, Paulie. How is your arm, my little dear? Any
+better?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It hurts me very badly indeed; but never mind about
+that now. How am I to get home?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll manage that. Betty, our dairymaid, is to throw
+gravel up at the window at four o&#8217;clock. You shall have a
+cup of tea before you start, and I will walk with you as far
+as the wicket-gate.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, thank you! But how am I to get into my room
+when I do arrive at The Dales? I don&#8217;t believe I shall be
+able to use this arm at all.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you will,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;You will be miles
+better when cook has looked to it. I know she&#8217;s grand about
+burns, and has a famous ointment she uses for the purpose.
+Only, for goodness&#8217; sake, Paulie, don&#8217;t let that burn in the
+sleeve of your dress be seen; that would lead to consequences,
+and I don&#8217;t want my midnight picnic to be spoilt.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t seem to care about that or anything else any
+more.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What nonsense! You don&#8217;t suppose I should like this
+little escapade of yours and mine to be known. You must
+take care. Why, you know, there&#8217;s father. He&#8217;s very crotchety
+over some things. He likes all of you, but over and
+over again he has said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I&#8217;m as proud of being an honest farmer as I should be
+to be a lord. My grandfather paid his way, and my father
+paid his way, and I am paying my way. There&#8217;s no nonsense
+about me, and I shall leave you, Nancy, a tidy fortune.
+You like those young ladies at The Dales, and you shall
+have them come here if they wish to come, but not otherwise.
+I won&#8217;t have them here thinking themselves too
+grand to talk to us. Let them keep to their own station, say
+I. I don&#8217;t want them.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you see, Paulie, what that means. If father found
+out that your aunt had written to me and desired me to
+have nothing further to do with you, I believe he&#8217;d pack me
+out of the country to-morrow. I don&#8217;t want to leave my
+home; why should I? So, you see, for my sake you must
+keep it the closest of close secrets.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You should have thought of that before you tempted me
+to come,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is just like you. You come here and enjoy yourself,
+and have a great hearty meal, and when you are likely
+to get into a scrape you throw the blame on me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can understand that I am very miserable, Nancy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; and I&#8217;m as sorry as I can be about that burn; but
+if you&#8217;ll be brave and plucky now, I&#8217;ll help you all I can.
+We&#8217;ll get up as soon as ever the day dawns, and cook shall
+put your arm straight.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Nancy uttered the last words her voice dwindled to
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span>
+a whisper, and a minute later she was again sound asleep.
+But Pauline could not sleep. Her pain was too great. The
+summer light stole in by degrees, and by-and-by the sharp
+noise made by a shower of gravel was heard on the window.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline sprang into a sitting posture, and Nancy rubbed
+her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m dead with sleep,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I could almost wish I
+hadn&#8217;t brought you. Not but that I&#8217;m fond of you, as I
+think I&#8217;ve proved. We haven&#8217;t yet made all our arrangements
+about the midnight picnic, but I have the most daring
+scheme in my head. You are every single one of you&mdash;bar
+Penelope, whom I can&#8217;t bear&mdash;to come to that picnic. I&#8217;ll
+make my final plans to-day, and I&#8217;ll walk in the Forest to-morrow
+at six o&#8217;clock, just outside your wicket-gate. You
+will meet me, won&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;&mdash; Oh! by the way, Nancy, please give me back
+that beautiful thimble. I&#8217;m so glad I remembered it! It
+belongs to Aunt Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t,&#8221; said Nancy, coloring, &#8220;I lent it to Becky, and I
+don&#8217;t know where she has put it. I&#8217;ll bring it with me to-morrow,
+so don&#8217;t fuss. Now jump up, Paulie; we have no
+time to lose.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly Pauline got up, dressed herself&mdash;very awkwardly,
+it is true&mdash;and went downstairs, leaning on Nancy&#8217;s
+sympathetic arm. Nancy consulted the cook, who was good-natured
+and red-faced.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have got a bad burn, miss,&#8221; she said when she had
+examined Pauline&#8217;s arm; &#8220;but I have got a famous plaster
+that heals up burns like anything. I&#8217;ll make your arm quite
+comfortable in a twinkling, miss.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>This she proceeded to do, and before the treatment had
+been applied for half an hour a good deal of Pauline&#8217;s acute
+pain had vanished.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel better,&#8221; she said, turning to Nancy. &#8220;I feel
+stronger and braver.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will feel still braver when you have had your cup
+of tea. And here&#8217;s a nice hunch of cake. Put it into your
+pocket if you can&#8217;t eat it now. We had best be going; the
+farm people may be about, and there&#8217;s no saying&mdash;it&#8217;s wonderful
+how secrets get into the air.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked startled. She again took Nancy&#8217;s hand,
+and they left the house together.
+</p>
+<p>Now, it so happened that the the morning was by no
+means as fine as those lovely mornings that had preceded it.
+There was quite a cold wind blowing, and the sky was laden
+with clouds.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll have rain to-day,&#8221; said Nancy; &#8220;rain, and perhaps
+thunder. I feel thunder in the air, and I never was
+mistaken yet. We must be quick, or we&#8217;ll both be drenched
+to the skin.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly the two walked quickly through the Forest
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span>
+path. But before they reached the wicket-gate the first
+mutterings of thunder were audible, and heavy drops of
+rain were falling.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must leave you now, Paulie,&#8221; said Nancy, &#8220;for if I go
+any farther I&#8217;ll be drenched to the skin. Climb up your
+tree, get into your bedroom, and go to bed. If you can
+manage to send that white dress over to me, I will put on a
+patch that even your aunt will not see. Put on another
+dress, of course, this morning, and say nothing about the
+burn. Good-bye, and good luck! I&#8217;ll be over about six
+o&#8217;clock to-morrow evening to talk over our midnight picnic.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And the thimble,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;You won&#8217;t forget the
+thimble.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not I. Good gracious, what a flash! You had best get
+home at once; and I must run for my life or I may be struck
+down under all these trees.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline stood still for a minute, watching Nancy as she
+disappeared from view; then slowly and sadly she went up
+to the house.
+</p>
+<p>She was too tired and depressed to mind very much that
+the rain was falling in showers, soaking her thin white
+muslin dress, and chilling her already tired and exhausted
+little frame. The rattle of the thunder, the bright flash of
+the lightning, and the heavy fall of the tempest could not
+reach the graver trouble which filled her heart. The way
+of transgressors had proved itself very hard for poor Pauline.
+She disliked the discomfort and misery she was enduring;
+but even now she was scarcely sorry that she had
+defied and disobeyed Aunt Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>After a great deal of difficulty, and with some injury to
+her already injured arm, she managed to climb the beech-tree
+and so reach the gabled roof just under her attic window.
+She pushed the window wide open and got inside.
+How dear and sweet and fresh the little chamber appeared!
+How innocent and good was that little white bed, with its
+sheets still smoothly folded down! It took Pauline scarcely
+a minute to get into her night-dress, sweep her offending
+white dress into a neighboring cupboard, unlock the door,
+and put her head on her pillow. Oh, there was no place
+like home! It was better to be hungry at home, it was
+better to be in punishment at home, than to go away to
+however grand a place and however luxuriant a feast.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And Nancy&#8217;s home isn&#8217;t grand,&#8221; thought Pauline. &#8220;And
+the food was rough. Aunt Sophia would even call it coarse.
+But, oh, I was hungry! And if I hadn&#8217;t been so naughty I&#8217;d
+have been very happy. All the same,&#8221; she continued, thinking
+aloud, as was her fashion. &#8220;I won&#8217;t go to that midnight
+picnic; and Renny must not go either. Of course, I can&#8217;t
+tell Aunt Sophia what I did last night. I promised Nancy
+I wouldn&#8217;t tell, and it wouldn&#8217;t be fair; but see if I do anything
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span>
+wrong again! I&#8217;ll work like a Briton at my lessons
+to-day. Oh, how badly my arm hurts! And what an awful
+noise the storm is making! The thunder rattles as though
+it would come through the roof. My arm does ache! Oh,
+what lightning! I think I&#8217;ll put my head under the sheet.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did so, and notwithstanding the tempest, she had
+scarcely got down into the real warmth of her bed before
+sleep visited her.
+</p>
+<p>When she awoke the storm was over, the sun was shining,
+and Verena was standing at the foot of her bed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do get up, Paulie,&#8221; she said. &#8220;How soundly you have
+slept! And your face is so flushed! And, oh, aren&#8217;t you
+just starving? We only discovered last night that you
+hadn&#8217;t touched any of your food.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m all right,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will try to be good to-day, won&#8217;t you, Paulie? You
+don&#8217;t know how miserable I was without you, for you are
+my own special most darling chum. You will try, won&#8217;t
+you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I will try, of course,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Truly&mdash;truly,
+I will try.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<h3>CHANGED LIVES.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>After the mental storm of the day before, Pauline would
+never forget the peace of the day that followed. For Miss
+Tredgold, having punished, and the hours of punishment
+being over, said nothing further to signify her displeasure.
+She received Pauline kindly when she appeared in the
+schoolroom. She took her hand and drew the little girl
+toward her. It was with a great effort that the poor girl
+could suppress the shriek that nearly rose to her lips as the
+unconscious Miss Tredgold touched her burnt arm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We will forget about yesterday, Pauline,&#8221; said her aunt.
+&#8220;We will go back to work this morning just as though there
+never had been any yesterday. Do you understand?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think so,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you happen to know your lessons?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid I don&#8217;t.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, my dear, as this is practically your first transgression,
+I am the last person to be over-hard. You can
+listen to your sisters this morning. At preparation to-day
+you will doubtless do your best. Now go to your seat.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline sat between Briar and Adelaide. Adelaide nestled
+up close to her, and Briar took the first opportunity to
+whisper:
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I am so glad you are back again, dear old Pauline! We
+had a horrid time without you yesterday.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They none of them know what I did,&#8221; thought Pauline;
+&#8220;and, of course, I meant to tell them. Not Aunt Sophia, but
+the girls. Yes, I meant to confide in the girls; but the atmosphere
+of peace is so nice that I do not care to disturb
+it. I will put off saying anything for the present. It certainly
+is delightful to feel good again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Lessons went on tranquilly. The girls had a time of delightful
+rest afterwards in the garden, and immediately
+after early dinner there came a surprise. Miss Tredgold said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear girls, there are several things you ought to
+learn besides mere book knowledge. I propose that you
+should be young country ladies whom no one will be
+ashamed to know. You must learn to dance properly, and
+to skate properly if there ever is any skating here. If not,
+we will go abroad for the purpose. But while you are in
+the Forest I intend you to have riding lessons and also driving
+lessons. A wagonette will be here at two o&#8217;clock, and
+we will all go for a long and delightful drive through the
+Forest. I am going to some stables about six or seven miles
+away, where I hear I can purchase some good horses and
+also some Forest ponies. Don&#8217;t look so excited, dears. I
+should be ashamed of any nieces of mine brought up in the
+New Forest of England who did not know how to manage
+horses.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, she really is a darling!&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;I never did
+for a single moment suppose that we should have had the
+chance of learning to drive.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And to ride,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>She began to skip about the lawn. Her spirits, naturally
+very high, returned.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel quite happy again,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, of course you are happy,&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;but you
+must never get into Punishment Land again as long as you
+live, Paulie, for I wouldn&#8217;t go through another day like yesterday
+for anything.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The wagonette arrived all in good time. It drew up at
+the front door, and Mr. Dale, attracted by the sound of
+wheels, rose from his accustomed seat in his musty, fusty
+study, and looked out of the window. The window was so
+dusty and dirty that he could not see anything plainly; but,
+true to his determination, he would not open it. A breeze
+might come in and disturb some of his papers. He was
+busy with an enthralling portion of his work just then;
+nevertheless, the smart wagonette and nicely harnessed
+horses, and the gay sound of young voices, attracted him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could almost believe myself back in the days when I
+courted my dearly beloved Alice,&#8221; he whispered to himself.
+&#8220;I do sincerely trust that visitors are not beginning to arrive
+at The Dales; that would be the final straw.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></p>
+<p>The carriage, however, did not stop long at the front door.
+It was presently seen bowling away down the avenue. Mr.
+Dale, who still stood and watched it, observed that it was
+quite packed with bright-looking young girls. Blue ribbons
+streamed on the breeze, and the girls laughed gaily.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am glad those visitors are going,&#8221; thought the good
+man, who did not in the least recognize his own family. &#8220;A
+noisy, vulgar crowd they seemed. I hope my own girls will
+never become like that. Thank goodness they did not stay
+long! Sophia is a person of discernment; she knows that I
+can&#8217;t possibly receive incidental visitors at The Dales.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He returned to his work and soon was lost to all external
+things.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the girls had a lovely and exciting drive.
+Aunt Sophia was in her most agreeable mood. The children
+themselves were quite unaccustomed to carriage exercise.
+It was a wonderful luxury to lean back on the softly cushioned
+seats and dash swiftly under the noble beech-trees
+and the giant oaks of the primeval forest. By-and-by they
+drove up to some white gates. Verena was desired to get
+out and open them. The carriage passed through. She remounted
+into her seat, and a few minutes later they all
+found themselves in a great cobble-stoned yard surrounded
+by stables and coach-houses. The melodious cry of a pack
+of fox-hounds filled the air. The girls were almost beside
+themselves with excitement. Presently a red-faced man
+appeared, and he and Miss Tredgold had a long and mysterious
+talk together. She got out of the wagonette and
+went with the man into the stables. Soon out of the stables
+there issued, led by two grooms, as perfect a pair of Forest
+ponies as were ever seen. They were well groomed and in
+excellent order, and when they arched their necks and pawed
+the ground with their feet, Pauline uttered an irrepressible
+shout.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those ponies are coming to The Dale in a fortnight,&#8221;
+said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Their names are Peas-blossom and
+Lavender.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I believe I&#8217;ll die if much more of this goes on,&#8221; gasped
+Briar. &#8220;I&#8217;m too happy. I can&#8217;t stand anything further.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush, Briar!&#8221; said Verena, almost giving her sister a
+shake in her excitement, and yet at the same time trying to
+appear calm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, my dear children, we will go home,&#8221; said their
+aunt. &#8220;The wagonette will come any day that I send for it,
+and Mr. Judson informs me he hopes by-and-by to have a
+pair of carriage horses that I may think it worth while to
+purchase.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t these good enough?&#8221; asked Verena, as they drove
+back to The Dales.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They are very fair horses, but I don&#8217;t care to buy them.
+Judson knows just the sort I want. I am pleased with the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span>
+ponies, however. They will give you all a great deal of
+amusement. To-morrow we must go to Southampton and
+order your habits.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder I <i>ever</i> thought her cross and nasty and disagreeable,&#8221;
+thought Pauline. &#8220;I wonder I ever could hate
+her. I hope she&#8217;ll let me ride Peas-blossom. I liked his
+bright eyes so much. I never rode anything in my life, but
+I feel I could ride barebacked on Peas-blossom. I love him
+already. Oh, dear! I don&#8217;t hate Aunt Sophia now. On the
+contrary, I feel rather bad when I look at her. If she ever
+knows what I did yesterday, will she forgive me? I suppose
+I ought to tell her; but I can&#8217;t. It would get poor Nancy
+into trouble. Besides&mdash;I may as well be frank with myself&mdash;I
+should not have the courage.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As soon as the girls got home Penelope ran up to Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You stayed for a long time in the shrubbery yesterday,
+didn&#8217;t you, Pauline?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You didn&#8217;t by any chance find Aunt Sophy&#8217;s thimble?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I! Why should I?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt herself turning red. Penelope fixed her exceedingly
+sharp eyes on her sister&#8217;s face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You did find it; you know you did. Where is it? Give
+it to me. I want my penny. Think of all the fun you are
+going to have. She doesn&#8217;t mean me to ride, &#8217;cos I asked
+her. I must have my penny. Give me the thimble at
+once, Paulie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t got it. Don&#8217;t talk nonsense, child. Let me go.
+Oh! you have hurt me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline could not suppress a short scream, and the next
+minute she felt herself turning very faint and sick, for
+Penelope had laid her exceedingly hard little hand on Pauline&#8217;s
+burnt arm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Paulie? I know you are not well,&#8221; said
+Verena, running up.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is &#8217;cos of her bad conscience,&#8221; said Penelope, turning
+away with a snort of indignation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Really,&#8221; said Verena, as Pauline leaned against her and
+tried hard to repress the shivers of pain that ran through
+her frame, &#8220;Penelope gets worse and worse. Only that I
+hate telling tales out of school, I should ask Aunt Sophia to
+send her back to the nursery for at least another year. But
+what is it, Paulie dear? You look quite ill.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel rather bad. I have hurt my arm. You must not
+ask me how, Renny. You must trust me. Oh dear! I must
+tell you what has happened, for you will have to help me.
+Oh, Renny, I am in such pain!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Poor Pauline burst into a torrent of tears. Where was
+her happiness of an hour ago? Where were her rapturous
+thoughts of riding Peas-blossom through the Forest? Her
+arm hurt her terribly; she knew that Penelope was quite
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span>
+capable of making mischief, she was terrified about the
+thimble. Altogether her brief interval of sunshine was
+completely blotted out.
+</p>
+<p>Verena, for her years, was a wonderfully wise girl. She
+had since her mother&#8217;s death been more or less a little
+mother to the younger children. It is true, she had looked
+after them in a somewhat rough-and-ready style; but nevertheless
+she was a sympathetic and affectionate girl, and
+they all clung to her. Now it seemed only natural that
+Pauline should lean on her and confide her troubles to her.
+Accordingly Verena led her sister to a rustic seat and said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sit down near me and tell me everything.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is this,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I have burned my arm badly,
+and Aunt Sophia must not know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have burnt your arm? How?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I would rather not tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why should you conceal it, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d rather conceal it; please don&#8217;t ask me. All I want
+you to do is to ask me no questions, but to help me to get
+my arm well; the pain is almost past bearing. But, Renny,
+whatever happens, Aunt Sophia must not know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are fearfully mysterious,&#8221; said Verena, who looked
+much alarmed. &#8220;You used not to be like this, Paulie. You
+were always very open, and you and I shared every thought
+Well, come into the house. Of course, whatever happens,
+I will help you; but I think you ought to tell me the whole
+truth.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t, so there! If you are to be a real, real sister to
+me, you will help me without asking questions.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls entered the house and ran up to Pauline&#8217;s bedroom.
+There the injured arm was exposed to view, and Verena
+was shocked to see the extent of the burn.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to see a doctor. This is very wrong,&#8221; she
+said.
+</p>
+<p>She made Pauline lie down, and dressed her arm as well
+as she could. Verena was quite a skilful little nurse in her
+own way, and as Pauline had some of the wonderful ointment
+which the Kings&#8217; cook had given her, and as Verena
+knew very nicely how to spread it on a piece of rag, the arm
+soon became more comfortable.
+</p>
+<p>Just before dinner Miss Tredgold called all the girls round
+her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have something to say,&#8221; she remarked. &#8220;I want you
+all to go upstairs now; don&#8217;t wait until five minutes before
+dinner. You will each find lying on your bed, ready for
+wearing, a suitable dinner-blouse. Put it on and come downstairs.
+You will wear dinner-dress every night in future,
+in order to accustom you to the manners of good society.
+Now go upstairs, tidy yourselves, and come down looking
+as nice as you can.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls were all very much excited at the thought of
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span>
+the dinner-blouses. They found them, as Aunt Sophia had
+said, each ready to put on, on their little beds. Verena&#8217;s
+was palest blue, trimmed daintily with a lot of fluffy lace.
+The sleeves were elbow-sleeves, and had ruffles round them.
+The blouse in itself was quite a girlish one, and suited its
+fair wearer to perfection. Pauline&#8217;s blouse was cream-color;
+it also had elbow-sleeves, and was very slightly open
+at the neck.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do be quick, Paulie,&#8221; called out Briar. &#8220;I have got a
+sweet, darling, angel of a pink blouse. Get into yours, and
+I&#8217;ll get into mine. Oh, what tremendous fun this is!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar ran whooping and singing down the corridor. She
+was met by nurse with baby in her arms.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Miss Rose, what&#8217;s up?&#8221; said the good woman.
+&#8220;You do look happy, to be sure. You don&#8217;t seem to miss
+the old days much.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course I don&#8217;t, nursey. I&#8217;m twice as happy as I used
+to be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Twice as happy with all them lessons to learn?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; twice as happy, and twice as good. She doesn&#8217;t
+scold us when we&#8217;re good. In fact, she&#8217;s just uncommonly
+nice. And to-night she says she&#8217;ll play and sing to us; and
+it&#8217;s so delicious to listen to her! Dad comes out of his
+study just as if she drew him by magic. And I like to learn
+things. I won&#8217;t be a horrid pig of an ignorant girl any more.
+You will have to respect me in the future, nursey. And
+there&#8217;s a darling little blouse lying on my bed&mdash;pink, like
+the leaf of a rose. I am to wear it to-night. I expect Aunt
+Sophia chose it because I&#8217;m like a rose myself. I shall look
+nice, shan&#8217;t I, nursey?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all very well,&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;And for my part I
+don&#8217;t object to civilized ways, and bringing you up like
+young ladies; but as to Miss Pen, she&#8217;s just past bearing.
+New ways don&#8217;t suit her&mdash;no, that they don&#8217;t. She ain&#8217;t
+come in yet&mdash;not a bit of her. Oh! there she is, marching
+down the corridor as if all the world belonged to her.
+What have you done to yourself, Miss Pen? A nice mess
+you are in!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought I&#8217;d collect some fresh eggs for your tea, nursey,&#8221;
+said the incorrigible child; &#8220;and I had three or four
+in my pinafore when I dropped them. I am a bit messy,
+I know; but you don&#8217;t mind, do you, nursey?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Indeed, then, I do. Just go straight to the nursery and
+get washed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope glanced at Briar with a wry face, and ran
+away singing out in a shrill voice:
+</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0em;'>&#8220;Cross patch, draw the latch,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0em;'>Sit by the fire and spin.&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>She disappeared like a flash, and nurse followed her,
+murmuring angrily.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span></p>
+<p>Briar ran into her bedroom. This room she shared with
+Patty and Adelaide. They also were wildly delighted with
+their beautiful blouses, and had not begun to dress when
+Briar appeared.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, isn&#8217;t it all jolly?&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;Oh, Patty, what
+a duck yours is!&mdash;white. And Adelaide&#8217;s is white, too. But
+don&#8217;t you love mine? I must be a very pretty girl to cause
+Aunt Sophia to choose such a lovely shade of rose. I wonder
+if I am really a pretty girl. Do stand out of the way;
+I want to stare at myself in the glass.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar ran to the dressing-table. There she pushed the
+glass into such an angle that she could gaze contentedly at
+her features. She saw a small, rather round face, cheeks
+a little flushed, eyes very dark and bright, quantities of
+bright brown curling hair, dark pencilled eyebrows, a little
+nose, and a small pink mouth.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a charming girl, Briar Dale,&#8221; she said, &#8220;worthy
+of a rose-pink blouse. Patty, don&#8217;t you just love yourself
+awfully?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;I suppose every one does.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Bible says it is very wrong to love yourself,&#8221; said
+Adelaide. &#8220;You ought to love other people and hate yourself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I am made the contrary,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;I hate
+other people and love myself. Who wouldn&#8217;t love a darling
+little face like mine? Oh, I am just a duck! Help me into
+my new blouse, Patty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The three girls, each with the help of the other, managed
+to array themselves even to Briar&#8217;s satisfaction. She
+was the neatest and also the vainest of the Dales. When
+she reached the outside corridor she met Verena, looking
+sweet, gentle, and charming in her pale-blue blouse. They
+all ran down to the drawing-room, where Miss Tredgold
+was waiting to receive them. She wore the old black lace
+dress, which suited her faded charms to perfection. She
+was standing by the open French window, and turned as
+her nieces came in. The girls expected her to make some
+remark with regard to their appearance, but the only thing
+she said was to ask them to observe the exquisite sunset.
+</p>
+<p>Presently Pauline appeared. She looked pale. There
+were black shadows under her eyes, and she was wearing
+a dirty white shirt decidedly the worse for wear. The other
+girls looked at her in astonishment. Verena gave her a
+quick glance of pain. Verena understood; the others were
+simply amazed. Miss Tredgold flashed one glance at her,
+and did not look again in her direction.
+</p>
+<p>Dinner was announced in quite the orthodox fashion, and
+the young people went into the dining-room. Mr. Dale was
+present. He was wearing quite a decent evening suit.
+He had not the faintest idea that he was not still in the old
+suit that had lain by unused and neglected for so many long
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span>
+years. He had not the most remote conception that Miss
+Tredgold had taken that suit and sent it to a tailor in London
+and desired him to make by its measurements a new
+suit according to the existing vogue. Mr. Dale put on the
+new suit when it came, and imagined that it was the old
+one. But, scholar as he was, he was learning to appreciate
+the excellent meals Miss Tredgold provided for him. On
+this occasion he was so human as to find fault with a certain
+entrée.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This curry is not hot enough,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I like spicy
+things; don&#8217;t you, Sophia?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold thought this an enormous sign of mental
+improvement. She had already spoken to cook on the subject
+of Mr. Dale&#8217;s tastes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, drat him!&#8221; was Betty&#8217;s somewhat indignant answer.
+&#8220;In the old days he didn&#8217;t know sprats from salmon,
+nor butter from lard. Whatever have you done to him,
+ma&#8217;am?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am bringing him back to humanity,&#8221; was Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+quiet answer.
+</p>
+<p>Betty raised her eyebrows. She looked at Miss Tredgold
+and said to herself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So quiet in her ways, so gentle, and for all so determined!
+Looks as though butter wouldn&#8217;t melt in her mouth;
+yet you daren&#8217;t so much as neglect the smallest little sauce
+for the poorest little <i>entrée</i> or you&#8217;d catch it hot. She&#8217;s a
+real haristocrat. It&#8217;s a pleasure to have dealings with her.
+Yes, it&#8217;s a downright pleasure. When I&#8217;m not thinking of
+my favorite &#8217;ero of fiction, the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton,
+I feel that I&#8217;m doing the next best thing when I&#8217;m
+receiving the orders of her ladyship.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Another of cook&#8217;s ideas was that Miss Tredgold was a
+person of title, who chose for the present to disguise the
+fact. She certainly had a marvellous power over the erratic
+Betty, and was turning her into a first-rate cook.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you going to give us some of that exquisite music
+to-night, Sophia?&#8221; asked Mr. Dale when he had finished
+his dinner. He looked languidly at his sister-in-law.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;On one condition I will,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The condition is
+this: you are to accompany my piano on the violin.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale&#8217;s face became pale. He did not speak for a minute;
+then he rose and went nimbly on tiptoe out of the
+room.
+</p>
+<p>There was silence for a short time. The girls and their
+aunt had migrated into the drawing-room. The drawing-room
+looked sweetly pretty with its open windows, its softly
+shaded lamps, its piano wide open, and the graceful figures
+of the girls flitting about. Even Pauline&#8217;s ugly blouse was
+forgotten. There was a sense of mystery in the air. Presently
+in the distance came the sound of a fiddle. It was
+the sound of a fiddle being tuned. The notes were discordant;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span>
+but soon rich, sweeping melodies were heard. They
+came nearer and nearer, and Mr. Dale, still playing his fiddle,
+entered the room. He entered with a sort of dancing
+measure, playing an old minuet as he did so.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold stepped straight to the piano and without
+any music, played an accompaniment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have won,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;I shall send him away for
+change of air; then the study must be cleaned. I shall be
+able to breathe then.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+<h3>NANCY SHOWS HER HAND.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was not until after breakfast on the following morning
+that Miss Tredgold said anything to Pauline about the ugly
+shirt she had chosen to wear on the previous evening.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear,&#8221; she said then, very gently, &#8220;I did not remark
+on your dress last night; but for the future remember that
+when I say a thing is to be done, it is to be done. I had a
+pretty, suitable blouse put into your room for you to appear
+in last night. Why did you wear that ugly torn shirt?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t help myself,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is no reason.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was silent. She looked on the ground. Miss
+Tredgold also was silent for a minute; then she said decisively:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will wear the new blouse to-night. Remember, I
+expect to be obeyed. I will say nothing more now about
+your forgetting my orders last evening. Do better in the
+future and all will be well.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>It was with great difficulty that Pauline could keep the
+tears from her eyes. What was to become of her. She
+did not dare expose her burnt arm; she could not possibly
+wear a blouse with sleeves that reached only to the elbow
+without showing the great burn she had received. If Miss
+Tredgold found out, might she not also find out more? What
+was she to do?
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What am I to do, Verena?&#8221; she said on the afternoon
+of that same day.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean, Paulie? Your arm is better, is it
+not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; it doesn&#8217;t hurt quite so much. But how can I wear
+the new blouse to-night?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Would it not be wiser,&#8221; said Verena, &#8220;if you were to
+tell Aunt Sophy that you have burnt your arm? It is silly
+to make a mystery of it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But she will make me tell her how I did it.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I daren&#8217;t tell her that. I daren&#8217;t even tell you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What am I to think, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Anything you like. You are my own sister, and you
+must not betray me. But she must never know. Can&#8217;t you
+think of something to get me out of this? Oh, dear! what
+is to be done?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena shook her head.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what is to be done,&#8221; she said, &#8220;if you
+haven&#8217;t the courage to speak the truth. You have probably
+got into some scrape.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sure you have, Paulie; and the sooner you tell the
+better. The longer you conceal whatever it is, the worse
+matters will grow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline&#8217;s face grew crimson.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am exceedingly sorry I told you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You are
+not half, nor quarter, as nice a sister as you used to be.
+Don&#8217;t keep me. I am going into the shrubbery to help
+Penelope to look for Aunt Sophy&#8217;s thimble.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena said nothing further, and Pauline went into the
+shrubbery.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I seem to be getting worse,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;Of
+course, I don&#8217;t really want to help Penelope. How should
+I, when I know where the thimble is? There she is, hunting,
+hunting, as usual. What a queer, unpleasant child she
+is growing!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope saw Pauline, and ran up to her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You might tell me everything to-day,&#8221; said the child.
+&#8220;Where did you put it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have come to help you to look for it, Pen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be silly,&#8221; was Penelope&#8217;s answer.
+</p>
+<p>She instantly stood bolt upright.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no use in my fussing any longer,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve gone round and round here, and picked up leaves,
+and looked under all the weeds. There isn&#8217;t a corner I&#8217;ve
+left unpoked into. Where&#8217;s the good of troubling when you
+have it? You know you have it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know nothing of the kind. There! I will tell you the
+simple truth. I have not got the thimble. You may believe
+me as much as you like.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then I&#8217;ll believe just as much as nothing at all. If
+you haven&#8217;t got the thimble, you know where it is. I&#8217;ll give
+you until this time to-morrow to let me have it, and if you
+don&#8217;t I&#8217;ll go straight to Aunt Sophy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Pen, you are talking nonsense. You have no proof
+whatever that I have touched the thimble; and what will
+Aunt Sophia say to a little child who trumps up stories
+about her elder sister?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps she&#8217;ll be very glad,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I have
+often thought that with such a lot of you grown-up girls,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span>
+and all of you so very rampagious and not a bit inclined to
+obey or do your lessons nicely, poor Aunt Sophy, what is
+really a dear old duck of a thing, wants some one like me
+to spy round corners and find out what goes on ahind her
+back. Don&#8217;t you think so? Don&#8217;t you think her&#8217;ll love me
+if I tell her always what goes on ahind of her back?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If she&#8217;s a bit decent she&#8217;ll hate you,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Oh,
+Pen, how were you made? What a queer, queer sort of
+child you are! You haven&#8217;t ideas like the rest of us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe &#8217;cos I&#8217;m nicer,&#8221; said Penelope, not at all impressed
+by Pauline&#8217;s contempt. &#8220;Maybe I shouldn&#8217;t like to
+be made same as all you others are. There is something
+wrong about Aunt Sophy&#8217;s thimble, and if I don&#8217;t get it soon
+I&#8217;ll be &#8217;bliged to tell her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope&#8217;s eyes looked like needles. She walked away.
+Pauline gazed after her; then she went into the house.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That thimble is really a very trifling matter,&#8221; she said
+to herself, &#8220;but even that at the present moment annoys
+me. Nancy has promised to bring it back to me this evening,
+and I will just put it somewhere where Pen is sure to
+find it. Then she&#8217;ll be in raptures; she&#8217;ll have her penny,
+and that matter will be set at rest. Oh, dear! it is almost
+time to go and meet Nancy. She must not keep me long,
+for now that that horrid dressing for dinner has begun, it
+takes quite half an hour to get properly tidy. But what
+am I to do? How can I wear that blouse?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline waited her chance, and slipped out at the wicket-gate
+without even Penelope&#8217;s sharp eyes watching her. She
+found Nancy pacing up and down at the other side. Nancy
+was decidedly cross.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why did you keep me waiting?&#8221; she said. &#8220;It is five
+minutes past six, and I have barely another five minutes
+to stay with you, and there&#8217;s a lot to talk over.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in great luck to be able to come at all, Nancy. I
+didn&#8217;t think I could ever slip away from the others. As to
+the midnight picnic, we must give it up. It is quite impossible
+for me to come. And I know the others won&#8217;t; they&#8217;re
+all getting so fond of Aunt Sophy. What do you think?
+She has given us ponies, and we&#8217;re to have carriage-horses
+presently; and we are obliged to dress for dinner every
+evening.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you are turning aristocratic, and I hate you,&#8221; said
+Nancy, with a toss of the head.
+</p>
+<p>She looked intensely jealous and annoyed. She herself
+was to ride soon, and her habit was already being made.
+She had hoped against hope that Miss Tredgold would be
+impressed by seeing her gallop past in an elegant habit on
+a smart horse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Nancy!&#8221; said Pauline, &#8220;don&#8217;t let us talk about ponies
+and things of that sort now; I am in great, great trouble.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must say I&#8217;m rather glad,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;You know,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span>
+Paulie, you are in some ways perfectly horrid. I did a
+great deal for you the other night, and this is all the thanks
+I get. You won&#8217;t come to the midnight picnic, forsooth!
+And you won&#8217;t have anything more to do with me, forsooth!
+You&#8217;ll ride past me, I suppose, and cut me dead.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall never do anything unkind, for I really do love
+you, Nancy. I have always loved you, but I can&#8217;t get into
+fresh scrapes. They&#8217;re not worth while.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You didn&#8217;t talk like that when you were mad and starving
+the other day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I didn&#8217;t; but I do now. I have been miserable ever
+since I came back; and, oh, my arm has pained me so badly!
+You can imagine what I felt last evening when we were desired
+to wear pretty new blouses with elbow-sleeves; such
+sweet little dears as they all were. Mine was cream-color&mdash;just
+what suits me best&mdash;but of course I couldn&#8217;t appear
+in it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With my burnt arm! How could I, Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy burst out into a roar of laughter.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a lark!&#8221; she cried. &#8220;Well, and what did the poor
+little Miss Misery do?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had to put on an old dirty shirt, the only one I could
+find. Aunt Sophia gave me no end of a lecture this morning.
+She says I am to wear my new blouse to-night or she&#8217;ll
+know the reason why. Of course, I can&#8217;t wear it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then you can&#8217;t have any dinner?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am absolutely beside myself to know what to do,&#8221; said
+Pauline. &#8220;Sometimes I think I&#8217;ll go to bed and pretend I
+have got a headache. Oh, dear, what a bad girl I am turning
+into!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy laughed again.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is sometimes very tiresome to develop a conscience,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;You were a much nicer girl before that grand
+aunt of yours arrived to turn things topsy-turvy. As to the
+midnight picnic, you must come. I have made a bet on
+the subject. Jack and Tom say you won&#8217;t come&mdash;that you
+will be afraid. &#8216;Pauline Dale afraid! That&#8217;s all you know
+about her,&#8217; says I. I have assured them that you will come
+whatever happens, and they have said you won&#8217;t. So the
+end of it is that Tom, Jack, and I have made a bet about it.
+It is ten shillings&#8217; worth either way. If you come, I get
+three beautiful pairs of gloves. If you don&#8217;t come, I give
+the boys ten shillings. Now you see how important it is.
+Why, Paulie, of course you will come! We are going to
+have a right-down jolly time, for father is so tickled with
+the notion that he is coming, too; and he says he will give
+us a real good lark. And we are going to Friar&#8217;s Oak, eight
+miles away; and we are to take hampers full of dainties.
+And Fiddler Joe will come with us to play for us; and
+there&#8217;s a beautiful green-sward just under the beech-trees
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span>
+by Friar&#8217;s Oak, and there we&#8217;ll dance by the full light of
+the moon. Oh, you must come! I told father you were
+coming, and he was awfully pleased&mdash;as pleased as Punch&mdash;and
+he said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;That&#8217;s right, my girl; that&#8217;s right, Nancy. If the Dales
+stick to me through thick and thin, I&#8217;ll stick to them.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know, Pauline, you have always been at our fun
+before; so, aunt or no aunt, you can&#8217;t fail us now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to go beyond anything,&#8221; said Pauline, who felt
+intensely tempted by this description. &#8220;It is so horrible
+to be pulled up short. But I know I can&#8217;t, so there&#8217;s no
+use thinking about it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t answer me now. I&#8217;ll come back again. This
+is Friday night. I&#8217;ll come back on Monday night. The
+picnic is arranged for Wednesday night. Listen, Paulie;
+you will have to change your mind, for if you don&#8217;t&mdash;well!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I don&#8217;t?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can make it very hot for you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll come and have a talk with your aunt. There!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Nancy. What about?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Such an interesting story, darling! All about our fun
+that night when you burnt your arm&mdash;all about our gaiety,
+and the fireworks, and your stealing away as you did, and
+your stealing back as you did. Oh! I shall have a jolly
+story to tell; and I will tell it, too. She&#8217;ll turn me away,
+and tell me she&#8217;ll never see me any more; but what of that?
+She&#8217;s done that already. I will have my fun; you will have
+your punishment. That&#8217;s fair enough, isn&#8217;t it? You don&#8217;t
+desert Nancy King for nothing, remember that, Pauline, so
+you had better say at once that you will come. Now, my
+love, I think that is about all.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy&#8217;s face was very red. She was feeling thoroughly
+angry. Pauline&#8217;s manner annoyed her past description.
+She really imagined herself to be extremely kind and good-natured
+to Pauline, and could not endure the little girl
+taking her present high stand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must be going now,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>She gave Pauline a nod which was scarcely friendly,
+but was, at the same time, very determined, and was about
+to run home, when Pauline called her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t go for a minute, Nancy. There&#8217;s something else.
+Have you brought me back Aunt Sophia&#8217;s thimble?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I have not. I have a story to tell you about that,
+and I was just forgetting it. I do hope and trust you won&#8217;t
+really mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, what is it? You know I am quite likely to get
+into a scrape about that horrid thimble as well as everything
+else. What is the story? The thimble isn&#8217;t yours.
+You surely haven&#8217;t lost it!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing of the kind. You look as though you thought I
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span>
+had stolen it. Mean as I am, I am not quite so bad as
+that. Now let me tell you. Becky, poor old girl! saw it.
+She&#8217;s always mad about finery of any sort, and her people
+are rich as rich. I had the thimble in my pocket, and she
+was snuggling up close to me in her nice, engaging little
+fashion, and she felt the thimble hard against my side,
+much as I felt it when it was in your pocket. In she slipped
+her little bit of a white hand and drew it out. I never saw
+any one so delighted over a toy of the sort in all my life.
+It fitted her little finger just to a nicety.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Why,&#8217; she exclaimed, &#8216;I never, never saw a thimble
+like this before; did you, Nancy?&#8217;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Guess not,&#8217; I answered. &#8216;It&#8217;s a cunning one, isn&#8217;t it?&#8217;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She kept turning it round and round, and looking at
+it, and pressing it up to her cheek, and trying to see her
+own reflection in that wonderful sapphire at the bottom of
+the thimble. Then what do you think happened? I own it
+was a little sharp of her, but of course you can&#8217;t be so
+unfriendly as to mind. She took the precious little toy and
+put it into a dear, most precious little box, and covered it
+over with soft, soft cotton-wool, and placed a sweet little
+lid on the top. Dear me, Pauline! you needn&#8217;t open your
+eyes any wider. And when she had secured the little box,
+she wrapped it in brown paper, and twined it, and sealed
+it, and addressed it to her sister Josephine in London.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then she stole it,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit of it. What a narrow-minded girl you
+are! Just hear my story out. Becky sent the thimble to
+Josephine to their house in Bayswater, with directions that
+Josephine was to take it to their jeweller, Paxton, and ask
+him to make another in all particulars precise ditto the
+same. You understand? Precise ditto the same&mdash;sapphire,
+gold, turquoise, and all. And this beautiful thimble is to be
+worn on the dear little middle finger of Becky&#8217;s dear little
+white hand. When it is faithfully copied you will have
+the original thimble back, my love, but not before. Now,
+then, ta-ta for the present.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy ran off before Pauline had time to reply. She
+felt stunned. What did everything mean? How queer of
+Nancy to have suddenly turned into a perfectly awful girl&mdash;a
+sort of fiend&mdash;a girl who had another girl completely in
+her power; who could, and would if she liked, make that
+other girl wretched; who could and would ruin that other girl&#8217;s
+life. There was a time when the midnight picnic seemed
+the most delightful thing on earth; but it scarcely appeared
+delightful now to poor Pauline, whose head ached, whose
+arm ached, and whose whole body ached. What was she
+to do?
+</p>
+<p>When she re-entered the shrubbery, her unhappy feelings
+were by no means lightened to see that Penelope was waiting
+for her. Penelope stood a little way off, her feet firmly
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span>
+planted a little apart, her straw hat pushed back from
+her sunburned face, her hands dropped straight to her
+sides.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t eavesdrop,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I could have easy. There
+was a blackberry briar, and I could have stole under it and
+not minded the scratches, and I could have heard every
+single word; but I didn&#8217;t, &#8217;cos I&#8217;m not mean. But I saw
+you talking to Nancy, what kind Aunt Sophy says you&#8217;re
+not to talk to. Perhaps, seeing you has done what is
+awful wrong, you&#8217;ll give me a penny instead of Aunt Sophy;
+then I needn&#8217;t tell her that you were talking to Nancy when
+you oughtn&#8217;t, and that I think you have got the thimble.
+Will you give me a penny or will you not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline put her hand into her pocket.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a most detestable child,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Think so if you like,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;Oh, here&#8217;s my
+penny!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She snatched at the penny which was reposing on Pauline&#8217;s
+palm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now I&#8217;ll go straight off and get John to bring me in
+some cookies,&#8221; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+<h3>PAULINE CONFESSES.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Pauline was in such a strait that she made up her mind
+to tell a lie. She had never, so far as she could remember,
+told an actual and premeditated lie before. Now matters
+were so difficult, and there seemed such a certainty of
+there being no other way out, that she resolved to brave the
+consequences and add to her former sin by a desperate,
+downright black lie. Accordingly, just before dinner she
+ran into Verena&#8217;s room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Renny,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I have made up my mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What about?&#8221; asked Verena. &#8220;Why, Pauline, you do
+look bad. Your face is as white as a sheet.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall have to explain,&#8221; continued Pauline. &#8220;I am going
+to tell how I got the burn on my arm.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena gave a great sigh of relief.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am glad,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;It is far better to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I think,&#8221; said Pauline in an airy fashion. &#8220;Give
+me a kiss, Verena; I must dress for dinner, and I haven&#8217;t
+a moment to lose.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will wear your pretty blouse?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline dashed out of the room, banging the door noisily
+after her.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what she means,&#8221; thought Verena. &#8220;She is
+certainly getting rather queer. I am afraid she has a
+terrible secret on her mind. I am glad she means to confess,
+poor darling! I seem to have less influence over her
+than I used to have, and yet I love no one like Paulie.
+She is all the world to me. I love her far better than
+the others.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Pauline, with great difficulty, put on her
+pretty evening-blouse. How she hated those elbow-sleeves!
+How she wished the little soft chiffon frills were longer!
+At another time she would have been delighted with her
+own reflection in the glass, for a cream-colored silk blouse
+suited her. She would have liked to see how well she
+looked in this new and fashionable little garment. She
+would have been pleased, too, with the size and brilliancy
+of her black eyes. She would have admired that flush
+which so seldom visited her sallow cheeks; she would even
+have gazed with approbation at her pearly-white teeth.
+Oh, yes, she would have liked herself. Now she felt that
+she hated herself. She turned from the glass with a
+heavy sigh.
+</p>
+<p>Having finished her toilet, she wrapped a soft muslin
+handkerchief round her wounded arm and ran downstairs.
+Her aunt was already in the drawing-room, but to Pauline&#8217;s
+relief no one else was present. The little girl ran up to
+her aunt, dropped a curtsy, and looked somewhat impertinently
+into her face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here I am,&#8221; she said; &#8220;and how do I look?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have put on your blouse, Pauline. It suits you.
+Turn round and let me see how it fits at the back. Oh!
+quite nicely. I told Miss Judson to make the blouses in a
+simple fashion, so that they could be washed again and
+again. But what is the matter, my dear? Your face is
+very white. And&mdash;why, my dear Pauline, what is wrong
+with your arm?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have something to confess, Aunt Sophy. I hope you
+won&#8217;t be terribly angry.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Something to confess, my dear child? Well, I am glad
+you have the courage to confess when you do wrong. There
+is nothing like owning up one&#8217;s faults, Pauline. There is
+nothing else that really strengthens the soul. Well, I am
+listening, dear. Now, what is it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline slowly unfastened the handkerchief which she
+had bound round her arm, and showed the great burn to
+Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold started, uttered an exclamation, took the
+little arm in her hand, and looked tenderly at the ugly
+place.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My poor little girl,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Do you mean that you
+have been suffering from this all this time? But how in
+the world did it happen?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;That is what I want to confess. I did something extremely
+naughty the day you kept me in Punishment
+Land.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You sent me to bed at seven o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; that was part of the punishment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I didn&#8217;t like it. Oh! here comes Verena. Renny,
+I am confessing my sins.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena ran up, her face full of anxiety. She put her arm
+round Pauline&#8217;s waist.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;See how bad her poor arm is,&#8221; she said, glancing at
+Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, &#8220;it is badly hurt; but don&#8217;t
+interrupt, Verena. I am listening to the story of how
+Pauline burnt her arm.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You sent me to bed at seven o&#8217;clock,&#8221; said Pauline, who,
+now that she had embarked on her narrative, felt emboldened
+and, strange to say, almost enjoyed herself. &#8220;I
+could not possibly sleep at seven o&#8217;clock, you know; so, to
+amuse myself, I tried on my new white dress; and then I
+lit a candle, drew down the blinds, and looked at myself
+in the glass. I was so pleased! I did look nice; I felt
+quite conceited.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t tell me how you felt, Pauline. I want to
+hear facts, not accounts of your feelings. You did wrong
+to put on your white dress, for it had already been fitted
+on by the dressmaker, and it was being carefully kept for
+Sunday wear. But proceed. After you lit the candle and
+drew down the blinds what happened?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A great puff of wind came in through the window, and
+it blew the blind against the candle, and the flame of the
+candle came towards me, and I had my hand up to arrange
+my hair. I was fastening it up with hairpins to make myself
+look quite grown-up.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And the candle caught my sleeve and set it on fire.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold now began to look so pale that Verena
+vaguely wondered if she were going to faint. The little
+culprit, however, stood bolt upright and gazed with defiant
+black eyes at her aunt.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Pauline, &#8220;I suffered awful pain, and the
+sleeve blazed up like anything; but I ran to the basin of
+water and put it out. I was afraid to tell you. I had to
+tell Renny that I had burnt my arm, but I didn&#8217;t tell her
+how it happened, and I wouldn&#8217;t allow her to breathe to
+you that I was in pain. That was the reason I could not
+wear my pretty blouse last night, and you were angry with
+me. I hope you won&#8217;t be angry any more; but the sleeve
+of the dress is burnt badly. Perhaps you won&#8217;t give me
+any birthday present because the sleeve of my new dress
+is so much injured.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I will see about that. The thing is to cure your arm.
+The doctor must come immediately.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it is getting better.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must see the doctor,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>She went out of the room as she spoke. Pauline sank
+into a chair; Verena looked down at her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you told the truth?&#8221; asked Verena suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline nodded with such a savage quickness that it
+made her sister positively certain that she had not heard
+the right story.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold came back in a minute.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have sent for Dr. Moffat,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I hope he will
+be here after dinner. My dear child, why didn&#8217;t you tell
+me before?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you going to forgive me?&#8221; faltered Pauline. &#8220;I&mdash;I
+almost think I&#8217;d rather you didn&#8217;t.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a very queer child, and I may as well tell you
+frankly you are talking nonsense. You did wrong, of course,
+to put on the white dress; but I think, my dear, your sufferings
+have been your punishment. We will say no more
+now about the burnt sleeve. Fortunately I have plenty of
+the same muslin in the house, and the mischief can be
+quickly repaired. Now, dear, lie back in that chair. No;
+you are not to come in to dinner. It shall be sent to you
+here on a tray.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>For the rest of the evening Pauline was so pitied and
+fussed over, and made so thoroughly comfortable, that she
+began to think the black, black lie she had uttered quite
+a good thing.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here am I half out of my scrape,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;Now,
+if I can only persuade Nancy not to force us to go to that
+midnight picnic, and not to tell if we don&#8217;t go, and if I can
+get the thimble back, I shall be once more as happy as the
+day is long. This wicked black lie shall not frighten me.
+There is no other way out. I cannot possibly tell the truth.
+What would Nancy think if I did?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The doctor came. He ordered a healing lotion for the
+arm; he also felt the pulse of the little patient. He declared
+her to be slightly feverish, and ordered her to bed.
+</p>
+<p>Half the next day Pauline stayed in her comfortable bed.
+She was fed with dainties by Aunt Sophia, was not expected
+to learn any lessons, and was given a fascinating story-book
+to wile away the time. During the morning, when she
+was not engaged in the schoolroom, Miss Tredgold stayed
+by the little girl&#8217;s side, and mended the burnt dress,
+cutting out a new sleeve and putting it in with deft, clever
+fingers.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline watched her as one fascinated. As she looked
+and observed the graceful figure, the kindly expression of
+the eyes, and the noble pose of the head, there stole over
+her desolate little heart a warm glow. She began to love
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span>
+Aunt Sophia. When she began to love her she began also
+to hate herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to love her a bit,&#8221; thought the child. &#8220;I
+want quite to detest her. If I love her badly&mdash;and perhaps
+I may&mdash;it will make things that must happen much more
+difficult.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Aunt Sophia left the room. She came back presently
+with a dainty jelly and some home-made biscuits. She put
+an extra pillow at Pauline&#8217;s back, and placed the little tray
+containing the tempting food in front of her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you thinking about, Paulie?&#8221; she asked suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;About how nice you are,&#8221; answered the child; and then
+she added, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want you to be nice.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why so?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because I don&#8217;t. I can&#8217;t tell you more than just I
+don&#8217;t.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold said nothing more. She resumed her
+work, and Pauline ate her jelly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophy,&#8221; she said presently, &#8220;I want to be awfully
+good at my lessons next week. I want to learn real desperate
+hard. I want to turn into a very clever girl. You&#8217;d
+like me to be clever, wouldn&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Provided you are not conceited with it,&#8221; said Aunt
+Sophia in her abrupt way.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps I should be,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I was always
+thought rather smart. I like people to call me smart. You
+don&#8217;t want me to turn stupid because I may get conceited.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, dear; I want you to be natural. I want you to try
+very hard to be learned, to be good, to be a lady. I want
+you to be the sort of woman your mother would have
+wished you to be had she lived. I want you to grow up
+strong in mind and strong in body. I want you to be unselfish.
+I want you to look upon life as a great gift which
+you must not abuse, which you must make use of. I want
+you, Paulie, and your sisters to be the best in every sense
+of that great word. You will fail. We all fail at times; but
+there is forgiveness for each failure if you go to the right
+and only source. Have I said enough?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Pauline in a low voice.
+</p>
+<p>Her conscience was pricking her. She lowered her eyes;
+the long black lashes trembled with tears. Miss Tredgold
+stooped and kissed her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hear Briar in the garden,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I will send her
+up to you. Be as merry as you please with her, and forget
+my words for the present.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline got up in time for late dinner. She was, of
+course, excused wearing her dinner-blouse, and was still
+treated somewhat as an invalid. But on Sunday morning
+she was so much better that she was able to wear her white
+dress, and able also to join her sisters in the garden.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span></p>
+<p>They all went to the pretty little church in the next
+village, and Miss Tredgold accompanied them.
+</p>
+<p>Looking back on it afterwards, that Sunday always seemed
+to Pauline like an exquisite dream of peace. Her lie did
+not press at all against her heart. The discomfort of it
+was for the time in abeyance. She tried to forget Miss
+Tredgold&#8217;s ideal girl; she was happy without knowing why.
+She was happy, but at the same time she was quite well
+aware of the fact that her happiness would come to an end
+on Sunday night. She was quite certain that on Monday
+morning her grave and terrible troubles would begin. She
+would have to see Nancy. She would have to decide with
+regard to the midnight picnic. There was no joy for
+Pauline in the thought of that picnic now, but she dared
+not stay away from it, for if she did Nancy would have her
+way. Nancy&#8217;s temper, quick and hot as a temper could be,
+would blaze up. She would come to Miss Tredgold and
+tell her everything. If it had been awful to Pauline&#8217;s imagination
+to think of Miss Tredgold knowing the truth before,
+what would it be to her now after the lie she had
+told?
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must coax Nancy,&#8221; thought the little girl to herself.
+&#8220;I must tell her that I can&#8217;t go to the picnic, and I must
+implore her not to tell. Oh, what shall I do? How shall I
+persuade her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>On Sunday morning, therefore, notwithstanding her
+promises, Pauline was inattentive at lessons. But Miss
+Tredgold was not inclined to be over-severe. The doctor
+had said that the child had not only been badly burnt, but
+had also received a nervous shock. He had further added
+that the more liberty she was given, and the more fresh air
+just at present, the better.
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly Pauline was sent into the garden long before
+the others had finished their lessons. She presently
+sat down under the shade of a tree. She was not to meet
+Nancy till six o&#8217;clock.
+</p>
+<p>By-and-by Penelope came out, saw her sister, and ran
+towards her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you got the thimble?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course I haven&#8217;t. I don&#8217;t know anything about the
+thimble. What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Alas for Pauline! Her first lie had made her second
+easy.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope looked at her in puzzled wonder.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought you did know about it,&#8221; she said, disappointment
+stealing over her shrewd little face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know anything about it. Don&#8217;t worry me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are so cross that I&#8217;m sure you have done something
+desperate naughty,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I want to find out
+what it is, and I don&#8217;t want to stay with you. I think you
+are horrid.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span></p>
+<p>She marched away defiantly, her squat little figure and
+bare legs looking so comical that Pauline burst out laughing.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What am I coming to?&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;This is
+lie number two. Oh, dear! I feel just as if a net were
+surrounding me, and the net was being drawn tighter each
+moment, and I was being dragged into a pit out of which
+there is no escape. What shall I do?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Just then Mr. Dale, who seldom left the house, appeared
+in view. He was walking slowly, his hands thrust into his
+pockets, his head bent forward; he was murmuring some
+sentences of his beloved Virgil to himself. He took no
+notice of Pauline. He did not even see her. Neither did
+he notice the chair in which she was sitting. He came
+bang up against her before he knew that she was there.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What have I done?&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;Oh, it is you,
+Pauline! How inconsiderate of you to sit like this on the
+lawn!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But we always sit on the chairs, dad,&#8221; said Pauline,
+springing to her feet.
+</p>
+<p>He forgot that he had made the remark. He laid his
+hand on her shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have been having a delightful time,&#8221; he said&mdash;&#8220;truly
+a delightful time. All this morning I have been in contact
+with noble thoughts. My child, can you realize, even dimly,
+what it is to dip into those mines of wealth&mdash;those mines
+of illimitable wisdom and greatness and strength and power?
+Oh, the massiveness of the intellects of the old classic
+writers! Their lofty ideas with regard to time and eternity&mdash;where
+can their like be found?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline yawned.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you tired?&#8221; asked her father.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;only worried,&#8221; she answered.
+</p>
+<p>She did not know why she made the latter remark; but
+at the same time she was perfectly well aware that anything
+she said to her father was safe, as he would absolutely
+forget it in the course of the next minute. He was
+roused now from his visions of the past by a certain pathos
+in the little face. He put his arm round the child and
+drew her to him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear, pretty little girl,&#8221; he said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I pretty?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>He gazed at her out of his short-sighted eyes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think not,&#8221; he said slowly. &#8220;I was imagining you
+were Verena, or perhaps Briar. Briar is certainly very
+pretty. No, Pauline, you are not pretty; you are plain.
+But never mind; you have perhaps got&#8221;&mdash;he put a finger on
+each temple&mdash;&#8220;you have perhaps got something greater.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter if you are plain or not,&#8221; said Pauline
+almost crossly, &#8220;when you are awfully worried.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what worries you, my child? I would not have
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span>
+one so young subjected to worries. My dear, is it possible
+that you already are perplexed with the ways of this present
+life? Truly, I am scarcely surprised. The life we lead in
+these degenerate days is so poor; the giants have left the
+earth, and only the pigmies are left. Don&#8217;t worry about life,
+child; it isn&#8217;t worth while.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not,&#8221; said Pauline bluntly. &#8220;I am worrying because&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because of what, dear?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because I am going to be desperately naughty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale shook his head slowly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It is very uncomfortable and
+wrong, and it sullies the conscience. When the conscience
+gets sullied the nature goes down&mdash;imperceptibly, perhaps,
+but still it goes down. If your worry is an affair
+of the conscience, take it to Him who alone can understand
+you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked at her father with awed astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mean God?&#8221; she said. &#8220;Will He help me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly He will. He is the Great Deliverer, and His
+strength is as immeasurable as it ever was. He gave power
+to the martyrs to go through the flames. He will help a
+little, weak girl if she asks Him. Oh, my dear, it has struck
+twelve! I have lost a quarter of an hour. Don&#8217;t keep me
+another moment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The scholar and dreamer hurried to the house. Long
+before he got there he had forgotten Pauline and her childish
+worries. She was going to be desperately naughty.
+He certainly no longer remembered those words.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the child stayed behind with her hands
+clasped.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish he had told me more,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t believe God could put this straight.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+<h3>THE NET.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>On Monday Pauline&#8217;s troubles began over again. She
+ought to have been very happy on this special day, for the
+birthday&mdash;the great, important birthday, her very own,
+when she would reach the completion of her fourteenth
+year&mdash;was near at hand. But although Pauline was perplexed
+and unhappy, there was nevertheless a birthday
+feeling in the air. In the first place, there was a great and
+exciting sense of mystery. The girls were seen darting
+quickly here and there; in every imaginable corner there
+were whispered consultations. Aunt Sophia, in particular,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span>
+never looked at Pauline without smiling. She was kindness
+itself. It seemed to the poor little girl that her aunt had
+taken a great fancy to her. This was the case. Miss Tredgold
+was interested in all her nieces, but even Verena with
+her daintiness and pretty face, and Briar with her most
+charming personality, did not attract Miss Tredgold as did
+the blunt-looking, almost plain child who called herself
+Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She has got character and independence,&#8221; thought the
+good lady. &#8220;She will be something by-and-by. She will
+always be able to hold her own in the world. She is the
+kind of girl who could do much good. It hurt me very
+much to send her into Punishment Land, but she is all the
+better for it. Oh, yes, she must taste the rough as well
+as the smooth if she is to be worth anything. She will
+be worth a good deal; of that I am convinced.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold, therefore, had compassion on Pauline&#8217;s
+late indisposition, and made lessons as easy as possible
+for her. Thus Pauline had very little to do, except to
+think of that mystery which was growing thicker and
+thicker. In one way it helped her own dilemma. With her
+sisters walking in twos and threes all over the place, it
+would not be at all remarkable for her to slip down at
+the appointed hour to the wicket-gate. Even Penelope
+would not notice her, so absorbed was she in assisting Adelaide
+to make a special present for Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>As the day advanced the little girl became terribly nervous.
+She felt a sense of irritation when one of her sisters
+looked at her, whispered to her companion, and then turned
+away. She would almost have preferred Miss Tredgold to
+be as stern as she was before. Her whole mind was in a
+state of tumult. She felt the net closing tighter and tighter
+around her. Even the birthday was scarcely interesting
+while such a weight rested on her heart. Miss Tredgold
+had said during the afternoon as they were all sitting
+together on the lawn:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is to be a great birthday. This is the very first
+birthday I have spent under your roof. You must all remember
+it as long as you live.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, can I ever forget it?&#8221; thought poor Pauline. &#8220;But
+Aunt Sophy little knows that I shall not remember it for
+its kindness and its sunshine and its presents; I shall remember
+it always because I am such a wicked girl.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Now as evening approached she could not help whispering
+to herself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The net is closing&mdash;closing round me. It is gathering
+me up into a heap. My legs and arms are tied. Soon the
+wicked, dreadful thing will press my head down, and I
+shall be powerless and lost.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She thought out this metaphor, and it seemed to haunt
+her footsteps.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It is right that a girl who told a black lie should be
+cramped up in it,&#8221; thought Pauline. &#8220;Oh, why hadn&#8217;t I
+courage to tell Aunt Sophy the truth? She might have been
+angry, but in the end she would have forgiven me. I would
+far rather have no notice whatever taken of my birthday
+than be as miserable as I am now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That child isn&#8217;t well,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold to Verena,
+as Pauline was seen slowly creeping in a subdued sort of
+way in the direction of the lower shrubbery. &#8220;Why is she
+always stealing off by herself? I have a good mind to call
+her back and take her for a drive. It is a lovely evening,
+and a drive would do her good.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So it would, Aunt Sophy. You know how busy all the
+rest of us are finishing her presents. I am sure she would
+love to drive with you, for I think she is getting very fond
+of you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps, my dear; but I have made up my mind not to
+have favorites. As long as you are all good I shall love
+you all.&mdash;Pauline&mdash;yes, Verena, I shall offer her a drive&mdash;Pauline,
+come here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline hated to be called back, but she could not do
+otherwise than obey. She approached lingeringly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Would you like to take a drive with me? We might
+go and find out how soon Peas-blossom and Lavender will
+be ready to come to their new home.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>At another time such a request on the part of Miss
+Tredgold would have enraptured Pauline; but she knew that
+it only wanted five minutes to six, and she doubted if
+Nancy would consent to be kept waiting long.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; she answered slowly; &#8220;my head aches. Please, I
+would rather not take a drive.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She did not wait for Miss Tredgold&#8217;s response, but continued
+her slow walk.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The poor child is certainly ill,&#8221; said the good lady. &#8220;If
+she continues to look as poorly and as sadly out of sorts
+next week I shall take her to the seaside.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you, Aunt Sophy? How lovely! Do you know that
+Paulie and I have never been to the sea? We do so long
+to see it!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, my dear, I shall take you all presently, but I
+can&#8217;t say when. Now, as Pauline does not want to drive
+with me, I shall go into the house and finish some of my
+arrangements.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold went indoors, and Verena joined Briar and
+Patty, who were in a great state of excitement.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Pauline had reached the wicket-gate. She
+opened it and went out. Nancy was waiting for her.
+Nancy&#8217;s cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. She
+looked as if she had been quarreling with somebody. Pauline
+knew that look well. Nancy&#8217;s two friends Becky and
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span>
+Amy were standing at a little distance. There was a small
+governess-cart drawn up not far away, and Becky was
+stroking the nose of a rough little Forest pony.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father gave me the cart and pony this morning,&#8221; said
+Nancy. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing he wouldn&#8217;t do for me. The
+pony and cart aren&#8217;t much, perhaps, but still it is fun to
+have them to fly over the place. Well, and how goes her
+little high-and-mightiness? Frumpy, I can see. Grumpy, I
+can guess. Now, is Pauline glad to see poor old Nance&mdash;eh?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course, Nancy; but I have come to say&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll have no &#8216;buts,&#8217; darling, if you please.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t come to the picnic, Nancy; I really cannot.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How white poor little Dumpy looks! Wants some one
+to cheer her up, or she&#8217;ll be dumped and frumped and
+grumped all in one. Now, darling, I&#8217;m going to put my arm
+round your waist. I am going to feel your little heart go
+pit-a-pat. You shall lean against me. Isn&#8217;t that snug?
+Doesn&#8217;t dear old Nancy count for something in your life?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you do, Nancy. I am fond of you. I have
+always said so,&#8221; replied Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then you will yield, darling, to the inevitable.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am yielding to it now,&#8221; replied Pauline. &#8220;I am not
+going with you because I can&#8217;t.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you are going with me because you must,&#8221; Nancy
+responded. &#8220;For listen, Pauline. Although I am affectionate,
+I can be&mdash;oh, yes&mdash;dangerous. And if you don&#8217;t
+come, why, I can keep my word. Wednesday is your birthday.
+I wonder when the crown of the day will come?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, there always is a crown to a birthday. There is a
+time, either in the evening or in the morning, when the
+queen receives the homage of her subjects. She gets her
+presents, and there are pretty speeches made to her, and
+she has her dainty feast and her crown of flowers. Yes,
+that time is the crown of the day, and that is just the moment
+when the poor little queen shall topple down. The
+throne shall be knocked from under her; the presents will
+vanish; the sovereignty will cease to exist. Poor, poor little
+queen without a kingdom! How will you like it, Paulie?
+Do you think you could bear it? To have no kingdom and
+no crown and no presents and no love, and to be bitterly
+disgraced as well! How will you like it, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know that you can do all that you say,&#8221; answered
+Pauline. &#8220;I know you can be dreadful, and everything is
+against me. You can ruin me if you like, but I want you
+not to do it, Nancy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if you don&#8217;t come with us I want to do it, dear;
+and I rather think that my will is stronger than yours.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But if it kills me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t do that, Paulie. You will feel bad, and, oh! as
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span>
+though somebody had crushed you; but you won&#8217;t die.
+There&#8217;s only one way out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was silent.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is quite an easy way,&#8221; continued Nancy. &#8220;It is easy
+and safe, and there&#8217;s a deal of fun to be got out of it. You
+have got to come to the picnic. Once you are there you
+will enjoy yourself tremendously. I promise to get you
+home in the morning. You will come, and you will bring
+two of your sisters with you. Two will be enough. I
+have yielded that point. You will meet us here, at
+this very spot, at eleven o&#8217;clock on Wednesday night. We
+are going some distance away, so that no one in the neighborhood
+of The Dales need hear our singing and our fun
+and our jollity. We will come back before daybreak and
+deposit you just outside the wicket-gate. You may think it
+very unpleasant just now, and very mean and all the rest,
+but it is the only possible way to save yourself. You must
+come to the picnic, and bring two of your sisters.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But suppose they won&#8217;t come?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They will if you manage things properly. It needn&#8217;t
+be Verena. I expect Verena, for all she is so soft and fair,
+is a tough nut to crack; but you can bring Briar and Patty.
+My father will be quite satisfied if three of you are present.
+The fact is, he is awfully hurt at the thought of your all
+thinking yourselves too good for us. He says that the Dales
+and the Kings were always friends. My father is a dear old
+man, but he has his cranks, and he has made up his mind
+that come you must, or he&#8217;ll make mischief. It won&#8217;t be
+only me; it will be my father as well. He will appear at
+The Dales, and if I go straight to Miss Tredgold, he will go
+straight to Mr. Dale. Now, what do you think of that? I
+am determined to have you for reasons of my own, and I
+shall poke up my father to do no end of mischief if you
+don&#8217;t appear. Now don&#8217;t be a goose. Get up a little dash
+of courage and a little dash of your old spirit and everything
+will be as straight as possible.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline stood quite still. Nancy danced in front of her.
+Nancy&#8217;s face was almost malicious in its glee. Pauline
+looked at it as a child will look when despair clutches at
+her heart.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t know&mdash;I couldn&#8217;t guess&mdash;that you were like
+that,&#8221; she said in a sort of whisper.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Couldn&#8217;t you, dear little duckledoms? Well, you do
+know it now; and you know also how to act. Don&#8217;t you see
+by the lines round my mouth and the expression in my
+eyes that I can be hard as hard when I please? I am going
+to be very hard now. My honor is involved in this. I
+promised that you would be there. There are presents
+being bought for you. Come you must; come you shall.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline stood quite silent; then she flung her arms to
+her sides and faced her tormentor.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;There was a time,&#8221; she said slowly, &#8220;when I loved you,
+Nancy. But I don&#8217;t love you now. By-and-by, perhaps, you
+will be sorry that you have lost my love, for I think&mdash;yes, I
+think it is the sort that doesn&#8217;t come back. I don&#8217;t love
+you to-night because you are cruel, because you have already
+got me into a scrape, and you want to push me into
+a yet deeper one. I am not the sort of girl you think me.
+However grand and stately and like a lady Aunt Sophia is&mdash;and
+compared to you and me, Nancy, she is very stately
+and very grand and very noble&mdash;I would not give you up.
+Aunt Sophy is a lady with a great brave heart, and her
+ideas are up-in-the-air ideas, and she doesn&#8217;t know anything
+about mean and low and vulgar things. I&#8217;d have clung
+to you, Nancy, and always owned you as my friend, even if
+Aunt Sophy had taken me into good society. Yes, I&#8217;d have
+stuck to you whatever happened; but now&#8221;&mdash;Pauline
+pressed her hand to her heart&mdash;&#8220;everything is altered. You
+are cruel, and I don&#8217;t love you any more. But I am in such
+trouble, and so completely in despair, that I will come to
+the picnic; and if I can bring two of the girls, I will. There
+is nothing more to say. You may expect us at eleven o&#8217;clock
+on Wednesday night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But there is more to say,&#8221; cried Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>She flew at Pauline, and before she could stop her Nancy
+had lifted the younger girl into her strong arms. She had
+not only lifted her into her arms, but she was running with
+her in the direction where Becky and Amy were minding
+the pony.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hurrah! I have won!&#8221; she cried. &#8220;She yields. Come
+and kiss her, the little duck.&mdash;Pauline, you silly, if you don&#8217;t
+love me, I love you; and you will soon find out for yourself
+what a good time you are going to have, and what a goose
+you have made of yourself with all this ridiculous fuss.
+What a grand birthday you are going to have, Paulie! A
+birthday for a whole twenty-four hours&mdash;a whole day and
+a whole night! Remember, there will be presents, there will
+be surprises, there will be love, there will be sweetness.
+Trust us, you will never get into a scrape for this. Now run
+along home as fast as you can.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did not run. She closed the wicket-gate and
+walked soberly to the house. Strange as it may seem, once
+she had made her decision, the fact that she was to deceive
+her aunt, and do the thing that of all others would fill Aunt
+Sophia with horror, did not pain her. The conflict was
+over; she must rest now until the time came to go. She
+was a clever child, and she thought out the situation with
+wonderful clearness. She must go. There was no help
+for it. The sin must be sinned. After all, perhaps, it was
+not such a very great sin. Aunt Sophia would be happier
+if she never knew anything at all about it.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I go she will never know,&#8221; thought the child. &#8220;Nancy
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span>
+is clever, and now that I have yielded to her she will not
+fail me. If I go it will never be discovered, and what has
+happened before will never be discovered; and Aunt Sophy
+will never have reason to distrust me, for she will never
+know. Yes,&#8221; thought Pauline, &#8220;it is the only possible way.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She saw Penelope coming to meet her. The other girls
+were still busy with their birthday surprises, but Penelope
+had just deposited her own small and somewhat shabby
+present in Verena&#8217;s keeping, and was now, as she expressed
+it, taking the air. When she saw Pauline she ran to meet
+her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose you are feeling yourself monstrous &#8217;portant,
+and all that sort of thing,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I am not,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope gave her a quick glance out of her sharp eyes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does you like me to be nursery or schoolroom child?&#8221;
+she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I like you to be just what you are, Pen; and I do beg
+of you not to worry me just now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You is most ungrateful. I has been spending my teeny
+bit of money on you. You will know what I has done on
+your birthday. You are going to get a most &#8217;licious present,
+and it will be I who has gived it to you. Sometimes I does
+wish I was two years older; but Aunt Sophy has got monstrous
+fond of me, Paulie, and of you, too. I know it.
+Shall I tell you how I know it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was standing near her when you said you wouldn&#8217;t
+go for a drive, and she gave a big sigh, just as though she
+was hurted. I was hurted, too, for I thought I might perhaps
+sit on the little back-seat and hear more&#8217;n is good
+for me. People always say that little girls like me hear
+more&#8217;n is good for them. I love&mdash;I love hearing things of
+that wicked sort. Well, you didn&#8217;t go, and I couldn&#8217;t have
+my nice drive on the little back-seat. But Aunt Sophy did
+give a pained sigh. She loves you, does Aunt Sophy. She
+loves me, too.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you love me, Pen?&#8221; said Pauline suddenly, for it
+occurred to her that perhaps Penelope was the child who
+would have to accompany her to the midnight picnic. She
+knew enough of Penelope to be sure that she could be
+bribed. She was not so certain about the others.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you love me, Pen?&#8221; she repeated.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you speak in that softy, sympathisy voice, I feel
+that I could just hug you,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then would you really help me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Really and really. What am I to do? If you will whisper
+secrets to me, I will even forget that I am certain you
+know something most &#8217;portant about that thimble, and I
+will cling to you like anything. You will be the oak, and
+I will be the ivy. It will be most lovely to be the close
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span>
+friend of the birthday queen. I do&mdash;oh, I do hope you are
+going to tell me a great secret!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps I am, but I can&#8217;t tell you now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When will you tell me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I ever tell you, it will be before midday on my birthday.
+Now run away. Don&#8217;t whisper a word of this.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not me,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I was borned to keep secrets.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She marched away in her usual stalwart fashion.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I may have to take her with me,&#8221; thought Pauline
+again. &#8220;If the others won&#8217;t be bribed, I must fall back
+on her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She felt a curious sense of relief, for of course Penelope
+could be bribed. A shilling would do it. Penelope would
+go to the end of the earth for a shilling, particularly if it
+was given to her all in pence. Twelve separate pence would
+send Penelope off her head.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<h3>THE CONFERENCE.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was late on the following evening when Pauline found
+herself alone with Briar and Patty. Both these little girls
+had plenty of character; but perhaps Patty had more of
+that estimable quality than her sister. They were both
+straightforward by nature, upright and noble, and were already
+benefiting by the discipline which had at last come
+into their lives. The glories of the birthday which was so
+near were already beginning to shed some of their rays
+over Pauline, and her sisters felt themselves quite honored
+by her company.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To think,&#8221; said Briar, &#8220;that you are really only Paulie!
+I can scarcely bring myself to believe it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why so?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In twelve hours&#8217; time&mdash;in less&mdash;you will be a queen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is rather like the Lord Mayor,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;It&#8217;s all
+very grand, but it lasts for a very short time. Aunt Sophy
+was telling us to-day about the Lord Mayor and the great,
+tremendous Show, and I began to think of Pauline and her
+birthday. I could not help myself. It is a pity that a birthday
+should only last such a very short time!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, that is the worst of it,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;But then
+it comes every year. Perhaps it is all for the best that it
+should have a quick come and a quick go. Of course, I
+shall be very happy to-morrow, but I dare say I shall be
+glad when the next day arrives.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not you,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;I have known what the next day
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span>
+meant, even when we had only shilling birthdays. The
+others used to cry out, &#8216;Your birthday is the farthest off
+now.&#8217; I used to keep my head covered under the bedclothes
+rather than hear them say it. Adelaide and Josephine always
+said it. But don&#8217;t let&#8217;s get melancholy over it now,&#8221;
+continued Briar in a sympathetic tone. &#8220;When you lie
+down to-night you won&#8217;t be able to sleep much; but you will
+sleep like a top to-morrow night. I expect you will
+wake about every two minutes to-night. Oh, it is exciting
+the night before a birthday! Even when we had shilling
+birthdays I used to wake the night before every few minutes.
+Once I got up at four o&#8217;clock in the morning. I went
+out. I had a cold afterwards, and a bad sore throat, but I
+never told anybody how I got it. If I was excited about my
+poor little birthday, what will you be to-morrow?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Listen, girls. I am so
+excited in one sense that I couldn&#8217;t be any more so. I am
+so excited that I&#8217;m not excited. Can you understand what
+I mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I&#8217;m sure I can&#8217;t a bit,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And it&#8217;s quite likely,&#8221; continued Pauline, &#8220;that I shall
+have no sleep at all the night after my birthday.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean now?&#8221; asked Briar.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked mysterious. The two girls glanced at her.
+Suddenly Pauline put one arm around Briar&#8217;s neck and the
+other arm round Patty&#8217;s neck.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are the nicest of us all&mdash;that is, of course, except
+Verena,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I have always been fonder of you two
+than of Adelaide or Josephine or Helen or Lucy. As to Pen,
+well, I don&#8217;t suppose any of us feel to Pen as we do to
+the rest. She is so different. Yes, I love you two. I love
+you just awfully.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is sweet of you to say that; and, seeing that you are
+to have a birthday so soon, it makes us feel sort of distinguished,&#8221;
+said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How old are you, Briar?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be thirteen next May. That&#8217;s a long time off. I do
+wish my birthday had waited until Aunt Sophy came on
+the scene.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And my birthday comes in the winter,&#8221; said Patty&mdash;&#8220;near
+Christmas; but I dare say Aunt Sophy will give us a
+good time then, too.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do like her awfully,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Now, girls, I
+want to ask you a question. I know you won&#8217;t tell, for
+you are not the sort to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course we won&#8217;t tell, Paulie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you love me, don&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; echoed both little girls.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is my question. If I do something that is not
+just exactly absolutely right, will you still love me?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, of course. We&#8217;re not so wonderfully good ourselves,&#8221;
+said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know what you are thinking of,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;You
+are thinking of Punishment Day. But we have forgotten all
+about that.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was thinking of Punishment Day. And now I want
+to say something. I want to make the most tremendous
+confidence. I want to tell you the most tremendous secret.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; echoed both.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Light that candle, Briar,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Briar crossed the room, struck a match, lit the candle,
+and then turned to see what her darling Paulie wished
+further.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bring it right over here,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Put it on this
+table.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar did so.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Kneel down, Briar, so that the light from the candle
+falls full on your face.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar knelt. Her eyes were beaming with happiness.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look at me,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Briar raised two honest and pretty brown eyes to her
+sister&#8217;s face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think,&#8221; said Pauline slowly, &#8220;that you are the sort of
+girl to make a promise&mdash;a solemn, awfully solemn promise&mdash;and
+stick to it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; you are right. I am made that way,&#8221; said Briar
+proudly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I see you are. Patty, will you kneel so that the candle
+may shine on your face?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty hurried to obey.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am made like that, too,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I always was
+like that. When I said I wouldn&#8217;t tell, you might pinch me
+black and blue, but it didn&#8217;t change me. Pen has tried to
+run pins into me sometimes to make me tell. Pen is the
+only one who would tell when she promised not.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think so,&#8221; said Pauline decidedly. &#8220;Pen would not
+do at all. Girls, I shall come to you to-morrow evening.
+To-morrow evening, very late, I will come to you here.
+Perhaps you will have gone to bed, but that won&#8217;t matter.
+I will come to you whether you are in bed or whether you
+are up; and I will claim your promise. You will do what
+I ask, and you will never, never, never tell. You must help
+me. You will&mdash;oh, you will!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;Darling Paulie, don&#8217;t cry. Oh,
+how the pet is trembling! Patty, she&#8217;s trembling like anything.
+Do kiss her and hug her, and tell her there&#8217;s nothing
+we wouldn&#8217;t do for her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing in all the world we wouldn&#8217;t do for
+you,&#8221; said Patty.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span></p>
+<p>They both kissed her so often and with such deep affection
+that she found herself leaning on their innocent
+strength. She would not tell them yet; she would tell them
+just before the time to-morrow evening. Of course they
+would go with her. Pen would never do. It would be madness
+to confide in Pen.
+</p>
+<p>Notwithstanding her excitement Pauline did sleep soundly
+that night before her birthday. No sooner had her head
+touched the pillow than sweet unconsciousness visited her.
+She slept without dreaming, and was at last awakened by
+the shouts of her sisters.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie, get up. It&#8217;s your birthday. Oh, do dress yourself
+fast! There&#8217;s such a lot of fun going on! We are to
+have a whole holiday, and Aunt Sophy is so delightful.
+And what do you think? She has dragged father out of his
+study, and he is standing in the very middle of the lawn.
+He has a huge, untidy-looking parcel in his hands, and he
+looks as if he didn&#8217;t in the least know what to do with it.
+He is trying each moment to escape back into the house, but
+Aunt Sophy won&#8217;t let him. She says he must not stir
+until you come down. Poor father does look in misery.
+Be quick and dress and come downstairs.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>At this moment there was a shout from below, and the
+three girls who had summoned Pauline from the land of
+dreams rushed off, dashing through the house with whoops
+of triumph.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline rose and dressed quickly. She put on the pretty
+pale lavender print frock that Aunt Sophia had decided she
+was to wear, and went downstairs. When she joined the
+others Mr. Dale greeted her with one of his slow, sweet
+smiles.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How are you, darling?&#8221; he said. &#8220;I have a sort of
+idea that I am kept standing here on this lawn, exposed to
+the heat of a very powerful sun, on your account.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course it is on Pauline&#8217;s account, Henry,&#8221; said Miss
+Sophia. &#8220;It is her birthday. Kiss me, Pauline, dear. Many
+happy returns of the day. Henry, give your daughter her
+present. She is fourteen to-day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fourteen! Ah!&#8221; said Mr. Dale, &#8220;a charming age. The
+ancients considered a woman grown-up at fourteen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But no one is so silly in these days,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+&#8220;We know that a girl is never more childish than
+at fourteen. Henry, open that parcel and give Pauline
+what it contains.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale dropped the brown-paper parcel at his feet. He
+looked at it in bewilderment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is heavy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t the least idea what
+is in it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is your present to your daughter.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Mr. Dale, &#8220;I forgot; and I packed it myself
+last night. My child, I wonder if you are worthy of it.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t suppose I am, father,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For goodness&#8217; sake open it, Henry, and don&#8217;t torture
+the child&#8217;s feelings.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I put it in an old bandbox,&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t
+find anything else. Pauline, in giving you what I am about
+to give you, I show a high appreciation of your character. I
+remember now what my present is. I had an awful night in
+consequence of it. I felt as though one of my limbs was
+being severed from my body. Nevertheless, my dear, I don&#8217;t
+retract nor go back, for that is not my way. I give you this
+most noble gift with a distinct object. I have lately been
+examining all your foreheads. Although I have appeared
+to take little notice of you, I have watched you as day by
+day I have enjoyed the excellent food provided by your most
+worthy aunt. While my body was feeding, my mind was
+occupying itself, and I have at last come to the decision
+that you, my child, are the only one of my young people who
+has been blessed with a classical brow. As yet you have not
+even begun to learn the language of the ancients; but now
+that you have reached the mature age of fourteen, I shall
+be pleased to instruct you myself for one hour daily, in
+both that Latin and Greek which delighted our forefathers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the Romans and Greeks were not our forefathers,&#8221;
+said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>She snapped out the words quite angrily, and the look on
+her aunt&#8217;s face caused Pauline to go closer to her father
+and take one of his long white hands and hold it close to
+her heart.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter whether we are descended from them
+or not, does it, Padre?&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All that is noble in thought, all that is original, all that
+partakes of inspiration, has come down to us from the
+classics,&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;But take your gift, Pauline.
+Now, my dear children, I beseech of you, don&#8217;t keep me any
+longer from my important work.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He was striding towards the house, when Verena got in
+front of him, Briar stood at his left hand, Patty at his right,
+and Adelaide, Josephine, Lucy, Helen, and Penelope came
+up in the rear.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t stir,&#8221; they cried, &#8220;until Paulie opens her
+parcel.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So Pauline knelt down on the grass, untied the clumsy
+cord, and removed the brown paper. She then lifted the
+lid from a broken-down bandbox and revealed a musty,
+fusty tome bound in old calf.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is my precious annotated edition of Cicero,&#8221; said Mr.
+Dale. &#8220;I have written your name in it&mdash;&#8216;Pauline Dale,
+from her affectionate father.&#8217; It is yours now, and it will
+be yours in the future. If you like to leave it on the shelf
+in my study, I shall not object, but it is yours to do what
+you like with.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span></p>
+<p>He sighed profoundly, and turned away with his lip
+trembling.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good gracious!&#8221; Miss Tredgold was heard to exclaim.
+Then she spoke to Adelaide.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Run into the house and bring out a cup of coffee. The
+precious man gets queerer each moment. What a present
+to give the child!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline raised the big book and clasped it against her
+neat lilac frock.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, father,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I will learn to read it.
+Thank you very much.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you don&#8217;t object to its occupying its old place on
+my shelf?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No. Shall I run and put it there now?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do. You are really a wise child. Sophia, as I have
+given Pauline her present, I presume I need not stay out
+any longer wasting my precious time and running the risk
+of sunstroke.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold nodded and laughed. Adelaide appeared
+with the coffee. Mr. Dale drank it off at a single draught.
+Pauline ran into the house with the treasure which was
+hers and yet not hers. For surely never during his lifetime
+would Mr. Dale allow that special edition of Cicero
+out of his study. She put it gravely and quietly into its
+accustomed place, kissed her father, told him she appreciated
+his present beyond words, and then went back to her
+sisters and aunt, who were waiting for her.
+</p>
+<p>What a day it was! What a wonderful, magnificent day!
+The weather was perfect; the air was sweet; the garden
+was full of perfume. And then the presents. Every imaginable
+thing that a little girl could want was poured at
+the feet of the birthday queen. The story-books she had
+longed for; the little writing-desk she had always coveted
+but never possessed; the workbox with its reels of colored
+silks, its matchless pair of scissors, its silver thimble, its
+odds and ends of every sort and description; the tennis-bat;
+the hockey-club; the new saddle that would exactly fit
+Peas-blossom: all these things and many more were given
+to Pauline. But besides the richer and more handsome presents,
+there were the sort of pretty things that only love could
+devise&mdash;that charming little pin-cushion for her dressing-table;
+that pen-wiper; that bag for her brush and comb;
+that case for her night-dress. Some of the gifts were
+clumsy, but all were prompted by love. Love had begun
+them, and gone on with them, and finished them, and Pauline
+laughed and had brighter eyes and more flushed cheeks
+each moment as the day progressed.
+</p>
+<p>After breakfast Miss Tredgold took her nieces for a drive.
+The little party were all packed into the wagonette, and
+then they went off. They drove for miles and miles under
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span>
+the trees of the Forest. Miss Tredgold told more interesting
+and fascinating stories of her own life than she had
+ever told before. The girls listened to her with the most
+absorbed attention. As a rule Miss Tredgold&#8217;s stories carried
+a moral with them; but the birthday stories had no
+moral. Pauline waited for one. She waited with a sort of
+trembling dread. She expected it to intrude its sober face
+at each moment, but it did not put in an appearance anywhere.
+It stayed out of sight in the most delightful and
+graceful manner. Soon the girls, Pauline amongst them,
+forgot to look out for the moral. Then Verena began telling
+anecdotes of the past, and Pauline joined her; and the children
+laughed, and nearly cried with delight. That drive
+was the happiest they had ever enjoyed.
+</p>
+<p>But it was somewhat late in the afternoon when the birthday
+treat came to its culmination. They were having tea
+on the lawn, a most fascinating tea, with a frosted cake in
+the middle of the table, on which Pauline&#8217;s name was inscribed
+in golden letters, and round which were lighted
+fourteen little wax candles, denoting that she had now come
+to that mature age. The candles were protected by tiny
+glass shades, so that the soft summer air could not blow
+them about, and all the girls thought they had never seen
+such a wonderful sight. Mr. Dale was abducted from his
+study&mdash;there was really no other word to describe the way
+in which he was carried off bodily&mdash;and requested to light
+the candles. He did so looking very confused, and as though
+he did not in the least comprehend what he was doing.
+Nevertheless he was there, and he was obliged to seat himself
+in the centre of the group; and then garlands and
+garlands of flowers suddenly made their appearance, and
+Pauline was conducted to her throne, and a crown of tiny
+roses was placed on her dark head, and wreaths of flowers
+were laid at her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you are queen, Pauline,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Your
+father and I and your sisters are bound to obey you from
+now until ten o&#8217;clock to-night. This is your reign. It is
+short, but full of possibilities. What are we to do for you,
+fair queen? In what way do you wish to employ us?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I wish for anything?&#8221; asked Pauline eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>She had a flashing thought as she uttered the words&mdash;a
+quick, terrible, agonized thought. Oh, if only she might
+claim her birthright! If only she might put into use her
+grand privilege and ask for the one thing she really wanted&mdash;a
+free, absolute pardon! If she might confess her sin
+without confessing it, and get her aunt and father to say
+that, whatever she had done in the past, she was forgiven
+now! Just for an instant her black eyes looked almost
+wild; then they fixed themselves on Miss Tredgold, who
+was looking at her attentively. She glanced beyond her,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span>
+and met the great black eyes of Penelope. Penelope seemed
+to be reading Pauline. Pauline felt a sudden revulsion of
+feeling.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That would never do,&#8221; she said to herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you speak?&#8221; said Verena in her gentle voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was considering what to ask,&#8221; replied Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t to ask, it is to command,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+&#8220;What sort of a queen would you make, Pauline, if you
+really had a kingdom? This is your kingdom. It lasts for
+a few hours; still, for the present it is your own. Your
+sway is absolute.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then let us have hide-and-seek in the garden,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>She laughed. The spell was broken. Penelope&#8217;s eyes
+lost their watchful glance. The girls were all agreeable.
+Mr. Dale rose to his feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have had my tea,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and the queen has received
+her crown. I am truly thankful that birthdays don&#8217;t
+last longer than a day. I presume there is no reason why
+I may not return to my study.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, father, you mustn&#8217;t stir,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;You are
+my subject, and I command you to play hide-and-seek. You
+and Aunt Sophy must hide together. Now let us begin.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The games that followed were provocative of mirth. Even
+Mr. Dale was heard to chuckle feebly. This was when
+Josephine put her hand into his pocket and withdrew his
+handkerchief. He made a scholarly remark the next moment
+to Miss Tredgold, who replied:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For goodness&#8217; sake, Henry, come down from the clouds.
+This is your child&#8217;s birthday. It is all very well to know
+all that musty stuff, but there are times when it is fifty
+times better to be full of nonsense.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale groaned, and then Lucy seemed to spring out of
+the ground. She laughed in his face, and cried out that
+she had found him.
+</p>
+<p>So the merry game proceeded. It had nearly come to an
+end when Pauline and Penelope found themselves alone.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I waited for you at twelve o&#8217;clock,&#8221; said Penelope, &#8220;but
+you never comed. Why didn&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t want to, Pen. I have changed my mind. Think
+no more about what I said.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t never forget it,&#8221; replied Pen.
+</p>
+<p>But then she heard a whoop from a distant enemy, and
+darted to another part of the garden.
+</p>
+<p>The game of hide-and-seek was followed by another, and
+then another and yet another, and the cries of mirth and
+laughter sounded all over the place. Even Betty forgot
+the tragic end of the Duke of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton,
+who was killed by a brigand in Italy while defending his
+fair duchess. Betty had been weeping scalding tears over
+the tragedy when the sound of mirth called her forth. John
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span>
+accompanied her, and the other servants looked on in the
+distance.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There never was such a rowdy family,&#8221; said Betty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Rowdy do you call it?&#8221; cried John.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; and the very rowdiest is Miss Tredgold. For
+mercy&#8217;s sake look at the way she runs! She&#8217;s as fleet as a
+hare.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She have very neat ankles,&#8221; said John. &#8220;I call her a
+neat figure of a woman.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me,&#8221; said Betty. &#8220;Much you know what a
+neat figure of a woman means. Miss Tredgold&#8217;s a haristocrat.
+Now, if you&#8217;ll believe me, she&#8217;s the moral image of
+the duchess.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What duchess?&#8221; cried John.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Duchess of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton&mdash;her that&#8217;s
+just made a widow, and is crying her eyes out over the
+murdered remains of the poor dook.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sometimes,&#8221; said John, &#8220;I think that you have gone off
+your head, Betty. But I can&#8217;t stay to listen to any more of
+these nonsenses. I have my garden to look after.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The final delight before the curtain of that birthday was
+dropped down for ever found its vent in music&mdash;music in
+which Mr. Dale took a part, and in which Miss Tredgold
+excelled herself. It was the music that awoke Pauline&#8217;s
+slumbering conscience. It was during that music that her
+heart truly began to understand itself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am wicked&mdash;a coward and a liar,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;But,
+all the same, I am going on, for I must. Aunt Sophy loves
+me, and I love her, and I wouldn&#8217;t have her love turned to
+hate for all the world. She must never find out what I did
+in the past, and the only way to keep it from her is to go on
+as I am going on.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+<h3>A WILD FROLIC.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first part of the birthday was absolutely over, but the
+second part&mdash;the terrifying, awful part&mdash;was at hand. Aunt
+Sophy had kissed Pauline and had blessed her by a look.
+Her father had also put his trembling hand on her shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you want to read that lovely volume of Cicero,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;come to me and I will teach you. I will spare a
+few minutes of my valuable time to give you instruction.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena had also kissed her heartily, and she and the rest
+of her sisters had gone to bed. They were all tired. Verena
+came for a minute into Pauline&#8217;s little room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am too sleepy even to brush my hair in your room
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span>
+to-night, Paulie,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I am too sleepy to talk about
+our long happy day. What a pile of presents you have got!
+Don&#8217;t you think you have had a perfect birthday? I only
+wish mine was near at hand.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will come in good time,&#8221; said Pauline; &#8220;and even
+birthdays&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She broke off abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean by &#8216;even birthdays&#8217;?&#8221; asked Verena.
+&#8220;What were you going to say?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was going to say that even birthdays had drawbacks.
+I know that I am dead-tired.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You look it, darling. Do turn into bed and go to sleep.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena kissed her sister and left the room.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline stood by the attic window. The window was a
+French one, and was wide open. The night was warm;
+the sky was without a cloud; stars like diamonds dotted
+the firmament; the sky itself looked darkly blue. Pauline
+felt a sudden thrill going through her. It was a thrill from
+the nobler part of her being. The whole day, and all that
+happened in the day, had wrought her up to her present
+state of feeling. A touch now and she would have confessed
+all. A touch, a look, would have done it&mdash;for the
+child, with her many faults, was capable of noble deeds;
+but the touch was not there, nor the word of gentle advice
+given. Had her mother been alive, Pauline would have
+certainly gone to her and confessed what she had done. As
+it was, she only felt that, in order to save herself from
+the past, she must do something much more wicked in the
+future.
+</p>
+<p>She waited until she was quite certain that Verena was
+in bed; then she gently unfastened the door of her room
+and stole out on to the landing. There was not a light in
+the house. All the tired people had gone to bed. She
+reached the room, at the farther end of the same wing,
+where Briar and Patty slept. The sleeping attics occupied
+two wings of the old house, the centre part of the house
+being without rooms in the roof. Pauline, Verena, Briar,
+and Patty slept in one of the wings, the rest of the girls
+and the nursery children in the other. Mr. Dale had the
+room exactly under the large attic occupied by Briar and
+Patty. Miss Tredgold&#8217;s room was under the nursery wing.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline now very gently opened the door of the room
+where her two little sisters slept. They were not asleep;
+they were sitting up in their beds waiting for her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We thought you would come, Paulie,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;We
+are so excited! What is it you want us to do for you,
+darling Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To save me! To save me!&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Her tone was dramatic; her action was more so. She
+fell on her knees by Briar&#8217;s bed; she clasped her arms
+round the little girl&#8217;s neck; she laid her head on her shoulder
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span>
+and burst into tears. The birthday queen was weeping.
+Could emotion go beyond that fact? Patty bounded out of
+her bed and knelt by Pauline&#8217;s other side. The two little
+girls clasped their arms round her. She had exercised
+a glamour over them all day, which now became greater
+than ever. Was she not their queen? Oh, yes, until midnight
+she was their own dear and absolutely beautiful queen.
+An hour was still left of her sovereignty. She had quite
+stolen their hearts; they loved her like anything.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Paulie?&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must tell you,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I know you won&#8217;t betray
+me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Indeed we won&#8217;t,&#8221; they both answered.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, this is what has happened.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She began to tell her story. She told it quickly, for the
+time was short. If they were to meet Nancy they must
+steal away almost at once. Pauline told her tale with
+scarcely any comment. When it was finished she looked
+at her sisters. The moonlight was in the room, and Pauline&#8217;s
+face looked ghastly, but it looked beautiful also. Her
+eyes were very big and dark and solemn and beseeching.
+Briar and Patty glanced at each other.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall we?&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It seems the only thing to do,&#8221; said Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All the same, it is awfully wrong,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Think of poor Paulie,&#8221; said Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If we are discovered&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; cried Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, bother!&#8221; interrupted Patty. &#8220;She&#8217;s our queen. We
+must obey her. We are bound to help her. Let us go. She
+mustn&#8217;t run into danger. You know what Nancy has said:
+two of us must go with her. She mustn&#8217;t go alone.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar leant towards Patty, and Patty whispered in her
+ear; and then the two little girls began to dress.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are darlings,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;I shall never forget
+this to you&mdash;never. I have everything else managed.
+I am going back to my room. When you are dressed you
+must shut the door of your room very quietly behind you,
+and then you must steal along the corridor and you will
+find my door just ajar. We will get out of my window by
+the beech-tree, and we&#8217;ll be back and safe in our beds before
+any one is up in the morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It certainly is thrilling,&#8221; said Briar, raising her voice
+in her excitement.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t speak so loud!&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Dress very
+fast. I will wait for you in my room. I shall be quite
+ready.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline rushed back to her own room. She then put on
+a warm golf-cape and an old hat; and her arrangements
+having been completed, she bent out of the French window.
+In an incredibly short time Briar and Patty appeared. All
+three girls were now in the wildest state of excitement.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span>
+Scruples were silenced for the time being. Pauline&#8217;s conscience
+no longer spoke. She felt that a midnight picnic,
+stolen, partaken of under difficulties, sinned mightily to
+obtain, had its own inexplicable charm. It was certainly
+sweet to be naughty; there was a thrill about it, and a
+sense of adventure, which goodness never brought. Oh,
+yes, it was well worth the risk and danger. Her two little
+sisters partook of Pauline&#8217;s feelings. They all easily reached
+the ground, and when they found themselves outside in the
+middle of the night, it was with difficulty that Briar could
+keep from giving a shriek of ecstasy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m so awfully naughty that I
+enjoy it so,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come along; don&#8217;t speak,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>She took a hand of each sister. They ran quickly over
+the dew-laden grass. Their feet soon got wet, for they had
+forgotten to put on strong shoes. But what mattered that?
+What did small discomforts signify when the grand total
+of pleasure was so enormous?
+</p>
+<p>They opened the wicket-gate, and Pauline found herself
+immediately in the strong embrace of Nancy King.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There you are, darling!&#8221; she cried, bestowing a resounding
+kiss on her cheek. &#8220;I feared that the she-dragon
+would waken and call you back; but you are here, and you
+have brought&mdash;let me see. Oh, you are Patty, are you not?
+And Briar? You are my friends for ever now. Oh, we
+shall have fun! The wagonette is here, and the dogcart;
+there are a party of us, and a lot more coming to meet us
+at the rendezvous. We shall have the most glorious time
+you ever imagined.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Nancy spoke she called out to two girls who were
+standing in the shadow.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Becky, this is Briar Dale&mdash;in other words, Rose Dale.
+You are to see after her. Amy, Patty Dale is your charge.
+Now let us get into the wagonette, for it is the snuggest of
+all the carriages, and the horses are so fleet. Listen how
+they are pawing the ground; they&#8217;re mad to be off. Oh,
+here&#8217;s father! Father, three of the young Dales have
+come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pleased to see you, I&#8217;m sure,&#8221; said the farmer. &#8220;It&#8217;s a
+warm night for the time of year.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The little girls did not answer. Even Pauline, now that
+she had met the rest of the party, felt curiously silent. A
+weight seemed to rest on her. Her wild and riotous spirits
+had died down. Her conscience was not troubling her, but
+she felt depressed, she scarcely knew why.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want something to poke me up,&#8221; she said to herself.
+&#8220;I thought I&#8217;d be quite riotous with bliss when I met
+Nancy. I don&#8217;t feel riotous; and, oh, how white the moonlight
+is making Briar look! Briar,&#8221; whispered Pauline suddenly,
+&#8220;are your feet very wet?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Very: and they&#8217;re getting so cold,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you talking about?&#8221; said Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; said Pauline, &#8220;we forgot to put on our
+outdoor shoes, and the dew is very heavy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dear, dear! That will never do. Father, what do you
+think these silly little misses have done? They&#8217;ve come out
+in their house slippers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never!&#8221; cried the farmer. &#8220;You are silly little ladies;
+that I will say. I tell you what it is, Nance; we don&#8217;t want
+these children to catch cold. Shall we drive back to The
+Hollies and get them some of your shoes? You have enough,
+I take it, to shoe a regiment.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy laughed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They wouldn&#8217;t fit,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They&#8217;d be too big for
+any of them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; said the farmer, &#8220;they shall all three take
+their shoes off and wrap their feet in these warm rugs.
+They can put them on again, and when the dancing begins
+they will soon dry.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are we to dance?&#8221; said Pauline, her eyes sparkling.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You wait and see,&#8221; said Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you wait and see,&#8221; cried the farmer. &#8220;There are
+all sorts of surprises. And there&#8217;s a birthday queen of
+this here party, ain&#8217;t there, Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have heard tell that there was,&#8221; said Nancy. As she
+spoke she took Pauline&#8217;s hand and dragged the little girl
+forward to sit by her.
+</p>
+<p>The drive took some time, and the farmer and his party
+were extremely loud and riotous and merry. As they passed
+under the huge oak-trees some one in a dogcart went by,
+and the light from a lantern fell on his face. Pauline recognized
+Dr. Moffat. The moment she saw him he looked
+round, and she fancied that he must have seen her, and
+that his eyebrows went up with an expression of astonishment.
+But he did not look again; he only continued on his
+way.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do hope he didn&#8217;t see me,&#8221; said Pauline to Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What matter if he did? He&#8217;s thinking of his profession,
+and not of a little girl like you. I wonder where he is
+going to.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To Farmer Jackson,&#8221; said Farmer King. &#8220;He broke his
+leg a fortnight ago, and they say mortification is setting in
+and he can&#8217;t live. Poor Farmer Jackson! Here are we all
+on a rollick, so to speak, a midnight picnic in summer, and
+all our hearts as light as froth, and the farmer lying on
+the flat of his back and like to pass away before morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt uncomfortable. She turned her head away.
+She did not wish to think of the sober events of life at
+that moment.
+</p>
+<p>By-and-by the long drive came to an end. The girls
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span>
+again put on their wet slippers, and the next moment they
+found themselves inside a large marquee, with a boarded
+floor, where a magnificent feast was prepared at the farther
+end. The whole centre of the marquee was got ready for
+dancing, and a number of young people whom Pauline had
+never seen before were standing about in little knots, evidently
+waiting for the arrival of the farmer and his
+family.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There!&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Now, Paulie, what do you think?
+Here&#8217;s feasting for you at this end, and there&#8217;s dancing
+at the other, and if the Kings don&#8217;t do things in style I
+don&#8217;t know who do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Miss King, and how are you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pleased to see you, I&#8217;m sure,&#8221; was Nancy&#8217;s response.
+</p>
+<p>A bashful-looking young man with sandy hair and light-blue
+eyes now came forward. He was followed by a girl
+of similar type, and the two were introduced to Pauline
+as Mr. and Miss Minchin. The Minchins were accompanied
+by other neighbors, and the Dale girls found themselves
+in the midst of a party numbering at least fifty people.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt suddenly shy. As a rule she was not remarkable
+for this quality. She had a certain pretty assurance,
+and never, as her sisters expressed it, lost her
+head; but now her principal desire was to creep into her
+shell, not to answer the inane remarks made by the young
+men of the party, and on no account to allow them to put
+their arms round her waist and carry her round in the
+dance. Her face grew first red, then pale. She realized that
+she was very tired, and more than ever did she wish that
+she had never yielded to Nancy&#8217;s enticements.
+</p>
+<p>Patty and Briar, on the other hand, were enjoying themselves
+very much. They had done this very naughty thing
+on account of Pauline; they were glad they were helping
+her&mdash;their consciences did not trouble them in the least.
+They leant upon Pauline more than they were themselves
+aware of. If trouble came, she would of course shield them.
+At present there was no trouble. A picnic in the middle
+of the night, miles away from home, was the most exciting
+thing they had ever imagined. It beat the joys of the
+birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by
+there would perhaps be repentance, but who could think of
+repentance now, with the feast&mdash;and such a feast!&mdash;on the
+board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad, intoxicating
+music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they
+could scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass,
+and the summer moon entering through a chink in the big
+tent, and the gayly dressed people, and all the merry voices?
+Oh, it was an intoxicating time!
+</p>
+<p>So Briar danced with the first man who asked her, and
+Patty did likewise. They danced with the ease and lightness
+and grace of children in whom the accomplishment is
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span>
+born. Nancy&#8217;s clumsy efforts, and the clumsy efforts of her
+friends, were nowhere beside them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That little girl,&#8221; said a rough-headed farmer, pointing
+to Patty as he spoke, &#8220;dances like the foam of the sea. I
+never saw anything like it in all my life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why doesn&#8217;t the elder Miss Dale dance?&#8221; asked
+Farmer King.
+</p>
+<p>He had noticed that she was declining one partner after
+another.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, Miss Paulie,&#8221; he said, going to her side: &#8220;this
+won&#8217;t do. May I have the pleasure of a barn-dance with
+you, miss? You can&#8217;t refuse me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did find it impossible to refuse the good man. He
+took her hand and led her out, and presently she, too, was
+being whirled round and round. But her sense of weariness
+increased, and the heavy pain and bewilderment at her
+heart grew worse. Oh, why had she come? Once the farmer,
+looking at her, saw tears in her eyes. In a moment he
+stopped dancing. He took her hand and led her to the other
+side of the tent.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You dance beautifully, miss,&#8221; he said; &#8220;not quite so
+light as your little sister, but I am proud to be seen with
+you, miss, all the same. And now, if I may make so bold,
+what is the matter with you, Miss Pauline Dale?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing,&#8221; answered Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me,&#8221; replied the farmer. &#8220;Is it in reason that
+a little lady like yourself would have tears in her eyes at
+a moment like the present if there was nothing the matter?
+Is it in reason, miss?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I ought not to have come!&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>The farmer&#8217;s face grew rather red. He looked full at
+Pauline for a moment; then he said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t speak out now, for it&#8217;s only the beginning of the
+fun. There&#8217;s a great deal planned, and you are in the thick
+of it, but before you go back home I&#8217;ll have a word with
+you; so cheer up, my pretty little miss, for things that
+aren&#8217;t right can be put right. You trust Farmer King for
+that.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did cheer up. She felt that the farmer was her
+friend, and she also knew that he was a friend worth having.
+The other girls met her once or twice, and Patty whispered:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, there never was anything like this before! I could
+be naughty every single night of my life to have such
+fun!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The dance was followed by the feast, and the feast was
+A1. When it was over there was a moment of silence.
+Then Nancy, accompanied by Briar and Patty, Becky and
+Amy, and the two boys, Jack and Tom, assembled round
+the seat where Pauline had placed herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is your turn, Paulie,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;You are queen
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span>
+of to-night, for it is the night following your birthday.
+Come, queen, take your throne.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sick of thrones,&#8221; answered Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>But Nancy took her hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever you feel, you must not show it,&#8221; she said,
+&#8220;for that will spoil everything. Here is your throne; step
+up.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked round her. Up to the present moment a
+curtain had been drawn across one end of the tent. It was
+now removed, and the little girl saw a deep chair covered
+completely with flowers and moss and ferns. A bright light
+was hanging just at the back of this throne. Now Pauline,
+as queen of the day, was led up to it, and requested to take
+her seat thereon. She did so, feeling queer and giddy.
+When she was seated the young people stood in groups at
+her right hand and at her left.
+</p>
+<p>The farmer now appeared, carrying a table. All the
+guests stood in the background and looked on. The table
+was placed in front of Pauline. At the same instant Nancy
+bent forward and laid her hand across the little girl&#8217;s
+eyes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t look just for a minute,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline heard the ecstatic whispers of her own little sisters,
+and for the first time a feeling of wonder and pleasure
+stole over her. She forgot all that had gone before, and
+for the time was both happy and excited.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you may look,&#8221; said Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>As Pauline opened her eyes she felt something cool and
+soft descending on her head.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t touch it,&#8221; whispered Nancy; &#8220;it&#8217;s your crown.
+But come, girls and boys, we must do more than this to
+make our queen beautiful.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As she spoke all the young people divided into two groups,
+crossed the floor, and came past Pauline as she sat on her
+throne; and each one, as she or he passed, threw a wreath of
+flowers either over the head of the little girl, or round her
+neck, or into her lap, until finally she found herself absolutely
+embedded in flowers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look at yourself,&#8221; said Nancy, suddenly slipping a looking-glass
+in front of the birthday queen. &#8220;Tell us what
+you see.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked. The lights were so managed that she
+could see everything distinctly. The lights fell full upon
+her. She saw a pair of dark eyes, sweet, anxious, and beautiful;
+she saw a radiant and rosy face. Lilies of the valley,
+sweet-peas, and summer roses fell about her soft dark
+hair. Similar flowers fell about her neck. Her dress was
+hidden beneath its wealth of flowers; her charming face rose
+out of a perfect foam of flowers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I do look beautiful!&#8221; she said aloud, and at the naive
+remark the whole party shouted with merriment. Nancy
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span>
+cried, &#8220;Long life to the queen!&#8221; and Joe the Fiddler burst
+into his merriest strains; it was with the greatest difficulty
+that the desire for dancing could be suppressed, for the little
+ceremony was not yet quite over. It was Nancy&#8217;s turn to
+come forward.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Queen of the night,&#8221; she said, &#8220;we hope that you will
+like what we, your subjects, have done for you, and we
+hope that you will never forget your happy birthday. There
+is just one thing I have to say. When the flowers fade&mdash;and
+they are fading already&mdash;you, dear queen, will have no
+longer a kingdom, so we have brought you something; we
+have subscribed among us for something that will not fade&mdash;something
+that you can always wear in memory of us.
+Look! isn&#8217;t it beautiful?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Nancy spoke, she took a morocco case from the table,
+touched a spring, and revealed to Pauline&#8217;s dazzled eyes, a
+necklace of thin pure gold, to which a little locket, with a
+diamond in the centre, was attached.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This won&#8217;t fade,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;You can keep it all your
+life long. You can also remember that there are people in
+the world, perhaps born a little lower than yourself, who
+love you and care for you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you are good!&#8221; cried Pauline. &#8220;I will never forsake
+you, Nancy, or think myself better than you are.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t I say she was a brick?&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Stoop your
+head, queen; I will clasp the necklace around your neck.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did stoop her head, and the necklace was put in
+its place. The little diamond in the centre glittered as
+though it had a heart of fire. The flowers smelled sweet,
+but also heavy. Pauline was tired once again; but the music
+was resumed. Fiddler Joe played more enchanting music
+than before, and Pauline, suddenly rising from her throne,
+determined to dance during the remaining hours of that
+exciting night.
+</p>
+<p>But all happy things, and all naughty things come to an
+end, for such is the fashion of earth; and by-and-by the
+farmer said that if they wished to be home before morning
+they must get into the wagonette and the dogcart, and
+their guests must take themselves away. Now it was the
+farmer&#8217;s turn to come up to Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have given us all pleasure to-night, Miss Pauline,&#8221;
+he said; &#8220;and it warms our hearts to feel that, whatever
+the circumstances, you will always be true to us, who have
+been true to you and yours for generations. For, miss, the
+history of the Dales is almost bound up with the history of
+the Kings. And if the Dales were gentlefolks and lords
+of the manor, the Kings were their humble retainers. So,
+miss, the Dales and Kings were always good to each other;
+the Kings over and over again laying down their lives for
+the Dales in the Civil Wars, and the Dales on their part protecting
+the Kings. So, after all, miss, there&#8217;s no earthly
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span>
+reason, because a grand aunt of yours has come to live at
+The Dales, why the traditions of your house should be neglected
+and forgotten. I am proud to feel that this will never
+happen, and that your family and mine will be one. We
+do not consider ourselves your equals, but we do consider
+ourselves your friends. And if I can ever help you, Miss
+Pauline, you have only to come to me and I will do it.
+That&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve got to say. I don&#8217;t want thanks. I&#8217;m proud
+that you and your little sisters have trusted yourselves to
+us to-night, and I leave the matter of whether it was right
+or wrong to your own consciences. But whatever happens,
+what you did to-night is the sort of thing that Farmer King
+will never forget.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+<h3>VINEGAR.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was certainly not at all remarkable that the entire
+party should be drowsy and languid on the following day.
+Pauline had dark shadows under her eyes, and there was a
+fretful note in her voice. Nurse declared that Briar and
+Patty had caught cold, and could not imagine how they had
+managed to do so; but Miss Tredgold said that colds were
+common in hot weather, and that the children had played
+too long in the open air on the previous night. In short,
+those who were out of the mischief suspected nothing, and
+Pauline began to hope that her wild escapade would never
+be known. Certainly Briar and Patty would not betray her.
+</p>
+<p>They had all managed to climb up the tree and get in at
+her window without a soul knowing. Pauline therefore
+hoped that she was quite safe; and the hope that this was
+the case revived her spirits, so that in the afternoon she
+was looking and feeling much as usual. As she was dressing
+that morning she had made a sort of vow. It was not
+a bit the right thing to do, but then poor little Pauline was
+not doing anything very right just then. This was her vow.
+She had said in her prayer to God:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If You will keep Aunt Sophy from finding out how
+naughty I have been, I will, on my part, be extra good. I
+will do my lessons most perfectly, and never, never, never
+deceive Aunt Sophy again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Now, Pauline, unaware that such a prayer could not possibly
+be answered, felt a certain sense of security after
+she had made it.
+</p>
+<p>In addition to the beautiful chain with its locket and its
+diamond star in the middle, she had received several other
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span>
+presents of the gay and loud and somewhat useless sort.
+Nancy&#8217;s friends, Becky and Amy, had both given her presents,
+and several young people of the party had brought
+little trifles to present to the queen of the occasion. There
+was a time when Pauline would have been highly delighted
+with these gifts, but that time was not now. She felt the
+impossible tidies, the ugly pin-cushions, the hideous toilet-covers,
+the grotesque night-dress bags to be more burdens
+than treasures. What could she possibly do with them?
+The gold chain and locket were another matter. She felt
+very proud of her chain and her little heart-shaped locket.
+She was even mad enough to fasten the chain round her
+neck that morning and hide it beneath her frock, and so go
+downstairs with the diamond resting on her heart.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold had wisely resolved that there were to be
+very few lessons that day. The girls were to read history
+and a portion of one of Shakespeare&#8217;s plays, and afterwards
+they were to sit in the garden and do their fancy-work.
+They were all glad of the quiet day and of the absence of
+excitement, and as evening progressed they recovered from
+their fatigue, and Pauline was as merry as the rest.
+</p>
+<p>It was not until preparation hour that Pauline felt a
+hand laid on her arm; two keen black eyes looked into her
+face, and a small girl clung to her side.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, what is it, Pen?&#8221; said Pauline, almost crossly.
+&#8220;What do you want now?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought perhaps you&#8217;d like to know,&#8221; replied Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To know what, you tiresome child? Don&#8217;t press up
+against me; I hate being pawed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does you? Perhaps you&#8217;d rather things was knowed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Pen? You are always so mysterious and
+tiresome.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Only that I think you ought to tell me,&#8221; said Penelope,
+lowering her voice and speaking with great gentleness. &#8220;I
+think you ought to tell me all about the things that are hidden
+away in that bandbox under your bed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221; said Pauline, turning pale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, I thought I&#8217;d like to go into your room and have
+a good look round.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you have no right to do that sort of thing. It is intolerably
+mean of you. You had no right to go into my bedroom.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I often does what I has no right to do,&#8221; said Penelope,
+by no means abashed. &#8220;I went in a-purpose &#8217;cos you didn&#8217;t
+tell me what you wished to tell me once, and I was burning
+to know. Do you understand what it is to be all curiosity
+so that your heart beats too quick and you gets fidgety?
+Well, I was in that sort of state, and I said to myself, &#8216;I
+will know.&#8217; So I went into your room and poked about.
+I looked under the bed, and there was an old bandbox where
+you kept your summer hat afore Aunt Sophy came; and I
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span>
+pulled it out and opened it, and, oh! I see&#8217;d&mdash;&mdash; Paulie,
+I&#8217;d like to have &#8217;em. You doesn&#8217;t want &#8217;em, &#8217;cos you have
+hidden &#8217;em, and I should like to have &#8217;em.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, that pin-cushion for one thing&mdash;oh! it&#8217;s a beauty&mdash;and
+that tidy. May I have the pin-cushion and the tidy,
+Paulie&mdash;the purple pin-cushion and the red tidy? May I?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May Aunt Sophy have them?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be silly.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May anybody have them?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re mine.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How did you get them?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s my affair.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You didn&#8217;t get them from me, nor from any of the other
+girls&mdash;I can go round and ask them if you like, but I know
+you didn&#8217;t&mdash;nor from father, nor from Aunt Sophy, nor
+from Betty, nor from John, nor from any of the new servants.
+Who gave them to you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s my affair.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t tell?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I tell Aunt Sophy about the bandbox chock-full of
+funny things pushed under the bed?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you do&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope danced a few feet away. She then stood in
+front of her sister and began to sway her body backwards
+and forwards.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I see&#8217;d,&#8221; she began, &#8220;such a funny thing!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Penelope, you are too tormenting!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I see&#8217;d such a very funny thing!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold was seen approaching. Penelope looked
+round at her and then deliberately raised her voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I see&#8217;d such a very, very funny thing!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Pen? Why are you teasing your sister?&#8221;
+said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I aren&#8217;t!&#8221; cried Penelope. &#8220;I are telling her something
+what she ought to know. It is about something I&mdash;&mdash; Shall
+I go on, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; you make my head ache. Aunt Sophy, may I go in
+and lie down?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, my dear. You look very pale. My poor
+child, you were over-excited yesterday. This won&#8217;t do.
+Penelope, stop teasing your sister, and come for a walk
+with me. Pauline, go and lie down until dinner-time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline went slowly in the direction of the house, but
+fear dogged her footsteps. What did Penelope know, and
+what did she not know?
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Miss Tredgold took the little girl&#8217;s hand and
+began to pace up and down.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have a great deal to correct in you, Pen,&#8221; she said.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span>
+&#8220;You are always spying and prying. That is not a nice
+character for a child.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can be useful if I spy and pry,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear, unless you wish to become a female detective,
+you will be a much greater nuisance than anything else if
+you go on making mysteries about nothing. I saw that you
+were tormenting dear little Pauline just now. The child is
+very nervous. If she is not stronger soon I shall take her
+to the seaside. She certainly needs a change.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And me, too?&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I want change awful
+bad.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit of you. I never saw a more ruddy, healthy-looking
+little girl in the whole course of my life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what I could do to be paled down,&#8221; thought
+Penelope to herself; but she did not speak her thought
+aloud. &#8220;I mustn&#8217;t tell Aunt Sophy, that is plain. I must
+keep all I know about Paulie dark for the present. There&#8217;s
+an awful lot. There&#8217;s about the thimble, and&mdash;yes, I did see
+them all three. I&#8217;m glad I saw them. I won&#8217;t tell now, for
+I&#8217;d only be punished; but if I don&#8217;t tell, and pretend I&#8217;m going
+to, Paulie will have to pay me to keep silent. That will
+be fun.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The days passed, and Pauline continued to look pale, and
+Miss Tredgold became almost unreasonably anxious about
+her. Notwithstanding Verena&#8217;s assurance that Pauline had
+the sort of complexion that often looked white in summer,
+the good lady was not reassured. There was something more
+than ordinary weakness and pallor about the child. There
+was an expression in her eyes which kept her kind aunt
+awake at night.
+</p>
+<p>Now this most excellent woman had never yet allowed
+the grass to grow under her feet. She was quick and decisive
+in all her movements. She was the sort of person
+who on the field of battle would have gone straight to the
+front. In the hour of danger she had never been known to lose
+her head. She therefore lost no time in making arrangements
+to take Verena and Pauline to the seaside. Accordingly
+she wrote to a landlady she happened to know, and
+engaged some remarkably nice rooms at Easterhaze on the
+south coast. Verena and Pauline were told of her plans
+exactly a week after the birthday. Pauline had been having
+bad dreams; she had been haunted by many things. The
+look of relief on her face, therefore, when Miss Tredgold
+told her that they were to pack their things that day, and
+that she, Verena, and herself would start for Easterhaze at
+an early hour on the following morning, was almost beyond
+words.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why is you giving Pauline this great big treat?&#8221; asked
+Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little girls should be seen and not heard,&#8221; was Miss
+Tredgold&#8217;s remark.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;But this little girl wants to be heard,&#8221; replied the incorrigible
+child. &#8220;&#8217;Cos she isn&#8217;t very strong, and &#8217;cos her
+face is palefied.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is no such word as palefied, Penelope.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I made it. It suits me,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline&#8217;s cheeks are rather too pale,&#8221; answered Miss
+Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>She did not reprove Penelope, for in spite of herself she
+sometimes found a smile coming to her face at the child&#8217;s
+extraordinary remarks.
+</p>
+<p>Presently Penelope slipped away. She went thoughtfully
+across the lawn. Her head was hanging, and her whole
+stout little figure testified to the fact that she was meditating.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Off to the sea!&#8221; she muttered softly to herself. &#8220;Off to
+the big briny waves, to the wadings, to the sand castles, to
+the shrimps, to the hurdy-gurdies, and all &#8217;cos she&#8217;s palefied.
+I wish I could be paled.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She ran into the house, rushed through the almost deserted
+nursery, and startled nurse out of her seven senses
+with a wild whoop.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nursey, how can I be paled down?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense, child! Don&#8217;t talk rubbish.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I pale, nursey, or am I a rosy sort of little girl?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a sunburnt, healthy-looking little child, with
+no beauty to fash about,&#8221; was nurse&#8217;s blunt response.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I healthy-looking?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you are, Miss Pen. Be thankful to the Almighty
+for it, and don&#8217;t worry me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen stuck out her tongue, made a hideous face at nurse,
+and darted from the room. She stood in the passage for a
+minute or two reflecting, then she slipped round and went
+in the direction of Pauline&#8217;s bedroom.
+</p>
+<p>The bandbox chock-full of those vulgar presents had been
+pushed into the back part of a dark cupboard which stood
+in the little girl&#8217;s room. Penelope knew all about that. She
+opened the cupboard, disappeared into its shadows, and then
+returned with an orange-colored tidy and a chocolate-red
+pin-cushion. Having made a bag of the front of her frock,
+she slipped the pin-cushion and tidy into it, and ran off
+to the kitchen. Aunt Sophia visited the kitchen each morning,
+but Pen knew that the hour of her daily visit had not
+yet arrived. Betty was there, surreptitiously reading a
+copy of the <i>Faithful Friend</i>. She started when Pen darted
+into her domain.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now what is it, Miss Penelope? For goodness&#8217; sake,
+miss, get out of this. Your aunt would be flabbergasted to
+see you here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>For response Pen planted down in front of Betty the
+orange-colored tidy and the chocolate-red pin-cushion.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s some things,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Here&#8217;s two nice things
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span>
+for a nice body. What will that nice body give for these
+nice things?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My word!&#8221; said Betty, &#8220;they&#8217;re natty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She took up the pin-cushion and examined it all over.
+She then laid it down again. She next took up the tidy,
+turned it from side to side, and placed it, with a sigh of
+distinct desire, beside the pin-cushion.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Them&#8217;s my taste,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I like those sort of fixed
+colors. I can&#8217;t abide the wishy-washy tastes of the present
+day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s quite beautiful, ain&#8217;t they?&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give
+them to you if you will&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will give them to me?&#8221; said Betty. &#8220;But where
+did you get them from?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That don&#8217;t matter a bit. Don&#8217;t you ask any questions and
+you will hear no lies. I will give them to you, and nobody
+and nothing shall ever take them from you again, if you do
+something for me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that, Miss Pen?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you, Betty&mdash;will you? And will you be awful quick
+about it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should like to have them,&#8221; said Betty. &#8220;There&#8217;s a
+friend of mine going to commit marriage, and that tidy
+would suit her down to the ground. She&#8217;d like it beyond
+anything. But, all the same, I don&#8217;t hold with young ladies
+forcing their way into my kitchen; it&#8217;s not haristocratic.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind that ugly word. Will you do what I want?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Miss Pen?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Palefy me. Make me sort of refined. Take the color
+out of me. Bleach me&mdash;that&#8217;s it. I want to go to the seaside.
+Pale people go; rosy people don&#8217;t. I want to be awful
+pale by to-night. How can it be done? It&#8217;s more genteel
+to be pale.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is that,&#8221; said Betty, looking at the rosy Penelope with
+critical eyes. &#8220;I have often fretted over my own color; it&#8217;s
+mostly fixed in the nose, too. But I don&#8217;t know any way
+to get rid of it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you?&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>Quick as thought she snatched up the pin-cushion and
+tidy.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t have these,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Your friend what&#8217;s
+going to be married won&#8217;t have this tidy. If you can&#8217;t take
+fixed colors out of me, you don&#8217;t have fixed colors for your
+bedroom, so there!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are awful quick and smart, miss, and I have heard
+tell that vinegar does it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Vinegar?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have heard tell, but I have never tried it. You drink
+it three times a day, a wine-glass at a time. It&#8217;s horrid
+nasty stuff, but if you want to change your complexion you
+must put up with some sort of inconvenience.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Suppose, Betty, you and me both drink it. Your nose
+might get white, and I might go to the seaside.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, miss, I&#8217;m not tempted to interfere with nature. I&#8217;ve
+got good &#8217;ealth, and I&#8217;ll keep it without no vinegar.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But will you give me some? You shall have the pin-cushion
+and the tidy if you do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Arriet would like that tidy,&#8221; contemplated Betty, looking
+with round eyes at the hideous ornament.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You sneak round to the boot-house, and I&#8217;ll have it
+ready for you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Come at eleven, come again at
+half-past three, and come at seven in the evening.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>This was arranged, and Pen, faithfully to the minute, did
+make her appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her
+first glass of vinegar with a wry face; but after it was swallowed
+she began to feel intensely good and pleased with
+herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will it pale me in an hour?&#8221; was her thought.
+</p>
+<p>She ran upstairs, found a tiny square of looking-glass,
+concealed it in her pocket, and came down again. During
+the remainder of the day she might have been observed at
+intervals sneaking away by herself, and had any one followed
+her, that person would have seen her taking the looking-glass
+from her pocket and carefully examining her
+cheeks.
+</p>
+<p>Alas! the vinegar had only produced a slight feeling of
+discomfort; it had not taken any of the bloom out of the
+firm, fat cheeks.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s horrid, and it&#8217;s not doing it,&#8221; thought the child. &#8220;I
+wish I hadn&#8217;t gived her that tidy and that pin-cushion. But
+I will go on somehow till the color is out. They will send
+for me when they hear that I&#8217;m bad. Perhaps I&#8217;ll look bad
+to-night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>But Pen&#8217;s &#8220;perhapses&#8221; were knocked on the head, for
+Miss Tredgold made a sudden and most startling announcement.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why wait for the morning?&#8221; she exclaimed. &#8220;We are
+all packed and ready. We can easily get to Easterhaze by
+a late train to-night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly, by a late train that evening Miss Tredgold,
+Verena, and Pauline departed. They drove to Lyndhurst
+Road, and presently found themselves in a first-class carriage
+being carried rapidly away.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am glad I thought of it,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, turning
+to the two girls. &#8220;It is true we shall arrive late, but Miss
+Pinchin will have things ready, as she will have received my
+telegram. We shall sleep at our new quarters in peace and
+comfort, and be ready to enjoy ourselves in the morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+<h3>GLENGARRY CAPS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Penelope drank her vinegar three times a day. She applied
+herself to this supposed remedy with a perseverance
+and good faith worthy of a better cause. This state of things
+continued until on a certain night she was seized with acute
+pain, and awoke shrieking out the startling words, &#8220;Vinegar!
+vinegar!&#8221; Nurse, who was not in the plot, thought
+the child was raving. She scolded Penelope more than pitied
+her, administered a strong dose, and, in short, treated
+her as rather a naughty invalid.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s green apples that has done it,&#8221; said nurse, shaking
+her head solemnly, and looking as if she thought Penelope
+ought certainly to return to her nursery thraldom.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I mustn&#8217;t take so much vinegar,&#8221; thought the little girl;
+&#8220;but I do hope that being so ill, and taking the horrid medicine,
+and being scolded by the nurse will have made me a
+bit pale.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She doubtless hoped also that her illness would be reported
+to Miss Tredgold, who would send for her in double-quick
+time; but as Miss Tredgold was not told, and no one
+took any notice of Pen&#8217;s fit of indigestion, she was forced to
+try other means to accomplish her darling desire&mdash;for go
+to the seaside she was determined she would. Of late she
+had been reading all the books she could find relating to
+the sea. She devoted herself to the subject of shells and
+seaweeds, and always talked with admiration of those
+naughty children who got into mischief on the sands.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lots of them get drownded,&#8221; she was heard to say to
+Adelaide. &#8220;It is quite, quite common to be washed up a
+drownded person by the big waves.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Adelaide did not believe it, but Penelope stuck to her own
+opinion, and whenever she found one of her sisters alone
+and ready to listen to her, her one invariable remark was:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me about the sea.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Once it darted into her erratic little head that she would
+run away, walk miles and miles, sleep close to the hedges
+at night, receive drinks of milk from good-natured cottagers,
+and finally appear a dusty, travel-stained, very sick
+little girl at Aunt Sophia&#8217;s lodgings at Easterhaze. But the
+difficulties in the way of such an undertaking were beyond
+even Pen&#8217;s heroic spirit. Notwithstanding her vinegar and
+her suffering, she was still rosy&mdash;indeed, her cheeks seemed
+to get plumper and rounder than ever. She hated to think
+of the vinegar she had taken in vain; she hated to remember
+Betty and the tidy and pin-cushion she had given her.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span></p>
+<p>Meanwhile the days passed quickly and the invitation she
+pined for did not come. What was to be done? Suddenly
+it occurred to her that, if she could only become possessed
+of certain facts which she now suspected, she might be able
+to fulfil her own darling desire. For Pen knew more than
+the other girls supposed. She was very angry with Pauline
+for not confiding in her on Pauline&#8217;s birthday, and at night
+she had managed to keep awake, and had risen softly from
+her cot and stood in her white night-dress by the window;
+and from there she had seen three little figures creeping
+side by side across the lawn&mdash;three well-known little figures.
+She had very nearly shouted after them; she had very nearly
+pursued them. But all she really did was to creep back
+into bed and say to herself in a tone of satisfaction:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now I knows. Now I will get lots of pennies out of
+Paulie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She dropped into the sleep of a happy child almost as
+she muttered the last words, but in the morning she had
+not forgotten what she had seen.
+</p>
+<p>On a certain day shortly after Penelope had recovered
+from her very severe fit of indigestion, she was playing on
+the lawn, making herself, as was her wont, very troublesome,
+when Briar, looking up from her new story-book, said
+in a discontented voice:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do wish you would go away, Penelope. You worry me
+awfully.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope, instead of going away, went and stood in front
+of her sister.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does I?&#8221; she said. &#8220;Then I am glad.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You really are a horrid child, Pen. Patty and Adelaide,
+can you understand why Pen is such a disagreeable child?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She is quite the most extraordinary child I ever heard of
+in the whole course of my life,&#8221; said Adelaide. &#8220;The other
+night, when she woke up with a pain in her little tum-tum,
+she shouted, &#8216;Vinegar! vinegar!&#8217; She must really have
+been going off her poor little head.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I wasn&#8217;t,&#8221; said Penelope, who turned scarlet and then
+white. &#8220;It was vinegar&mdash;real vinegar. It was to pale me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t talk to her!&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;She is too silly
+for anything. Go away, baby, and play with sister Marjorie,
+and don&#8217;t talk any more rubbish.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You call me baby?&#8221; said Penelope, coming close to the
+last speaker, and standing with her arms akimbo. &#8220;You
+call me baby? Then I will ask you a question. Who were
+the people that walked across the lawn on the night of
+Paulie&#8217;s birthday? Who was the three peoples who walked
+holding each other&#8217;s hands?&mdash;little peoples with short skirts&mdash;little
+peoples about the size of you, maybe; and about
+the size of Briar, maybe; and about the size of Paulie, maybe.
+Who was they? You answer me that. They wasn&#8217;t
+ghostses, was they?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span></p>
+<p>Briar turned pale; Patty glanced at her. Adelaide, who
+had watchful blue eyes, turned and looked from one sister
+to the other.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are talking rubbish,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;Go and play.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who was they?&#8221; repeated Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I baby or big wise girl?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you are an infant Solomon! I don&#8217;t know who the
+people were.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope looked at Briar with a sigh of disappointment.
+Then she whispered to herself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s &#8217;cos of Adelaide. Course they don&#8217;t want to say anything
+when Addy&#8217;s there.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She strolled away.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was the child talking about?&#8221; asked Adelaide.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; replied Briar. &#8220;She&#8217;s the rummiest
+little thing that ever walked. But there&#8217;s no good in
+taking any notice of what she says.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course no one does,&#8221; answered Adelaide. &#8220;But I do
+wonder if ghosts ever walk across the lawn. Do you believe
+in ghosts, Briar?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;No girl in her senses
+does.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know at all as to that,&#8221; replied Adelaide. &#8220;There
+was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her
+name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said
+she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar?
+Why do you shrug your shoulders?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to talk about
+ghosts. I don&#8217;t believe in them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She got up and crossed the lawn. The next moment Pen
+had tucked her hand inside her arm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t keep it from me,&#8221; she said in a whisper.
+&#8220;It was you and Patty and Paulie. I knew who you were,
+&#8217;cos the moon shone on Patty&#8217;s Glengarry cap. You needn&#8217;t
+deny it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do deny it. I didn&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>She felt her heart smite her as she told this lie. She
+walked quickly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do leave me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You are a little girl that
+doesn&#8217;t at all know her own place.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I do know it,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;My place is at the
+seaside. I want to go there. I&#8217;m &#8217;termined to go there. If
+I don&#8217;t go one way I&#8217;ll go another. Why should Paulie,
+what is the naughtiest of girls, have all the fun? I don&#8217;t
+mind Renny being there so much. And why should I, what
+is the very best of girls, be kept stuck here with only
+nursey and you childrens to bother me? I am going. I&#8217;m
+&#8217;termined.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She marched away. Patty came up.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Patty,&#8221; said Briar, &#8220;I&#8217;ve done it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; asked Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve told a lie about it. I said we weren&#8217;t on the lawn
+at all. I told her she was talking nonsense.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Couldn&#8217;t you have got out of it by any other way?&#8221;
+asked Patty. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t seem right to tell lies.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could with any one but Pen; but Pen can see through
+a brick wall. I had to tell it, and very plump, too, where
+Pen was in the question.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, it makes me feel horrid,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;I am sorry
+we went. I think we did awfully wrong.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We did it for Paulie. We&#8217;d do more than that for her,&#8221;
+replied Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose so. I certainly love Paulie very much,&#8221; answered
+Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And, Patty,&#8221; continued Briar, &#8220;having told such a great
+black lie to help her, we must go through with it. Pen
+means mischief. She&#8217;s the sort of child who would do anything
+to gain anything. She wants to go to the seaside, and
+she wouldn&#8217;t mind whom she got into trouble if it suited her
+own ends. We must remember she means mischief, and if
+she talks again about three figures on the lawn, you and I
+have got to stick to it that we didn&#8217;t go. Do you understand?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do, and I consider it awful,&#8221; said Patty.
+</p>
+<p>She did not add any more, but went slowly into the house.
+Presently, feeling much depressed, she sought nurse&#8217;s society.
+Nurse was turning some of the girls&#8217; skirts. She was
+a good needlewoman, and had clung to the house of Dale
+through many adverse circumstances. She was enjoying
+herself at present, and used often to say that it resembled
+the time of the fat kine in Egypt.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Miss Patty!&#8221; she cried. &#8220;It&#8217;s glad I am to see you,
+darling.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can I do anything for you, nursey?&#8221; asked Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you can, dear. You can help me to unpick this
+frock. I am cutting it down to fit Miss Pen. It will make
+a very neat frock for her, and it seems unfair that dear Miss
+Tredgold should be at more expense than is necessary.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why,&#8221; asked Patty, with a surprised look, &#8220;doesn&#8217;t father
+pay for the things?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Dale!&#8221; cried nurse in a tone of wrath, &#8220;I&#8217;d like to
+see him. It&#8217;s not that he wouldn&#8217;t, and for all I can tell he
+may have the money; but, bless you, darling! he&#8217;d forget it.
+He&#8217;d forget that there was such a thing as dress wanted in
+all the world; and servants and food, and the different things
+that all well-managed houses must have, couldn&#8217;t lie on his
+memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose
+if that dear, blessed lady didn&#8217;t put her hand into her pocket
+in the way she does that you&#8217;d be having the right good
+time you are now having, and the nice clothes, and the good
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span>
+education, and the pretty ponies coming next week? And
+Miss Pauline, just because she&#8217;s a bit pale, taken to the seaside?
+Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It&#8217;s thankful
+you ought to be to the Providence that put it into your
+aunt&#8217;s head to act as she has done. Ah! if my dear mistress
+was living she would bless her dear sister.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you know mother before she was married?&#8221; asked
+Patty, taking up a skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which
+nurse provided her with, and sitting down happily to her
+task.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?&#8221;
+asked nurse. &#8220;And didn&#8217;t I over and over again help
+Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was a wild young
+lady!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything
+wrong?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit
+and for dash and for go there wasn&#8217;t her like. Not a horse
+in the land was wild enough to please her. She&#8217;d ride bareback
+on any creature you gave her to mount, and never come
+to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn&#8217;t
+touch. She had a way with her that they couldn&#8217;t resist.
+Just a pat of her hand on their necks and they&#8217;d be quiet
+and shiver all over as though they were too delighted for
+anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My word! and
+she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand.
+And as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all
+the world like our Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two
+have very much in common, and that is why Miss Tredgold
+has taken such a fancy to your sister.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think she has?&#8221; asked Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do I think it?&#8221; cried nurse. &#8220;For goodness&#8217; sake,
+Miss Patty, don&#8217;t cut the material. Do look where you
+are putting the scissors. Do I think it, miss? I
+know it. Miss Marjorie, sweet pet, you shall thread these
+daisies. You shall make a pretty chain of them to put
+around your neck. There&#8217;s my little precious.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Fat, lovely, little Marjorie shrieked with delight when
+nurse put a coarse needle, to which was attached an equally
+coarse piece of cotton, and a basket of daisies before her.
+Marjorie tried to thread daisies, and uttered little cries of
+happiness, while Patty and nurse talked together.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Tredgold was a wonderful young lady, so handsome
+and high-spirited. But if she didn&#8217;t always obey, she
+never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved
+her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that
+when my master proposed that they should marry, it was
+a good while before she&#8217;d consent&mdash;and all because she didn&#8217;t
+want to part with Miss Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy
+would consent to live with them she&#8217;d marry Mr. Dale at
+once, for she was very much attached to him. But Miss
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span>
+Sophy put down her foot. &#8216;Live with a married couple!&#8217;
+she cried. &#8216;Why, I&#8217;d rather die.&#8217; Well, my dear, there were
+words and tears and groans; but at last Miss Sophy took
+the bit between her teeth, and went off to an old relative, a
+certain Miss Barberry, in Scotland, and arranged to live
+with her and look after her. And your mother married;
+and when Miss Barberry died she left Miss Sophy every
+penny she possessed, and Miss Sophy is very rich now; and
+well she deserves it. Dear, dear! I seem to see Miss Sophia
+over again in our Miss Pauline. She was very comical, and
+so high-spirited and wild, although she&#8217;d never do an underhand
+thing.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never?&#8221; asked Patty, with a sigh.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course not. What do you take her for? Noble ladies
+what is ladies don&#8217;t do mean sort of things.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty sighed again.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you sighing for, Miss Patty? I hate to hear
+young ladies giving way to their feelings in that sort of
+fashion.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was only thinking that you compared Aunt Sophy to
+Pauline.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And why shouldn&#8217;t I? Is it you who want to belittle
+your sister? Miss Pauline is as high-spirited as ever young
+lady was, but neither would she do a mean or underhand
+thing.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty suppressed her next sigh. For a long time she
+did not speak.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nurse,&#8221; she said when she next broke silence, &#8220;did you
+in the whole course of your life ever tell a lie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My word!&#8221; cried nurse&mdash;&#8220;Miss Marjorie, you&#8217;ll prick
+your little fingers if you hold the needle like that. This
+way, lovey. Did I ever tell a lie, Miss Patty? Goodness
+gracious me! Well, to be sure, perhaps I told a bit of a
+tarradiddle when I was a small child; but an out-and-out
+lie&mdash;never, thank the Almighty!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what is the difference between a lie and a tarradiddle?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Miss Patty, there&#8217;s a deal of difference. A tarradiddle
+is what you say when you are, so to speak, took
+by surprise. It isn&#8217;t a lie out and out; it&#8217;s the truth concealed,
+I call it. Sometimes it is a mere exaggeration. You
+say a person is very, very cross when maybe that person
+is hardly cross at all. I can&#8217;t quite explain, miss; I suppose
+there&#8217;s scarcely any one who hasn&#8217;t been guilty of a
+tarradiddle; but a lie&mdash;a thought-out lie&mdash;never.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is a lie so very awful?&#8221; asked Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Awful!&#8221; repeated nurse.
+</p>
+<p>She rose solemnly from her seat, went up to Patty, and
+put her hand under her chin.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you ever catch me a-seeing you a-doing of it,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t own one of you Dales if you told
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span>
+falsehoods. A black lie the Bible speaks of as a thing
+that ain&#8217;t lightly forgiven. But, of course, you have never
+told a lie. Oh, my dear, sweet young lady, you quite
+frightened me! To think that one of my children could be
+guilty of a sin like that!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty made no answer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am tired of work,&#8221; she said; &#8220;I am going out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She flung down the skirt that she was helping to unpick
+and let the scissors fall to the ground.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You might put your work tidily away, Miss Patty.
+You aren&#8217;t half as useful and helpful as you ought to
+be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Patty laid the skirt on a chair and slipped away. Nurse
+continued her occupation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what the child meant,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;She
+looked queer when she spoke. But there! with all their
+faults&mdash;and goodness knows they&#8217;ve plenty&mdash;they&#8217;re straight,
+every one of them. A crooked-minded Dale or a crooked-minded
+Tredgold would be a person unheard of. Oh, yes,
+they&#8217;re straight enough, that&#8217;s a blessing.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Patty sought her sister.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s worse than I thought,&#8221; she remarked. &#8220;It&#8217;s not
+even a tarradiddle.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221; asked Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The lie you told&mdash;the lie I am to help you to hide.
+It&#8217;s black as ink, and God is very angry with little girls
+who tell lies. He scarcely can forgive lies. I was talking
+to nurse, and she explained.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to say that you told her about Pauline?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Patty in a voice of scorn. &#8220;I am not
+quite as bad as that. But she was speaking about Aunt
+Sophy and how wild she used to be, and she compared her
+to Paulie, and said that Aunt Sophy never did anything
+mean or underhand, and that Paulie never did either. I
+felt as if I could jump, for we know, Briar, what Paulie
+has done.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, we know,&#8221; answered Briar. &#8220;And you and I have
+done very wrong, too. But there is no help for it now,
+Patty. We can&#8217;t go back.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It certainly does seem awful to think of growing up
+wicked,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t let&#8217;s talk about it,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;We&#8217;ll have to
+suffer some time, but perhaps not yet. Do you know that
+the apples are getting ripe, and John wants us to help
+him to pick them? Oh! and the mulberry-tree, too, is a
+mass of fruit. What do you say to climbing the apple-trees
+and shaking down the apples?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say!&#8221; cried Patty. &#8220;Delicious!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Without more words the little girls ran off to the orchard,
+and nurse&#8217;s remarks with regard to the difference
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span>
+between lies and tarradiddles were forgotten for the time
+being.
+</p>
+<p>The days went on, but Pen did not forget. There came
+a morning when, a letter having arrived from Aunt Sophy
+saying that Pauline was much better&mdash;in fact, quite herself
+again&mdash;and that she and both the girls would be home in
+about a week, the little girl was rendered desperate.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I has no time to lose,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I am &#8217;termined
+to go; I am going some fashion or t&#8217;other.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>On this occasion she took a bolder step than she had
+yet attempted. She resolved to walk alone the entire distance
+between The Dales and The Hollies, which was about
+three miles. Pen was the sort of child who was never
+troubled by physical fear. She also knew the Forest very
+well. She had but to slip away; none of her sisters would
+miss her. Or if nurse wondered where she was, she would
+conclude that Pen was keeping her elder sisters company.
+If the girls wondered, they would think she was with nurse.
+Altogether the feat was easy of accomplishment, and the
+naughty child determined to go. She started off an hour
+after breakfast, opened the wicket-gate, let herself out,
+and began to walk quickly. These were the days of early
+autumn, when the Forest was looking its best; the trees
+were beginning to put on their regal dresses of crimson
+and brown and gold. Already the rich red leaves were
+dropping to the ground. The bracken was withering to a
+golden brown, and the heather was a deep purple. Everywhere,
+too, little bluebells sprang up, looking as if they
+were making fairy music. There were squirrels, too,
+darting from bough to bough of the beech-trees; and rabbits
+innumerable, with white-tipped tails, disappearing
+into their various holes. A walk in the Forest on this
+special day was the sort to fascinate some children, but
+Pen cared for none of these things. Her way lay straight
+before her; her object was never for a moment forgotten.
+She meant to reach the sea by some means or other.
+</p>
+<p>She was a somewhat tired and hot little person when at
+last she appeared outside the broad gravel walk that led
+to The Hollies; and it so happened that when she entered
+this walk her courage was put to a severe test, for Lurcher,
+the farmer&#8217;s bulldog, happened to be loose. As a rule he
+was kept tied up. Now, Lurcher was a very discerning
+person. He attacked beggars in a most ferocious manner,
+but as to ladies and gentlemen a fierce bout of barking
+was sufficient. Pen, however, looked like neither a beggar
+nor a lady or gentleman. Lurcher did not know what to
+make of Pen. Some one so small and so untidy could
+scarcely be a visitor. She was much too short and much
+too stout, and her little legs were bleeding from the thorny
+brambles that she had come through during her journey.
+Accordingly Lurcher, with a low growl and a swift bound,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span>
+pinned poor little Pen by the skirt of her short frock.
+He was sufficiently a gentleman not to hurt her, but he
+had not the least idea of letting her go. He pinned her
+even more firmly when she moved an inch away from him,
+and when she raised her voice he growled. He not only
+growled, but he shook her dress fiercely. Already she felt
+it snap from its waistband under Lurcher&#8217;s terrible teeth.
+She was a very brave child, but her present predicament
+was almost more than she could bear. How long it lasted
+no one quite knew. Then there came a stride across the
+gravel, a shout from Farmer King, and Pen was transferred
+from the ground into his sheltering arms.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You poor little thing!&#8221; he said. &#8220;You poor little bit
+of a lass! Now, you don&#8217;t tell me you are one of the Dales?
+You have their eyes&mdash;black as black most of them are. Are
+you a Dale?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Course I am,&#8221; answered Penelope. &#8220;I&#8217;m Penelope Dale.
+He&#8217;s a shocking bad dog. I never thought I could be
+frightened. I was &#8217;termined to come, but I never thought
+you kept such a shocking, awful dog as that.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am more sorry than I can say, my little dear. I
+wonder now who let the brute out. He&#8217;ll catch it from
+me, whoever he is. Here, Nancy! Hullo, Nancy! Come
+along here, quick!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy, looking fresh and smiling, stepped out of the open
+French window.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why,&#8221; she said when she saw Pen, &#8220;wherever did you
+drop from?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen began to cry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wor &#8217;termined to come,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I wanted to see
+you most tur&#8217;ble bad.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor little thing!&#8221; said the farmer. &#8220;She&#8217;s got a bit
+of a fright. What do you think, Nancy? Lurcher had
+little miss by her skirt. He&#8217;d pinned her, so to speak, and
+he wouldn&#8217;t let go, not if she fainted; and she was that
+brave, little dear, that she didn&#8217;t do anything but just stood
+still, with her face as white as death.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wor I paled down?&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;Do tell me if I wor
+paled down a bit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You were as white as death, you poor little pretty,&#8221;
+said the farmer; and then he kissed the little girl on her
+broad forehead, and hurried off to expostulate with regard
+to Lurcher.
+</p>
+<p>Nancy took Pen into the house, and sat down in a cosy
+American rocking-chair with the little girl in her lap. She
+proceeded to gorge her with caramels and chocolates. Pen
+had never been so much fussed over before; and, truth,
+to tell, she had seldom enjoyed herself better.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wor &#8216;termined&mdash;&#8217;termined to come,&#8221; she repeated several
+times. At last her sobs ceased altogether, and she
+cuddled up against Nancy and went to sleep in her arms.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span></p>
+<p>Nancy lifted her up and put her on the horse-hair sofa;
+she laid a rug over her, and then stooped and kissed her.
+Afterwards she went out and joined her father.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever brought little miss here?&#8221; asked the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s more than I can tell you, father.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And why don&#8217;t the others come sometimes?&#8221; snapped
+Farmer King. &#8220;They none of &#8217;em come, not even that
+pretty girl we made so much fuss over, giving her a gold
+locket and chain. Now, I&#8217;d like to find out, Nancy, my girl,
+if she has ever shown that locket and chain to her haristocratic
+aunt. Do you suppose the haristocratic lady has
+set eyes on it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy laughed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I guess not,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Paulie&#8217;s a bit of a coward.
+She wants to know us and yet she don&#8217;t. She wants to
+know us behind the aunt&#8217;s back.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Left hand, not right hand,&#8221; said the farmer. &#8220;I don&#8217;t
+like that sort.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At any rate she can&#8217;t come to us at present, father,
+for Miss Tredgold has taken her to the seaside.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it, is it?&#8221; said the farmer, his face clearing.
+&#8220;Then I suppose little miss has come with a message.
+What did missie say about your friend, Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing. She&#8217;s asleep at present. I mean to let her
+have her sleep out, then give her some dinner, and drive
+her home in the dogcart.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do as you like, Nance; only for mercy&#8217;s sake don&#8217;t make
+a fool of yourself over that family, for it strikes me forcibly
+they&#8217;re becoming too grand for us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy said nothing further. She returned to the house
+and sat down in the room where Penelope slept. Her
+work-basket was open. She was making a pretty new
+necktie for herself. Nancy was a very clever workwoman,
+and the necktie grew under her nimble fingers. Presently
+she dived into the bottom of the basket and took out a
+gold thimble with a sapphire top and turquoises round
+the rim. She slipped it on to the tip of her slender first
+finger.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must send it back again,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I&#8217;d
+have done it before, but Pauline is away.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Just then she was attracted by a sound on the sofa.
+She turned. Pen&#8217;s big black eyes were wide open; she
+was bending forward and gazing at the thimble.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So you got it after all!&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, child, how you startled me! What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, that&#8217;s Aunty Sophy&#8217;s thimble. I was to get a
+penny if I found it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy was silent.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How did it get into your work-basket?&#8221; asked Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I borrowed it from Paulie, and I&#8217;d have given it to
+her long ere this, but I heard she was away.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Give it to me,&#8221; cried Penelope. Her voice quite shook
+in her eagerness. &#8220;Give it to me at once, and I will take
+it back to her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish you would, Pen, I am sure; but you must be
+very careful not to lose it, for it is a real beauty. See, I
+will put it into this little box, and cover the box up.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope pressed close to Nancy. Nancy placed the
+thimble in the midst of some pink cotton-wool and looked
+at it affectionately; then she tied up the little box, put
+brown paper round it, tied string round that again, and then
+she held it out to Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are quite positive you won&#8217;t lose it?&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Positive. I has a big pocket, and no hole in it. See
+for yourself, there&#8217;s no hole. Turn it out, will you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope&#8217;s pocket proved to be quite safe, and Nancy,
+with a qualm at her heart which she could not account for,
+allowed the little girl to put the thimble therein.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, that is settled,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;And now I want
+to know what you came for. You are going to have dinner
+with father and me after a bit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I&#8217;m not,&#8221; answered Pen. &#8220;I&#8217;m going home at
+once.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why did you come? Did Pauline send me a message?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, she wouldn&#8217;t.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why not? I&#8217;ve done a great deal for her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s ongrateful,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;She didn&#8217;t send no message.
+I &#8217;spect she&#8217;ll have forgot you when she comes
+back.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy&#8217;s face flamed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can make it a little too hot for her if she does.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s making a thing too hot?&#8221; asked Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, making it so that you squirm and tingle and your
+heart goes pit-a-pat,&#8221; replied Nancy. &#8220;There! I&#8217;m not
+going to talk any more. If you won&#8217;t tell me why you came,
+I suppose you will come into the other room and have some
+dinner?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t. I&#8217;m going home. As Paulie didn&#8217;t send you a
+message, are you going to make it hot for her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I am. Somebody will come here&mdash;somebody I
+know&mdash;to see somebody she knows; and there will be a
+begging and imploring, and somebody she knows will do
+nothing for somebody I know. Now, can you take that in?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are very funny,&#8221; answered Penelope, &#8220;but I think
+I can. I&#8217;m glad, and I&#8217;m not glad, that I comed. I won&#8217;t
+stay to dinner; I&#8217;m going straight away home this blessed
+minute.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+<h3>PEN VICTORIOUS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Penelope managed to reach home unattended. She was
+tired and draggled and dusty, and also very much scratched.
+Her sisters received her with whoops of astonishment and
+welcome. They had not missed her, it is true, but when
+they saw her coming sadly and sheepishly in at the wicket-gate
+they concluded that they had. Adelaide was the first
+to reach her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t ask me any questions and you&#8217;ll hear no lies,&#8221;
+was Pen&#8217;s remark. She waved her fat hand as she spoke.
+&#8220;I am going to nursey straight away. I has something I
+wants to say to nursey. Has the post gone? I want to
+catch the post immediate.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are too queer for anything,&#8221; said Adelaide; &#8220;but
+go your own way. You&#8217;ll catch it for being out all by
+yourself in the woods.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t catch it, but there are others who will,&#8221; replied
+Penelope. &#8220;And now keep out of my way. I want to find
+nursey.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She marched in a most defiant and even queenly style
+towards the house; and the others, after laughing for a
+moment, returned to their various pursuits and forgot all
+about her.
+</p>
+<p>When nurse saw Penelope she uttered a groan.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There you come,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You are a handful! You
+never turned up at dinner-time, although we looked for
+you everywhere. Now, where were you hiding?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind that, nursey. Get out your writing &#8217;terials.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, whatever does the child mean? Sakes! you are
+scratched, and your nice new holland frock is all torn,
+and you are dusty and pale and trembling&mdash;as pale and
+trembling as can be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it pale I am?&#8221; cried Penelope. &#8220;Is it? Is it? Nursey,
+I love you, love you, love you!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>With a flop Penelope&#8217;s fat arms were flung round nurse&#8217;s
+neck; her hot little lips caressed nurse&#8217;s cheeks.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;how much I love you! Get writing
+&#8217;terials quick. Get pen and ink and paper, and sit down
+and write. I will tell you what to say. You must write
+this instant minute. It is the most &#8217;portant thing in all the
+world. Write, and be quick. If you don&#8217;t I&#8217;ll go to Betty,
+and she&#8217;ll do what I want her to do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t do that,&#8221; cried nurse. &#8220;You are a queer
+child, and more trouble than you&#8217;re worth, but when you
+are in a bit of a mess I&#8217;m not the one to refuse my aid.
+Who have I to write to?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;To my darlingest Aunt Sophy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My word! What on earth have you got to say to her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Get &#8217;terials and you&#8217;ll know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nurse complied somewhat unwillingly. She produced a
+portfolio, got out her ink-bottle and pen, dipped the pen
+in ink, and looked up at Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go on, and be quick,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t be fashed with
+the whims of children. What is it that you want to say?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Write, &#8216;Dear, darling Aunt Sophia.&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are too queer!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nevertheless nurse put the words on the sheet of paper,
+and Pen proceeded to deliver herself quickly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I am paled down, and want change of air. My breaf is
+too quick. My legs is all tored with briers and things. I
+has got a prickly feeling in my froat, and I gets wet as
+water all over my hands and round my neck and my forehead.
+It&#8217;s &#8217;cos I&#8217;m weak, I &#8216;spect.&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Penelope,&#8221; said the nurse, &#8220;if those symptoms are
+correct, it is the doctor you want.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I has a doubly-up pain in my tum-tum,&#8217;&#8221; proceeded
+Penelope, taking no notice of nurse&#8217;s interruption. &#8220;&#8216;I
+shrieks in my sleep. I wants change of air. I am very
+poorly. Nursey is writing this, and she knows I am very
+poorly. I feel sort of as though I could cry. It&#8217;s not only
+my body, it&#8217;s my mind. I has got a weight on my mind.
+It&#8217;s a secret, and you ought to know. Send for me quick,
+&#8217;cos I want change of air.
+</p>
+<div class='ra'>
+<p style='text-align: right; '><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Pen</span>.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never wrote a queerer letter,&#8221; said nurse; &#8220;and from
+the looks of you there seems to be truth in it. You certainly
+don&#8217;t look well.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will send it, nursey?&#8221; asked Pen, trembling with
+excitement.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, child; you have dictated it to me, and it shall go by
+the post. Whether Miss Tredgold will mind a word you
+say or not remains to be proved. Now leave me, and do
+for goodness&#8217; sake try not to run about wildly any more for
+to-day at least.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope left the room. She stooped slightly as she
+walked, and she staggered a little. When she got near the
+door she coughed. As she reached the passage she coughed
+more loudly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s my froat,&#8221; she said in a very sad tone, and she crept
+down the passage, nurse watching her from the open door
+of the nursery.
+</p>
+<p>She did not guess that when Penelope turned the last
+corner she gave a sudden whoop, leapt nearly a foot into
+the air, and then darted out of the house as fast as she
+could.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I &#8217;spect I&#8217;s done it this time,&#8221; thought Pen.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile in the nursery, after a moment&#8217;s reflection,
+nurse added a postscript of her own to Pen&#8217;s letter.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Penelope is very queer, and don&#8217;t look well at all.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>That letter was put in the post, and in due time received
+by Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope began to count the hours. She knew that no
+answer could come for some time after the letter was written.
+During the next day she went at intervals to visit
+Betty, and begged her for drinks of vinegar; and as she
+paid Betty by more and more presents out of Pauline&#8217;s old
+bandbox, she found that individual quite amenable. After
+drinking the vinegar Penelope once again suffered from
+the &#8220;doubly-up pain in her tum-tum.&#8221; She spoke of her
+agonies to the others, who pitied her a good deal, and
+Josephine even presented her with some very precious
+peppermints for the purpose of removing it. Towards
+evening she seemed better, and talked continually of the
+seaside and how she intended to enjoy herself there. And
+then she suggested that her sisters should come and help
+her to pack her things. The girls naturally asked why they
+were to do it, and she replied:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Cos I&#8217;m going on a journey, and it&#8217;s most &#8217;portant.
+None of you are going, but I am.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re not going on any journey,&#8221; said Lucy. &#8220;You
+do talk rubbish.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you bet?&#8221; asked Penelope, who saw an instant
+opportunity of making a little money.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing,&#8221; replied Lucy. &#8220;You are talking rubbish. Get
+out of my way. I&#8217;m very busy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen looked wildly around her. She was in such a state
+of suppressed excitement that she could stop at nothing.
+Her sisters were all close at hand. Patty and Briar were
+sitting as usual almost in each other&#8217;s pockets. Adelaide,
+Josephine, Lucy, and Helen made a group apart. Pen
+thought carefully.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s six of &#8217;em,&#8221; she said to herself. &#8220;I ought to
+make a little money by six of &#8217;em. Look here!&#8221; she called
+out. &#8220;You all say I&#8217;m not going on a journey to-morrow; I
+say I am. Will you give me a penny each if I go? Is it
+done? Is it truly done? If I don&#8217;t go I&#8217;ll give you a penny
+each.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you haven&#8217;t got any pence to give us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will borrow from nursey. I know she&#8217;ll lend me the
+money. But I shan&#8217;t need it, for I am going. Will you
+give me a penny each if I go?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, if you want it,&#8221; said Adelaide.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But remember,&#8221; continued Lucy, &#8220;we shall keep you
+to your part of the bargain if you don&#8217;t go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; cried Pen; and, having received the promise,
+she walked sedately across the grass.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Six pennies! I&#8217;ll find them useful at the seaside,&#8221; she
+thought. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing like having a little money of
+your own. It buys sweetmeats and cakes. I&#8217;ll tell Aunt
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span>
+Sophy that my froat is so sore, and that I must have constant
+sweetmeats. Six pennies will get a lot.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She walked more slowly. She was in reality in excellent
+health; even the vinegar was not doing her much harm.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How hungry I&#8217;ll be when I get to the seaside!&#8221; she
+said to herself. &#8220;I&#8217;ll swell out and get very red and very
+fat. My body will be &#8217;normous. Oh, there&#8217;s father!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale was seated near his window. His head was bent
+as usual over his work.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father could give me something,&#8221; thought Pen. &#8220;He
+could and he ought. I&#8217;ll ask him. Dad!&#8221; she called.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale did not answer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dad!&#8221; called Pen again.
+</p>
+<p>He looked up with a fretful expression.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go away, my dear,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I am particularly busy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will if you&#8217;ll give me sixpence.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go away.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen&#8217;s father bent again over his book. He forgot Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s sure to give me sixpence if I worrit him long
+enough,&#8221; thought the naughty little girl.
+</p>
+<p>She stood close to the window. Suddenly it occurred to
+her that if she drew down the blind, which she could
+easily do by pushing her hand inside the window and then
+planting her fat little person on the window-sill, she would
+cause a shadow to come before the light on her father&#8217;s
+page.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That will make him look up,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;When
+he does I&#8217;ll ask him again for sixpence. I&#8217;ll tell him I
+won&#8217;t go away till I get it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She sat down on the window-sill, cleverly manipulating
+the blind, and Mr. Dale found an unpleasant darkness steal
+over his page.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Draw up that blind and go away, Penelope,&#8221; he said.
+&#8220;Do you hear? Go away.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will &#8217;mediately you give me sixpence. I will draw
+up the blind and I&#8217;ll go away,&#8221; said Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will give you nothing. You are an extremely naughty
+little girl.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope sat on. Mr. Dale tried to read in the darkening
+light. Presently he heard a sniff. The sniff grew
+louder.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My froat,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>He glanced towards her. She was sitting huddled up; her
+back looked very round.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do go away, child. What is wrong?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My froat. I want something to moisten it. It is so
+dry, it hurts me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go and get a drink of water.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my froat! Oh, my tum-tum! Oh, my froat!&#8221; said
+Penelope again.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span></p>
+<p>Mr. Dale rose from his seat at last.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never was so worried in my life,&#8221; he said. &#8220;What
+is it, child? Out with it. What is wrong?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope managed to raise eyes brimful of tears to his
+face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you knowed that your own little girl was suffering
+from bad froat and doubly-up tum-tum, and that sixpence
+would make her well&mdash;quite, really, truly well&mdash;wouldn&#8217;t
+you give it to her?&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How can sixpence make you well? If you really
+have a sore throat and a pain we ought to send for the
+doctor.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sixpence is much cheaper than the doctor,&#8221; said Penelope.
+&#8220;Sixpence will do it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will buy peppermints.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, here it is, child. Take it and be off.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope snatched it. Her face grew cheerful. She shot
+up the blind with a deft movement. She jumped from her
+seat on the window-ledge. She was no longer doubled up.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, dad,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Thank you&mdash;thank you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She rushed away.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll have another sixpence to-morrow,&#8221; she thought.
+&#8220;That&#8217;s a whole beautiful shilling. I will do fine when I
+am at the seaside.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope could scarcely sleep that night. She got up
+early the next morning. She was determined to stand at
+the gate and watch for the postman. The letters usually
+arrived about eight o&#8217;clock. The postman hove in sight,
+and Pen rushed to meet him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you letters&mdash;a letter for me?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Miss Penelope, but there is one for your nurse.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is from Easterhaze,&#8221; said the child. &#8220;Thank you&mdash;thank
+you, posty.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She snatched the first letter away from the old man and
+darted away with it. Into the nursery she rushed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here it is, nursey. Open it, quick! I am to go; I know
+I am.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nurse did open the letter. It was from Miss Tredgold,
+and it ran as follows:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Dear Nurse</span>: Penelope is evidently too much for you.
+I intend to remain two or three days longer in this pleasant
+place, so do not expect me home next week. I shall
+have Penelope here, so send her to me by the first train
+that leaves Lyndhurst Road to-morrow. Take her to the
+station and put her into the charge of the guard. She had
+better travel first-class. If you see any nice, quiet-looking
+lady in the carriage, put Penelope into her charge. I
+enclose a postal order for expenses. Wire to me by what
+train to expect the child.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The letter ended with one or two more directions, but
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span>
+to these Pen scarcely listened. Her face was pale with
+joy. She had worked hard; she had plotted much; she had
+succeeded.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel as though I&#8217;d like to be really quite good,&#8221; was her
+first thought.
+</p>
+<p>Nurse expected that she would be nearly mad with glee;
+but she left the nursery quietly. She went downstairs
+quietly. Her sisters were at breakfast. She entered the
+room and stood before them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pennies, please,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221; asked Briar, who was pouring
+out coffee.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pennies from all of you, quick.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Josephine put on a supercilious face; Lucy sniffed; Helen
+and Adelaide went on with their breakfast as though nothing
+had happened.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope came a little nearer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Must I speak up?&#8221; she said. &#8220;Must I ask again? Is
+you all deaf? I am going to Easterhaze to Aunt Sophy.
+Darling aunty can&#8217;t do without me. She has sent for me
+as she wants me so badly. I&#8217;m going by the first train. I
+am much the most &#8217;portant person in the house, and I&#8217;s
+won my bet. I like betting. A penny from you all if you
+please.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls were excited and amazed at Pen&#8217;s news.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are clever,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;How in the world did
+you get her to do it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tum-tum and sore froat,&#8221; said Penelope bluntly. &#8220;Oh!
+and vinegar and paling down.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are really such an incomprehensible child that I
+am glad Aunt Sophy is going to manage you,&#8221; was Patty&#8217;s
+remark. &#8220;Here are your pence. Shall we help you to
+pack your things?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They are a&#8217;most packed. I did some myself last night.
+I took your new little trunk, Briar. I don&#8217;t &#8217;uppose you&#8217;ll
+mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar did mind, but she knew it was useless to expostulate.
+</p>
+<p>By eleven o&#8217;clock Penelope was off to Lyndhurst Road
+station. By twelve o&#8217;clock she was in charge of a red-faced
+old lady. In five minutes&#8217; time she was <i>en route</i> for
+Easterhaze. The old lady, whose name was Mrs. Hungerford,
+began by considering Pen a plain and ordinary child;
+but she soon had reason to change her views, for Pen
+was not exactly plain, and was certainly by no means ordinary.
+She stared fixedly at the old lady, having deliberately
+left her own seat and planted herself on the one opposite.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Vinegar will do it,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you talking about, child?&#8221; asked Mrs. Hungerford.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are so red&mdash;such a deep red, I mean&mdash;much the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span>
+same as chocolate. Vinegar will do it. Take three small
+glasses a day, and pay your Betty with vulgar sort of
+things out of an old bandbox.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The unfortunate child is evidently insane,&#8221; was Mrs.
+Hungerford&#8217;s thought. She spoke, therefore, in a reassuring
+way, and tried to look as though she thought Pen&#8217;s
+remarks the most natural in the world.
+</p>
+<p>Pen, however, read through her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t believe me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Now you listen. I
+look a pale little girl, don&#8217;t I? I am nearly eight years old.
+I don&#8217;t see why a girl of eight is to be trampled on; does
+you? I wanted to go, and I am going. It&#8217;s tum-tum-ache
+and sore froat and paling cheeks that has done it. If you
+want to get what you don&#8217;t think you will get, remember
+my words. It&#8217;s vinegar does it, but it gives you tum-ache
+awful.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The old lady could not help laughing.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, I wonder,&#8221; she said, opening a basket of peaches,
+&#8220;whether these will give tum-ache.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope grinned; she showed a row of pearly teeth.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Guess not,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>The old lady put the basket between Penelope and herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have also got sandwiches&mdash;very nice ones&mdash;and little
+cakes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Shall we two have lunch together, even
+if my face is like chocolate?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a beauty face, even if it is, and I love you,&#8221; said
+Penelope. &#8220;I think you are quite &#8217;licious. Don&#8217;t you
+like to look like chocolate?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The old lady made no answer. Penelope dived her fat
+hand into the basket of peaches and secured the largest
+and ripest.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is the best,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Perhaps you ought to eat it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I ought, but if you don&#8217;t agree with me you
+shall have it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope hesitated a moment.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You wouldn&#8217;t say that if you didn&#8217;t mean me to eat it,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;Thank you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She closed her teeth in the delicious fruit and enjoyed
+herself vastly. In short, by the time Mrs. Hungerford
+and her curious charge reached Easterhaze it seemed to
+them both that they had known each other all their days.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold, Verena, and Pauline met the train. The
+girls looked rosy and sunburnt. This was an ideal moment
+for Penelope. She almost forgot Mrs. Hungerford in
+her delight at this meeting with her relatives. But suddenly
+at the last moment she remembered.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How are you, Aunt Sophy? I am scrumptiously glad
+to see you. How are you, Verena? How are you, Paulie?
+Oh! please forgive me; I must say good-bye to the chocolate
+old lady.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span></p>
+<p>And the chocolate old lady was hugged and kissed several
+times, and then Pen was at liberty to enjoy the delights
+of the seaside.
+</p>
+<p>The lodgings where Miss Tredgold was staying were
+quite a mile from the station. Pen enjoyed her drive
+immensely. The look of the broad sea rolling on to the
+shore had a curious effect upon her strange nature. It
+touched her indescribably. It filled that scarcely awakened
+little soul of hers with longings. After all, it might be
+worth while to be good. She did not know why the sea
+made her long to be good; nevertheless it did. Her face
+became really pale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you tired, dear?&#8221; asked Miss Tredgold, noticing the
+curious look on the expressive little face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no, not that,&#8221; replied Pen; &#8220;but I have never seen
+the sea before.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold felt that she understood. Pauline also
+understood. Verena did not think about the matter. It
+was Verena&#8217;s habit to take the sweets of life as they came,
+to be contented with her lot, to love beauty for its own
+sake, to keep a calm mind and a calm body through all
+circumstances. She had accepted the sea as a broad, beautiful
+fact in her life some weeks ago. She was not prepared
+for Pen&#8217;s emotion, nor did she understand it. She
+kept saying to herself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nurse is right after all; it was not mere fancy. Little
+Penelope is not well. A day or two on the sands in this
+glorious air will soon put her straight.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline, however, thought that she did understand her
+little sister. For to Pauline, from the first day she had
+arrived at Easterhaze, the sea had seemed to cry to her
+in one incessant, reiterating voice:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, wash and be clean. Come, lave yourself in me,
+and leave your naughtiness and your deceits and your
+black, black lies behind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>And Pauline felt, notwithstanding her present happiness
+and her long days of health and vigor and glee, that she
+was disobeying the sea, for she was not washing therein,
+nor getting herself clean in all that waste of water. The
+old cry awoke again in her heart with an almost cruel
+insistence.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, wash and be clean,&#8221; cried the sea.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I declare, Pauline, you are looking almost as pale as
+your sister,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Well, here we are.
+Now, Pen,&#8221; she added, turning to Penelope, &#8220;I hope you
+will enjoy yourself. I certainly did not intend to ask you
+to join us, but as nurse said you were not well, and as
+your own extremely funny letter seemed to express the
+same thing, I thought it best to ask you here.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you did quite right, Aunty Sophy,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>Then the look of the sea faded from her eyes, and she
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span>
+became once again a suspicious, eager, somewhat deceitful
+little girl. Once again the subtle and naughty
+things of life took possession of her. At any cost she
+must keep herself to the front. At any cost she must assume
+the power which she longed for. She was no longer
+a nursery child. She had won her way about coming to
+the seaside; now she must go still further. She must
+become a person of the greatest moment to Aunt Sophia.
+Aunt Sophia held the keys of power; therefore Penelope
+determined to devote herself to her.
+</p>
+<p>The lodgings were extremely cheerful. They were in a
+terrace overhanging the sea. From the big bay-windows of
+the drawing-room you could see the sunsets. There was a
+glorious sunset just beginning when Penelope walked to
+the window and looked out. Miss Tredgold had secured
+the best rooms in this very handsome house, and the best
+rooms consisted of a double drawing-room, the inner one
+of which was utilized as a dining-room; a large bedroom
+overhead in which Verena and Pauline slept; and a little
+room at the back which she used for herself, and in which
+now she had ordered a cot to be placed for Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>Penelope was taken upstairs and shown the arrangements
+that had been made for her comfort. Her eyes
+sparkled with delight when she saw the little cot.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no time like the night for telling things,&#8221; she
+thought to herself. &#8220;Aunt Sophy can&#8217;t get away from me
+at night. It&#8217;s only to stay awake, perhaps to pertend to
+have a nightmare. Anyhow, night is the time to do what
+I have to do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Being quite sure, therefore, that she would get her opportunity
+of talking to Aunt Sophia, she revived for the
+time being to enjoy herself. Her volatile spirits rose. She
+laughed and talked, and ate an enormous meal. After the
+sort of tea-dinner was over the three girls went out by
+themselves on the sands.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You may stay out half-an-hour,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold:
+&#8220;no longer, for Penelope has to go to bed. Afterwards I
+will take a walk with you two elder ones if you care to
+have me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course we care to have you, dear Aunt Sophy,&#8221;
+said Verena in her gentlest tone; and then the three started
+off. Penelope, in honor of her recent arrival, was promoted
+to the place in the middle. She laid a hand on each
+sister&#8217;s arm and swung herself along. People remarked
+the trio, and said to themselves what a remarkably fat,
+healthy-looking little girl the one in the middle was.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Pen,&#8221; said Pauline as they approached the house,
+having discussed all sorts of subjects, &#8220;I can&#8217;t see where
+the tum-ache and the sore throat and the pale cheeks
+come in.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re gone,&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;I knew the sea would
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span>
+cure &#8217;em. I am quite perfect well. I am going to be quite
+perfect well while I am here. I love the sea; don&#8217;t you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, wash and be clean,&#8221; whispered the sea to Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>She was silent. Verena said, however, that she greatly
+liked the sea. They went back to the house. Penelope was
+escorted upstairs. Pauline helped her to undress, and
+presently she was tucked into her little bed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It seems a&#8217;most as if I wor still a nursery child,&#8221; she
+said to her elder sister.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why so?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Being sent to bed afore you and Renny. I am quite as
+old as you and Renny&mdash;in my mind, I mean.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t talk nonsense,&#8221; said Pauline almost crossly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie,&#8221; said Penelope, taking hold of her hand and
+pulling her towards her, &#8220;I went to see Nancy King t&#8217;other
+day.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why did you do that?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because I wanted to come to the sea, and there was no
+other way. Vinegar wouldn&#8217;t do it, nor tum-aches, but I
+thought Nancy might.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what you mean,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;In what
+possible way could Nancy King have brought you here?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Only that I got so desperate after seeing her that I
+wrote that funny, funny letter, and nursey helped me; and
+now I&#8217;m here, and I think I can do what I like. You had
+best be friends with me now, for I can do just what I
+like.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline felt just a little afraid. She knelt down by Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me why you went,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You know you disobeyed
+Aunt Sophy when you went.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; but what&#8217;s one more in a family doing disobeying
+things?&#8221; answered Pen in her glib fashion. &#8220;But now
+listen. I will tell you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She related her adventures with much glee&mdash;her walk
+through the woods, her arrival, the terrible way in which
+Lurcher had treated her, the kindness of the farmer, the
+proposed dinner, Nancy&#8217;s manners. She was working up
+to the grand climax, to the moment when she should speak
+about the thimble.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you think?&#8221; she said suddenly. &#8220;Nancy put
+me on a sofa, and I slept. I slept sound, and when I woke
+up I saw Nancy sitting by the window sewing. She wor
+making a blue scarf, and her thimble went flashing in and
+out; and what do you think, Paulie? What <i>do</i> you think?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline, dear, are you ready?&#8221; called a voice from below.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must go,&#8221; said Pauline; &#8220;but tell me at once, Pen,
+what you mean.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was the thimble&mdash;the lost one,&#8221; said Penelope&mdash;&#8220;the
+one with the dark-blue top and the light-blue stones round
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span>
+the rim, the goldy thimble which was Aunt Sophy&#8217;s.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>In spite of her efforts Pauline did find herself turning
+white.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline, dear, we can&#8217;t wait any longer,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold&#8217;s
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must go,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Tell me afterwards.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whisper,&#8221; said Penelope, pulling her hand. &#8220;I have got
+it. The deep-blue top and the light-blue stones and the
+goldy middle&mdash;I have it all. And I can tell Aunt Sophy,
+and show it, and I will if&mdash;if you don&#8217;t tell me about&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;About what?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;About that time when three peoples walked across the
+lawn&mdash;the night after your birthday, I mean. Will you
+tell? I asked Briar, and she said she didn&#8217;t know. She
+told a lie. Are you going to tell a lie, too? If you do I
+will&mdash;&mdash; Well, I won&#8217;t say any more; only I have put it in
+the safest of places, and you will never find it. Now you
+can go down and go out with Aunt Sophy. Now you know,
+&#8217;cos I&#8217;ve told you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline slowly left the room. She felt dazed. Once
+again Miss Tredgold called her. She ran to her washstand,
+filled her basin with cold water, and dipped her face into
+it. Then she ran downstairs. She found it difficult to
+analyze her own sensations, but it seemed to her that
+through her little sister&#8217;s eyes she saw for the first time
+her own wickedness.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To think that Pen could do it, and to think that I
+could be afraid of her!&#8221; she thought.
+</p>
+<p>She went out and walked with her aunt and Verena,
+but the insistent voice of the sea, as with each swish of
+the waves it cried, &#8220;Come, wash and be clean,&#8221; hit like a
+hammer on her brain.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter with Pauline?&#8221; thought Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The child is tired; she is not quite well yet,&#8221; was Miss
+Tredgold&#8217;s mental reflection.
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+<h3>THE WHITE BAY.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Penelope did not repeat her threat, but she watched
+Pauline. Miss Tredgold also watched Pauline. Verena felt
+uncomfortable, without quite knowing why. The keen
+vigor and joy of the first days at the seaside had departed.
+Pauline became pale once more, and Miss Tredgold&#8217;s anxieties
+about her were revived. The Dales were a healthy
+race, but one or two of the Tredgolds had died of consumption.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span>
+Miss Tredgold remembered a young&mdash;very young&mdash;sister
+of her own who had reached Pauline&#8217;s age, and then
+quite suddenly had become melancholy, and then slightly
+unwell, and then more unwell, until the fell scourge had
+seized her as its prey. She had died when between sixteen
+and seventeen. Miss Tredgold seemed to see her sister&#8217;s
+face in Pauline&#8217;s. She did not for a single moment accuse
+the child of any wrong-doing. She did not imagine that
+what ailed her could have to do with the mind. Nevertheless
+she was anxious about her. Miss Tredgold had a
+good deal of penetration, but she was not accustomed to
+children. She thought that children of Pen&#8217;s age were
+more little animals than anything else. It did not occur to
+her that a small child like Pen could have a mind of a
+very extraordinary order, and that the mind of this child
+could work in a direction which might hurt others. She
+did not suppose such a terrible child could exist.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was therefore more or less a prey to the naughtiness
+of Pen, who used her as a weapon for her own enjoyment.
+Pen was quite determined to enjoy herself at
+the seaside. She would have her bucket and spade and
+make castles in the sand as long as ever she liked, and
+she would play with other children, and would make acquaintance
+with them. She insisted also on going very
+often to the shops to buy caramels or chocolates. In
+short, she was determined that during her brief stay at
+Easterhaze she would have as good a time as possible. It
+is quite on the cards that she would not have had so
+good a time as she did but for the agency of Pauline.
+Pauline, however, in spite of herself, sided with Pen. She
+almost hated Pen, but she sided with her. She used to
+throw her voice into the scale of Pen&#8217;s desires, and Pen in
+consequence got pretty much what she wanted.
+</p>
+<p>There came a day when two children, a boy and a girl
+of the name of Carver, ran up to Pen and asked her if
+she would join them in going round the next promontory
+and gathering shells in a wide bay on the other side,
+which was known as the White Bay. The way to this bay,
+except at low-water, was not very safe, as during high-tide
+the sea was apt to come up and cut off retreat. Pen, however,
+knew nothing about this. The moment she was asked
+to go it occurred to her that there could be no such delightful
+place as the White Bay anywhere else in the
+world. She knew well, however, that Miss Tredgold never
+allowed her to go fifty yards from the house on either side.
+She looked up. Pauline was walking along the upper
+walk. She had a story-book in her hand. She meant to
+reach one of the shelters and sit down there to read. Pen
+turned to the two Carvers and said that she must ask permission,
+but she would be with them in a minute. She
+then scrambled up the path and ran to Pauline&#8217;s side.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I am going to the White Bay with
+the Carvers&mdash;those two children there&mdash;that boy and girl;
+you see &#8217;em. We are going at once. They have got a basket
+of cakes, and we are going to gather shells and have a jolly
+time. We won&#8217;t be back till one o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Pauline. She did not know of
+any danger in going; she only thought that Penelope meant
+to disobey Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Aunt Sophy is out, and she
+has not given you leave,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You must stay where
+you are, Pen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you can give me leave, Paulie, darling, can you
+not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t do anything of the sort; you mustn&#8217;t ask me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen&#8217;s eyes danced. The children on the sands called out
+to her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Be quick, little girl, or we&#8217;ll be cotched. If nurse comes
+out she won&#8217;t let us go. We can go if we start at once.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m off. You must give me leave, Paulie. If you
+don&#8217;t I will&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t!&#8221; said Pauline, backing away from her sister.
+She felt a sort of terror when Penelope taunted her with
+her superior knowledge and the cruel use she meant to
+put it to.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go if you like,&#8221; she said, in a white heat of passion.
+&#8220;You are the worry of my life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pen gave her a flashing, by no means good sort of glance,
+and then tore down the winding path which led to the
+sands. Pauline got up; she left her seat by the shore and
+went inland.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how I am to bear it,&#8221; she said to herself.
+&#8220;Pen has made me so wretched. I was hoping that nothing
+would be known. I was trying to forget, and I was
+making a lot of good resolves, and I am loving Aunt Sophy
+more and more each day. Why have I got such a dreadful
+little sister as Pen? She is like none of the rest. It seems
+almost incredible that I should be in the power of such a
+small child. Nevertheless I am in her power. I had no
+right to let her go to the White Bay; still, I told her to go,
+for I couldn&#8217;t bear the agonies I should have to go through
+if I refused. Oh, I am wretched! Pen practically knows
+everything; so does Patty, and so does Briar. But they&#8217;re
+safe enough; they won&#8217;t betray me&mdash;they wouldn&#8217;t for all
+the world. As to Pen, I don&#8217;t know what she is made of.
+She will be a terrible woman by-and-by.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline walked on until she heard Verena&#8217;s voice. She
+then turned back.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophy said we were to go up to the town to
+meet her,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;She&#8217;s doing some shopping. She
+wants to get a new autumn hat for you, and another for me.
+Come along, Paulie. We are to be at Murray&#8217;s in the High
+Street at eleven o&#8217;clock.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span></p>
+<p>Pauline turned and walked soberly by her sister&#8217;s side.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you as tired as ever this morning, Paulie?&#8221; asked
+Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not tired at all,&#8221; replied Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Verena considered for a minute.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophy is often anxious about you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I
+can&#8217;t imagine why, but she is. She says that she doesn&#8217;t
+think you are at all strong.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I am!&#8221; interrupted Pauline. &#8220;I wish she wouldn&#8217;t
+worry about me. I wish you&#8217;d tell her not to worry. I am
+really as strong as any girl could be. Do tell her not to
+fret about me any more.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where is Pen?&#8221; said Verena suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did not speak.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose she is down on the beach as usual,&#8221; said
+Verena again in a careless tone. &#8220;She&#8217;s always down
+there. She is such a queer little mite!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t let&#8217;s talk about her,&#8221; said Pauline almost crossly.
+</p>
+<p>The girls turned their conversation to other matters, and
+when they joined Miss Tredgold at Murray&#8217;s shop they had
+both forgotten the existence of their little sister Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile that young person was having a good time.
+Having gained her wish, she was in excellent spirits, and
+was determined to make herself extremely agreeable to
+the Carvers. She thought them quite nice children. They
+were different from the children at home. They had lived
+almost all their lives in London. They told Pen a good
+many stories about London. It was the only place worth
+living in, Harry Carver said. When you went out there
+you always turned your steps in the direction of the Zoo.
+Pen asked what the Zoo was. Harry Carver gave her a
+glance of amazement.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, it&#8217;s chock-full of wild beasts,&#8221; he said.
+</p>
+<p>Pen thought this a most exciting description. Her cheeks
+paled; her eyes grew big. She clasped hold of Harry&#8217;s arm
+and said in a trembling voice:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you joking, or do you mean real lions and bears
+and tigers?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I mean real lions and bears and tigers,&#8221; said Harry.
+&#8220;Oh, if you only heard the lions roar! We see them fed,
+too. It is fun to hear them growling when they get their
+meat; and the way they lick it&mdash;oh, it&#8217;s most exciting!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So it is,&#8221; said Nellie Carver. &#8220;It&#8217;s awful fun to go to
+the Zoo.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must be very courageous,&#8221; said Pen, who did not
+know that the wild beasts were confined in cages.
+</p>
+<p>Neither Eleanor nor Harry Carver thought it worth while
+to enlighten Pen with regard to this particular; on the contrary,
+they determined to keep it to themselves. It was
+nice to have a little girl like Pen looking at them with
+awe.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t everybody who can go to the Zoo,&#8221; proceeded
+Harry. &#8220;There are people that the wild beasts don&#8217;t ever
+care to touch. Nellie and I are that sort; we&#8217;re made that
+way. We walk about amongst them; we stroke them and
+pet them. I often sit on the neck of a lion, and quite
+enjoy myself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My pet beast for a ride is a panther,&#8221; said Nellie, her
+eyes sparkling with fun at her own delicious ideas; &#8220;but
+most children can never ride on lions and panthers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe you ride on them,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;You
+don&#8217;t look half brave enough for that.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you think us brave?&#8221; asked Harry. &#8220;You
+are not a nice girl when you talk in that way. You wouldn&#8217;t
+even be brave enough to ride on the elephants. Oh, it&#8217;s
+very jolly for the real brave people when they go to the
+Zoo.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And is that the only place to go to in London?&#8221; asked
+Pen.
+</p>
+<p>As she spoke she quickened her steps, for the children
+were now crossing the extreme end of the promontory
+round which was the celebrated White Bay.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There are other places. There&#8217;s the British Museum,
+full of books. There are miles and miles of books in London,
+and miles and miles of pictures.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What an awful place!&#8221; said Pen, who had no love for
+either books or pictures. &#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me any more about it.
+Go on ascribing the wild animals. Is there serpents at
+the Zoo?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tons of &#8217;em. When they have gorged a rabbit or a
+lamb or a girl whole, they lie down and sleep for about a
+week.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They don&#8217;t gorge girls!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They think nothing of it; that is, if the girl is the sort
+of child they don&#8217;t like.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;I am not the sort of child the
+wild beasts would love. I think maybe I might be crunched
+up by the lions. I shan&#8217;t go.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, no one asked you,&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;You are quite
+certain to be eaten, so you had best stay away.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you say that?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Harry glanced at his sister. Nellie laughed. Harry
+laughed also.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you talk in that way, you horrid boy?&#8221; said
+Pen, stamping her foot. &#8220;What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you, only you need not try to kill me with your
+eyes. The wild beasts only like good uns. You ain&#8217;t good.
+The wild beasts would soon find that out.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>For some extraordinary reason Pen found herself turning
+pale. She had a moment of actual fear. At this instant
+she would have resigned the thimble&mdash;the golden
+thimble, with its sapphire top and turquoise rim&mdash;to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span>
+safe keeping of Pauline. For if Pauline had the thimble
+Pen would have very little to say against her. As long as
+she possessed the thimble she felt that Pauline was in
+her power. She liked the sensation, and she was honest
+enough to own as much.
+</p>
+<p>The conversation was now quickly turned. The children
+found plenty of shells in the White Bay. Soon they were
+sitting on the sands picking them up and enjoying themselves
+as only children can.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So,&#8221; said Pen, pushing back her hat and fixing her eyes
+on Harry&#8217;s face, &#8220;you comed here without leave?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course we did,&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;Won&#8217;t nurse be in a
+state when she finds we&#8217;ve gone! She will rush up and
+down in front of the house and cry, for father and mother
+have gone away for the whole day, and nurse is in sole
+charge. Oh, won&#8217;t she be in a state! She went off to walk
+with her young man, and we thought we&#8217;d play a joke on
+her, for she&#8217;s often told us not to come here. &#8216;If you go
+near that White Bay,&#8217; she said, &#8216;you will be drowned as
+sure as sure.&#8217; She daren&#8217;t tell father and mother because
+of her young man. Isn&#8217;t it fun?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Penelope, &#8220;it&#8217;s prime fun; but isn&#8217;t this fun,
+too? You won&#8217;t be able to go to that Zoo place any more.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now what do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, this: the animals will eat you up. You are bad,
+same as me. You two won&#8217;t be able to go to any more
+Zoos;&#8221; and Pen rolled round and round in fiendish delight.
+</p>
+<p>The other children looked at her with anything but approval.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like her,&#8221; whispered Nellie to her brother.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course you don&#8217;t like bad little girls,&#8221; replied Harry.
+&#8220;Let&#8217;s run away at once and leave her. Let&#8217;s.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>They scrambled to their feet. To love a new playmate
+and yet without an instant&#8217;s warning to desert her was
+quite in accordance with their childish ideas. In a moment
+they were running as fast as their legs would permit across
+the sands. The tide had been coming in fast for some
+time.
+</p>
+<p>For a moment Pen sat almost petrified; then she rushed
+after them. She was wild with passion; she had never
+been so angry in all her life. There were many times when
+the other children at The Dales treated her with scant
+courtesy, but to be suddenly deserted in this fashion by
+strange children was more than she could endure.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, how bad you have got! You are so bad&mdash;so dreadfully,
+horribly bad&mdash;that the tide is certain to come in and
+drown you up,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;You can&#8217;t go away from me;
+you can&#8217;t. Oh, see! it has comed;&#8221; and Pen danced up
+and down and clapped her hands in triumph.
+</p>
+<p>She was right. She had gained a complete victory. Just
+at the extreme end of the promontory a gentle wave, peaceful,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span>
+pretty, and graceful, curled up against the solid rock.
+It had scarcely retired in bashful innocence when another
+wave tumbled after it. They looked like charming playfellows.
+Then came a third, then a fourth and a fifth.
+Faster and faster they rolled in, flowing up the white
+sands and making a white foam round the rock.
+</p>
+<p>The little Carvers stood still, transfixed with a curious
+mingling of delight, excitement, and horror. Pen ceased to
+jump up and down. Presently she ceased to laugh. She
+was only a very small girl, and did not in the least realize
+her danger; nevertheless, as she used her eyes to good
+purpose, and as she quickly perceived that the opposite
+side of the bay was now shut away by a great body of
+water, it did occur to her that they would have to stay in
+their present shelter for some time. Harry turned round
+slowly. Harry was ten years old, and he understood. He
+had heard his father talk of the dangerous White Bay. He
+went straight up to Pen, and, taking her hand, burst out
+crying.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It don&#8217;t matter,&#8221; he said&mdash;&#8220;it don&#8217;t matter whether we
+are good or whether we are bad. We can none of us ever
+go to the Zoo again. Nellie and I won&#8217;t ever go any more,
+and you can never go at all.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221; asked Pen.
+</p>
+<p>Her heart began to beat fast and loud.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean? Oh, you dreadful bad&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t call names,&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;You will be sorry by-and-by;
+and by-and-by comes soon. We have got to be
+drowned, all three of us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+<h3>&#8220;OUR FATHER&#8221; IS BEST.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Pauline and Verena found Miss Tredgold waiting for
+them. They went into the shop, which was quite one of
+the best shops in the High Street. There Miss Tredgold
+asked to see hats, and presently the two girls and their aunt
+were absorbed in the fascinating occupation of trying on
+new headgear. Miss Tredgold was buying a very pretty hat
+for herself also. It was to be trimmed with lace and feathers,
+and Verena had a momentary sense of disappointment
+that she was to have nothing so gay to wear on her own
+head. The attendant who was serving them made a sudden
+remark.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, ma&#8217;am,&#8221; she said, &#8220;this little brown hat trimmed
+with velvet will exactly suit the dark young lady.&#8221; Here
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span>
+she looked at Pauline. &#8220;And I should venture to suggest
+a very little cream-colored lace introduced in front. The
+autumn is coming on, and the young lady will find this hat
+very suitable when the weather changes.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, the weather seems inclined to remain fine,&#8221; said
+Miss Tredgold, glancing out of the window, where a very
+blue sky met her gaze. There were heavy white clouds,
+however, drifting quickly across the sky, and the young
+shop attendant said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hear that there&#8217;s a storm expected. And anyhow it
+is high-tide to-night. The tide will come up and quite
+cover the White Bay this evening. It is always more or
+less dangerous there, but it is specially dangerous to-day.
+I never like these high-tides; children and nursemaids are
+so apt to forget all about them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold muttered something conventional. Pauline
+suddenly sat down on a chair.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How white you are, dear!&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Would
+you oblige me,&#8221; she added, turning to the attendant, &#8220;by
+bringing this young lady a glass of water?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>But Pauline had already recovered herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Please don&#8217;t,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I want to go out. I want to
+get the air. Don&#8217;t&mdash;don&#8217;t keep me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Her movement was so sudden and so unexpected that
+neither Miss Tredgold nor Verena had time to say a word.
+The people in the shop saw a somewhat untidy-looking
+little girl rush wildly down the stairs and out of doors,
+and long before Miss Tredgold had time to recover her
+scattered senses that same little girl was tearing as though
+on the wings of the wind up the High Street. Panting,
+breathless, overpowered with emotion, she presently reached
+the long flat stretch of beach at the farther end of which
+was the dangerous White Bay. Never in all her life had
+Pauline run as she did now. Faster and faster flew her
+feet. There was a noise in her ears as though something
+was hammering on her brain. She was almost faint with
+terror. Should she be in time? Should she be too late?
+Oh! she must be in time.
+</p>
+<p>Presently she saw the far end of the promontory. Her
+heart gave a bound and almost stood still. What was that
+white thing curling round it? Water? Oh, yes; but she
+did not mind. She had waded before now. This was a case
+of wading again. She reached the spot, and a moment later
+she had torn off her shoes and stockings, had gathered her
+skirts round her waist, and was walking through the waves.
+The water was already over a foot deep. There was also
+a strong tide, and she had some difficulty in keeping her
+feet. She managed to hold her own, however, and found
+herself a minute or two later, drenched all over, panting
+and trembling, but still safe in the White Bay. To her
+relief, she saw three terrified children crouching up as
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span>
+near as they dared to the water. Even now a great wave,
+deeper and stronger than its predecessors, rolled in. It
+took Pauline off her feet just as she was clambering to dry
+ground. She recovered herself, ran up to Pen, took her
+hand, and said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have played pickaback before now. Get on my
+back this moment; don&#8217;t stop to think.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I daren&#8217;t,&#8221; said Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little boy&mdash;I don&#8217;t know your name,&#8221; said Pauline&mdash;&#8220;put
+Pen onto my back whatever happens.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Harry Carver sprang towards Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She is brave; she is a true heroine.
+The lions and tigers would love her. Get on her
+back and she will return for us. Oh! be quick&mdash;do be
+quick&mdash;for we don&#8217;t any of us want to be drowned.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can you swim?&#8221; asked Pauline. &#8220;No; I know you can&#8217;t.
+I haven&#8217;t a moment to stay; I&#8217;ll come back somehow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She struggled towards the water, but Pen scrambled off
+her back and stood firm on the ground.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am bad,&#8221; she said&mdash;&#8220;there never was anybody much
+badder&mdash;but I&#8217;m not going first. Take that little girl; I
+will go afterwards.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, little girl,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Harry rushed towards his sister.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do go, Nellie. Let mother keep one of us. I don&#8217;t
+mind being drowned&mdash;not a bit. You tell mother I don&#8217;t
+mind. Go, Nellie; do go with the big brave girl.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So Pauline carried Nellie through the rising tide, and,
+marvellous to relate, did land her safely on the other side.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now look here,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you must rush home as
+fast as you can, and when you get there you are to say
+that there are two girls and a boy in the White Bay, and
+that your people are to bring a boat immediately. Don&#8217;t
+waste a second. Find somebody. If all your people are out,
+go to ours. Our house is No. 11. You understand? There
+isn&#8217;t a minute to lose.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, see you go,&#8221; shouted Harry Carver. &#8220;And if you
+are too late, be sure you tell mother that I wasn&#8217;t afraid to
+drown.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nellie Carver began to run as fast as she could across
+the sands. Pauline hesitated for a moment; then she deliberately
+waded back to the other two. The water was
+up to her waist now, and she had the greatest difficulty in
+keeping her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t face anybody again if Pen were drowned,&#8221;
+she said to herself. &#8220;If she drowns, so will I. It is the
+only thing fit for me. Perhaps when God sees that I am
+sorry, and that I did try to save Pen, He will forgive me;
+but I am not sure. Anyhow, I deserve to be drowned. I
+could never, never face the others if Pen were to die because
+of me.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span></p>
+<p>She was just able to scramble again out of the water on
+the White Bay side. The tide was coming in with great
+rapidity. It was hopeless to think of carrying Pen across.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let us go to the top part of the bay, as close to the
+rocks as possible,&#8221; said Pauline; &#8220;and don&#8217;t let&#8217;s be really
+frightened, for I am sure the boat will be in time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I am certain of it!&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;Nellie never
+does lose her head. She won&#8217;t want us to drown, so she&#8217;ll
+hurry up.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give me your hand, Pen,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;You are a
+very brave little girl to let the other little girl go first. I
+am glad you did it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will God remember that about me by-and-by?&#8221; asked
+Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope so,&#8221; replied Pauline, with a shiver.
+</p>
+<p>She took Pen&#8217;s icy hand and began to rub it.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t at all good for you to shiver like this,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;Here is a bright piece of sunshine. Let us run up and
+down in the sunshine. It doesn&#8217;t seem, somehow, as though
+anybody could drown when the sun shines.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe the boat will be in time,&#8221; said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>They ran up and down for some time, and then stood
+quiet. Pauline was very silent. Beside the other two
+children she felt quite old and grown-up. She had got
+Pen into this terrible scrape; it was her mission to help
+them both. If they must all die, she at least would have
+to show courage. She was not ready to die. She knew
+that fact quite well. But she had naturally plenty of pluck,
+and fearful as her present surroundings were, she would
+not have been afraid but for that ugly black thing which
+rested on her conscience. Penelope looked full into her
+face. There was something also pricking Penelope&#8217;s conscience.
+The three children stood close together on the
+little white patch of sand which had not yet been covered
+by the waves. The wind was getting up, and the waves
+were mounting higher; they rushed farther and farther
+up the bay, and curled and swept and enjoyed themselves,
+and looked as though they were having a race up the white
+sands. Pauline made a rapid calculation, and came to the
+conclusion that they had about half-an-hour to live; for
+the bay was a very shallow one, and when the wind was
+in its present quarter the tide rose rapidly. She looked
+back at the rocks behind her, and saw that high-water
+mark, even on ordinary occasions, was just above their
+heads. This was what is called a spring-tide. There was
+not the least hope.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If only we could climb up,&#8221; she thought.
+</p>
+<p>Then Penelope gave her hand a great tug. She looked
+down. Pen went on tugging and tugging.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look,&#8221; she said; &#8220;stoop and look.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>In the palm of Pen&#8217;s hand lay the thimble.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Take it,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;I comed with it to make mischief,
+but I won&#8217;t never tell now&mdash;never. Take it. Put it in your
+pocket. I am sorry I was so bad. Take it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline did take the little gold thimble. She slipped
+it into her pocket; then she stooped and kissed Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you two doing?&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t
+you talk to me? Can&#8217;t I do something to help? I&#8217;m ten.
+How old are you?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was fourteen a few weeks ago,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Granny!&#8221; said the boy. &#8220;Why, you are quite old; you
+are withering up. I wouldn&#8217;t like to be fourteen. You must
+know a monstrous lot. You are a very plucky one to come
+through the water as you did. I wish I could swim, and I
+wouldn&#8217;t let the waves get the better of me; but I&#8217;m glad
+I let Nellie see that I wasn&#8217;t afraid of drowning. Do you
+mind drowning, big, big, old girl?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I do,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have a queer sort of look in your eyes, like the
+little one has in hers. Are you wicked, too?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have guessed it,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I expect we&#8217;re all wicked for that matter; but we can
+say our prayers, can&#8217;t we?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Pauline, and now her lips trembled and the
+color faded from her cheeks. &#8220;Let us say them together.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;By-and-by,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;We needn&#8217;t say our prayers
+yet. It will be some time afore the water will touch us;
+won&#8217;t it, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline knew that the water would come in very quickly.
+Harry looked full at Pen, and then he nodded his head.
+He came to Pauline and whispered something in her ear.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s little,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She&#8217;s quite a baby&mdash;not eight
+yet. I am ten. When the water begins to come in we&#8217;ll
+lift her in our arms and raise her above it; shan&#8217;t we?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; that is a very good thought,&#8221; said Pauline. She
+looked back again at the rocks. They were smooth as
+marble; there did not seem to be a possible foothold. She
+felt a sense of regret that they had not gone to the farther
+end of the bay, where the rocks were lower and more
+indented, and where it might be possible for a brave boy
+and girl to get temporary foothold; but the sea had already
+reached those rocks and was dashing round them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish I had thought of it,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What about?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The rocks&mdash;those rocks out there.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The words had scarcely passed her lips before Harry
+darted back. A wave from the incoming tide had rolled
+over his feet.
+</p>
+<p>Pen uttered a sudden cry:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am frightened. I won&#8217;t drown. I am awful frightened.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span></p>
+<p>She began to shriek.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Try and keep up your courage, darling,&#8221; said Pauline.
+&#8220;It won&#8217;t be long. It will be quickly over, and I will
+stay close to you. Paulie will be close to you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let us get her to stand on our two shoulders, and we&#8217;ll
+lean up against the rocks,&#8221; said Harry. &#8220;She can steady
+herself against the rock, and I will support you both. Here,
+I will hoist her up. Now, missy, you look slippy. That&#8217;s
+it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Harry was a very active boy, and he did manage to lift
+Pen, who was stiff with cold and fright, and miserable with
+a sense of her own naughtiness, on to Pauline&#8217;s and his
+shoulders. When she was established in that position she
+was propped up against the rocks.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you are safe,&#8221; said Harry, looking back at her
+and trying to laugh. &#8220;We&#8217;ll both drown before you. See
+how safe you are.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Just for a moment Pen was somewhat consoled by this
+reflection. But presently a fresh terror seized her. It
+would be so awful when she was left alone and there was
+only a dead Pauline and a dead Harry to keep her company.
+She had never seen anybody die, and had not the
+least idea what death meant. Her terrors grew worse each
+moment. She began to cry and whimper miserably, &#8220;I wish
+that boat would come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Another wave came in and washed right over both Pauline&#8217;s
+and Harry&#8217;s ankles. They were jammed up against
+the rocks now. This big wave was followed by a second
+and a third, and soon the children were standing in water
+very nearly up to their knees.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Seems to me,&#8221; said Harry in a choky voice, &#8220;that it is
+about time we began our prayers. It is like going to sleep
+at night. Just when you are preparing to sleep you say
+your prayers, and then you dump your head down on your
+pillow and off you go to by-bye land. Then mother comes
+and kisses you, and she says&mdash;&mdash; Oh, bother! I don&#8217;t want
+to think of that. Let&#8217;s try and fancy that it is night. Let&#8217;s
+begin our prayers. Oh, what a wave that is! Why, it has
+dashed right into my eyes.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How far up is the water now, Pauline?&#8221; asked Penelope
+from her position.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is not very far up yet,&#8221; replied Pauline in as cheerful
+a tone as she could. &#8220;We had better do what Harry says,
+and say our prayers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall us?&#8221; said Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think so,&#8221; replied Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>There was a strange sensation in her throat, and a mist
+before her eyes. Her feet were so icy cold that it was
+with difficulty she could keep herself from slipping.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Which prayer shall we say?&#8221; asked Harry. &#8220;There&#8217;s
+a lot of them. There&#8217;s our special private prayers in which
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span>
+we say, &#8216;God bless father and mother;&#8217; and then there&#8217;s
+&#8216;Our Father.&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Our Father&#8217; is best,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>The children began repeating it in a sing-song fashion.
+Suddenly Pen violently clutched hold of Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will God forgive our badnesses?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He will&mdash;I know He will,&#8221; answered Pauline; and just
+at that instant there came a cry from Harry.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A boat! a boat!&#8221; he shrieked. &#8220;And it&#8217;s coming our
+way. I knew Nellie was a brick. I knew she&#8217;d do it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>A boat rowed by four men came faster and faster over
+the waves. By-and-by it was within a stone&#8217;s-throw of
+the children. A big man sat in the stern. Harry glanced
+at him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, it&#8217;s father!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Oh, father, why did you
+come home? I thought you had gone away for the day.
+Father, I wasn&#8217;t a bit afraid to drown&mdash;not really, I mean.
+I hope Nellie told you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, my brave boy. Now, see, when I hold out my
+hand, spring up carefully or the boat will capsize.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The next instant a stalwart hand and arm were stretched
+across the rapidly rising waves, and Harry, with a bound,
+was in the boat.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lie down in the boat, and stay as quiet as a mouse,&#8221;
+said his father.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline, already up to her waist in water, struggled a
+step or two and was dragged into the boat; while two of
+the men bent over, and, catching Penelope round the waist,
+lifted her into their ark of shelter.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was touch-and-go, sir,&#8221; said one of the sailors who
+had accompanied Harry&#8217;s father. &#8220;Five minutes later and
+we could have done no good.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+<h3>THE DULL WEIGHT.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The rest of that day passed for Pauline in a sort of dream.
+She felt no fear nor pain nor remorse. She lay in bed
+with a languid and sleepy sensation. Aunt Sophia went in
+and out of the room; she was all kindness and sympathy.
+Several times she bent down and kissed the child&#8217;s hot
+forehead. It gave Pauline neither pain nor pleasure when
+her aunt did that; she was, in short, incapable of any emotion.
+When the doctor came at night his face looked
+grave.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The little girl is all right,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She has had a
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span>
+terrible fright, but a good night&#8217;s rest will quite restore
+her to her usual health; but I don&#8217;t quite like the look of
+the elder girl.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena, who was in the room, now came forward.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline is always pale,&#8221; she said. &#8220;If it is only that
+she looks a little more pale than usual&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t that,&#8221; interrupted the doctor. &#8220;Her nervous
+system has got a most severe shock.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The fact is this,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;The child has
+not been herself for some time. It was on that account
+that I brought her to the seaside. She was getting very
+much better. This accident is most unfortunate, and I
+cannot understand how she knew about Penelope.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was a precious good thing she did find it out,&#8221; said
+the doctor, &#8220;or Mr. Carver&#8217;s two little children and your
+young niece would all have been drowned. Miss Pauline
+did a remarkably plucky thing. Well, I will send round
+a quieting draught. Some one had better sleep in the child&#8217;s
+room to-night; she may possibly get restless and excited.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When Miss Tredgold and Verena found themselves alone,
+Miss Tredgold looked at her niece.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can you understand it?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Aunt Sophy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Has Pen told you anything?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must not question her further just now,&#8221; said Miss
+Tredgold. &#8220;She will explain things in the morning, perhaps.
+Why did the children go to the White Bay&mdash;a forbidden
+place to every child in the neighborhood? And how
+did Pauline know that they were there? The mystery
+thickens. It annoys me very much.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena said nothing, but her eyes slowly filled with
+tears.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold suddenly, &#8220;I thought it
+right this afternoon to send your father a telegram. He
+may arrive in the morning, or some time to-morrow; there
+is no saying.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m sure he will come if he remembers,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just it, Renny. How long will he remember?
+Sometimes I think he has a fossil inside of him instead of
+a heart. But there! I must not abuse him to you, my
+dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is really a most loving father,&#8221; said Verena; &#8220;that
+is, when he remembers. Why he should forget everything
+puzzles me a good deal; still, I cannot forget that he is my
+father.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go
+and sleep in the same room with Pen, and watch her. I
+will take care of Pauline.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span>
+placing herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over
+the events of the day. Soon her thoughts wandered from
+the day itself to the days that had gone before, and she
+puzzled much over Pauline&#8217;s character and her curious,
+half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What can be the matter with the child?&#8221; she thought.
+&#8220;She doesn&#8217;t really care for me as the others do, and yet
+sometimes she gives me a look that none of the others have
+ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with such a passionate
+love that it would make up for everything I have
+ever missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and
+sweet, and open as the day. As to Pen, she is an oddity&mdash;no
+more and no less. I wish I could think her quite
+straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission
+to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the
+one who really puzzles me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself
+alone. She stretched out her arms and said in a voice of
+excitement:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right
+to send it away to London. It was like stealing it. I want it
+back. Nancy, I must have it back.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was
+evidently speaking in her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned
+again to her place by the window. The dawn was breaking.
+There was a streak of light across the distant horizon. The
+tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched
+the waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest
+chance Pauline and Pen might have been now lying within
+their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold shuddered again. She
+stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to prevent
+the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light,
+when Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her
+aunt, and said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you
+have got! And have you brought it back at last? She
+wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps on looking and
+looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It
+is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful.
+Have you got it for me, Nancy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is I, dear, not Nancy,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, coming forward.
+&#8220;You have had a very good night. I hope you are
+better.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked up at her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How funny!&#8221; she said. &#8220;I really thought you were
+Nancy&mdash;Nancy King, my old friend. I suppose I was dreaming.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You were talking about something that was dark-blue
+and light-blue and gold,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline gave a weak smile.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Was I?&#8221; she answered.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span></p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold took the little girl&#8217;s hands and put them
+inside the bedclothes.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am going to get you a cup of tea,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold made the tea herself; and when she brought
+it, and pushed back Pauline&#8217;s tangled hair, she observed a
+narrow gold chain round her neck.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where did she get it?&#8221; thought the good lady. &#8220;Mysteries
+get worse. I know all about her little ornaments.
+She has been talking in a most unintelligible way. And
+where did she get that chain?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold&#8217;s discoveries of that morning were not yet
+at an end; for by-and-by, when the servant brought in
+Pauline&#8217;s dress which she had been drying by the kitchen
+fire, she held something in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I found this in the young lady&#8217;s pocket,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I
+am afraid it is injured a good bit, but if you have it well
+rubbed up it may get all right again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold saw in the palm of the girl&#8217;s hand her own
+much-valued and long-lost thimble. She gave a quick
+start, then controlled herself.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can put it down,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I am glad it was not
+lost.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is a beautiful thimble,&#8221; said the girl. &#8220;I am sure
+Johnson, the jeweller in the High Street, could put it right
+for you, miss.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You had better leave the room now,&#8221; replied Miss Tredgold.
+&#8220;The young lady will hear you if you talk in a whisper.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When the maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a
+minute or two holding the thimble in the palm of her hand;
+then she crossed the room on tiptoe, and replaced it in the
+pocket of Pauline&#8217;s serge skirt.
+</p>
+<p>For the whole of that day Pauline lay in a languid and
+dangerous condition. The doctor feared mischief to the
+brain. Miss Tredgold waited on her day and night. At the
+end of the third day there was a change for the better, and
+then convalescence quickly followed.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale made his appearance on the scene early on the
+morning after the accident. He was very much perturbed,
+and very nearly shed tears when he clasped Penelope in his
+arms. But in an hour&#8217;s time he got restless, and asked Verena
+in a fretful tone what he had left his employment for.
+She gave him a fresh account of the whole story as far as
+she knew it, and he once more remembered and asked to see
+Pauline, and actually dropped a tear on her forehead. But
+by the midday train he returned to The Dales, and long
+before he got there the whole affair in the White Bay was
+forgotten by him.
+</p>
+<p>In a week&#8217;s time Pauline was pronounced convalescent;
+but although she had recovered her appetite, and to a certain
+extent her spirits, there was a considerable change
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span>
+over her. This the doctor did not at first remark; but Miss
+Tredgold and Verena could not help noticing it. For one
+thing, Pauline hated looking at the sea. She liked to sit
+with her back to it. When the subject was mentioned she
+turned fidgety, and sometimes even left the room. Now and
+then, too, she complained of a weight pressing on her head.
+In short, she was herself and yet not herself; the old bright,
+daring, impulsive, altogether fascinating Pauline seemed to
+be dead and gone.
+</p>
+<p>On the day when she was considered well enough to go
+into the drawing-room, there was a festival made in her
+honor. The place looked bright and pretty. Verena had
+got a large supply of flowers, which she placed in glasses
+on the supper-table and also on a little table close to Pauline&#8217;s
+side. Pauline did not remark on the flowers, however.
+She did not remark on anything. She was gentle and sweet,
+and at the same time indifferent to her surroundings.
+</p>
+<p>When supper was over she found herself alone with Penelope.
+Then a wave of color rushed into her face, and she
+looked full at her little sister.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have I done it or have I not, Pen?&#8221; she said. &#8220;Have I
+been awfully wicked&mdash;the wickedest girl on earth&mdash;or is it a
+dream? Tell me&mdash;tell me, Pen. Tell me the truth.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is as true as anything in the wide world,&#8221; said Pen,
+speaking with intense emphasis and coming close to her
+sister. &#8220;There never was anybody more wicked than you&mdash;<i>&#8217;cept</i>
+me. We are both as bad as bad can be. But I tell you
+what, Paulie, though I meant to tell, I am not going to tell
+now; for but for you I&#8217;d have been drownded, and I am
+never, never, never going to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But for me!&#8221; said Pauline, and the expression on her
+face was somewhat vague.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Paulie, how white you look! No, I will never tell.
+I love you now, and it is your secret and mine for ever and
+ever.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline said nothing. She put her hand to her forehead;
+the dull weight on her head was very manifest.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are going home next week,&#8221; continued Pen in her
+brightest manner. &#8220;You will be glad of that. You will
+see Briar and Patty and all the rest, and perhaps you will
+get to look as you used to. You are not much to be proud of
+now. You are seedy-looking, and rather dull, and not a bit
+amusing. But I loves you, and I&#8217;ll never, never tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Run away, Pen,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, coming into the
+room at that moment. &#8220;You are tiring Pauline. You should
+not have talked so loud; your sister is not very strong yet.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+<h3>PLATO AND VIRGIL.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Dale returned home to find metamorphosis; for Betty
+and John, egged on by nurse, had taken advantage of his
+day from home to turn out the study. This study had not
+been properly cleaned for years. It had never had what
+servants are fond of calling a spring cleaning. Neither
+spring nor autumn found any change for the better in that
+tattered, dusty, and worn-out carpet; in those old moreen
+curtains which hung in heavy, dull folds round the bay-window;
+in the leathern arm-chair, with very little leather
+left about it; in the desk, which was so piled with books
+and papers that it was difficult even to discover a clear
+space on which to write. The books on the shelves, too,
+were dusty as dusty could be. Many of them were precious
+folios&mdash;folios bound in calf which book-lovers would have
+given a great deal for&mdash;but the dust lay thick on them, and
+Betty said, with a look of disgust, that they soiled her fingers.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, drat you and your fingers!&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;You
+think of nothing but those blessed trashy novels you are
+always reading. You must turn to now. The master is certain
+to be back by the late afternoon train, and this room
+has got to be put into apple-pie order before he returns.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said John; &#8220;we won&#8217;t lose the chance. We&#8217;ll
+take each book from its place on the shelf, dust it, and put
+it back again. We have a long job before us, so don&#8217;t you
+think any more of your novels and your grand ladies and
+gentlemen, Betty, my woman.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have ceased to think of them,&#8221; said Betty.
+</p>
+<p>She stood with her hands hanging straight to her sides;
+her face was quite pale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I trusted, and my trust failed me,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;I
+was at a wedding lately, John&mdash;you remember, don&#8217;t you?&mdash;Dick
+Jones&#8217;s wedding, at the other side of the Forest.
+There was a beautiful wedding cake, frosted over and almond-iced
+underneath, and ornaments on it, too&mdash;cupids
+and doves and such-like. A pair of little doves sat as perky
+as you please on the top of the cake, billing and cooing like
+anything. It made my eyes water even to look at &#8217;em.
+You may be sure I didn&#8217;t think of Mary Dugdale, the bride
+that was, nor of poor Jones, neither; although he is a good
+looking man enough&mdash;I never said he wasn&#8217;t. But my heart
+was in my mouth thinking of that dear Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Who in the name of fortune is he?&#8221; asked nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A hero of mine,&#8221; said Betty.
+</p>
+<p>Her face looked a little paler and more mournful even
+than when she had begun to speak.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s dead,&#8221; she said, and she whisked a handkerchief
+out of her pocket and applied it to her eyes. &#8220;It was bandits
+as carried him off. He loved that innocent virgin he
+took for his wife like anything. Over and over have I
+thought of them, and privately made up my mind that if
+I came across his second I&#8217;d give him my heart.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Betty, you must be mad,&#8221; said nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe you are mad,&#8221; retorted Betty, her face flaming,
+&#8220;but I am not. It was a girl quite as poor as me that he
+took for his spouse; and why shouldn&#8217;t there be another
+like him? That&#8217;s what I thought, and when the wedding
+came to an end I asked Mary Dugdale to give me a bit of the
+cake all private for myself. She&#8217;s a good-natured sort is
+Mary, though not equal to Jones&mdash;not by no means. She
+cut a nice square of the cake, a beautiful chunk, black with
+richness as to the fruit part, yellow as to the almond, and
+white as the driven snow as to the icing. And, if you&#8217;ll
+believe it, there was just the tip of a wing of one of those
+angelic little doves cut off with the icing. Well, I brought
+it home with me, and I slept on it just according to the old
+saw which my mother taught me. Mother used to say,
+&#8216;Betty, if you want to dream of your true love, you will
+take a piece of wedding-cake that belongs to a fresh-made
+bride, and you will put it into your right-foot stocking, and
+tie it with your left-foot garter, and put it under your
+pillow. And when you get into bed, not a mortal word will
+you utter, or the spell is broke. And that you will do,
+Betty,&#8217; said my mother, &#8216;for three nights running. And
+then you will put the stocking and the garter and the cake
+away for three nights, and at the end of those nights you
+will sleep again on it for three nights; and then you will
+put it away once more for three nights, and you will sleep
+on it again for three nights. And at the end of the last
+night, why, the man you dream of is he.&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, and did you go in for all that gibberish?&#8221; asked
+nurse, with scorn.
+</p>
+<p>She had a duster in her hand, and she vigorously flicked
+Mr. Dale&#8217;s desk as she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be sure I did; and I thought as much over the matter
+as ought to have got me a decent husband. Well, when
+the last night come I lay me down to sleep as peaceful
+as an angel, and I folded my hands and shut my eyes, and
+wondered what his beautiful name would be, and if he&#8217;d
+be a dook or a marquis. I incline to a dook myself, having,
+so to speak, fallen in love with the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton
+of blessed memory. But what do you think
+happened? It&#8217;s enough to cure a body, that it is.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what?&#8221; asked nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I dreamt of no man in the creation except John there.
+If that isn&#8217;t enough to make a body sick, and to cure all
+their romance once and for ever, my name ain&#8217;t Betty
+Snowden.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>John laughed and turned a dull red at this unexpected
+ending to Betty&#8217;s story.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now let&#8217;s clean up,&#8221; she said; &#8220;and don&#8217;t twit me any
+more about my dreams. They were shattered, so to speak,
+in the moment of victory.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The children were called in, particularly Briar and Patty,
+and the room was made quite fresh and sweet, the carpet
+taken up, the floor scrubbed, a new rug (bought long ago
+for the auspicious moment) put down, white curtains hung
+at the windows in place of the dreadful old moreen, every
+book dusted and put in its place, and the papers piled up
+in orderly fashion on a wagonette which was moved into
+the room for the purpose. Finally the children and servants
+gazed around them with an air of appreciation.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He can&#8217;t help liking it,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder if he will,&#8221; said Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and
+we have not disturbed one single blessed thing.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to
+greet their returning parent.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How is Pauline, father?&#8221; asked Briar in an anxious
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline?&#8221; replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly
+through his thin locks. &#8220;What of her? Isn&#8217;t
+she here?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense, father!&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;You went to see her.
+She was very ill; she was nearly drowned. You know all
+about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us how she is.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be sure,&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;I quite recall the circumstance
+now. Your sister is much better. I left her
+in bed, a little flushed, but looking very well and pretty.
+Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has
+improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too,
+and Pen, and your good aunt. Yes, I saw them all.
+Comfortable lodgings enough for those who don&#8217;t care
+for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not
+seem to be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why
+I was summoned. Don&#8217;t keep me now, my dears; I must
+get back to my work. The formation of that last sentence
+from Plato&#8217;s celebrated treatise doesn&#8217;t please me. It lacks
+the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how
+you stare! There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty,
+why the English translation should not be every bit as pure
+as the Greek. Our language has extended itself considerably
+of late, and close application and study may recall
+to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span>
+certain, my dear girls&mdash;&mdash; Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss
+Pauline is better. I was talking about Plato, nurse. The
+last translation I have been making from his immortal
+work does not please me; but toil&mdash;ceaseless toil&mdash;the midnight
+oil, <i>et cetera</i>, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse,
+and I may be able to put the matter before the great English
+thinking public in a way worthy of the immortal
+master.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his
+forehead. He removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired
+with long, shuffling strides to his beloved study.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No food until I ring for it,&#8221; he said when he reached
+the door, and then he vanished.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blessed man!&#8221; said Betty, who was standing in the far
+distance. &#8220;He might be a dook himself for all his airs.
+It was lovely the way he clothed his thoughts that time.
+What they be themselves I don&#8217;t know, but his language
+was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are
+you standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed
+the garden&mdash;do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that
+dream of yours,&#8221; was John&#8217;s answer.
+</p>
+<p>Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into
+her kitchen, slammed the door after her, and planted him
+down on a wooden seat, and then proceeded to make tea.
+</p>
+<p>But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant
+converse with each other, Mr. Dale&#8217;s condition was by
+no means so favorable. At first when he entered his study
+he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too loftily
+poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains
+and druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself
+at his desk, and stretched out his hand mechanically to find
+his battered old edition of Plato, it was not in its accustomed
+place. He looked around him, raised his eyes, put
+his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with
+a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room.
+What did he see? He started, stumbled to his feet, turned
+deathly white, and rushed to the opposite bookcase. There
+was his Plato&mdash;his idol&mdash;actually placed in the bookshelf
+upside-down. It was a monstrous crime&mdash;a crime that he
+felt he could never forgive&mdash;that no one could expect him
+to forgive. He walked across to the fireplace and rang
+the bell.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must go, Miss Patty,&#8221; said nurse. &#8220;I was willing
+to do it, but I can&#8217;t face him. You must go; you really
+must.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m not frightened,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;Come on,
+Briar.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The two little girls walked down the passage. Mr. Dale&#8217;s
+bell was heard to ring again.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you the least bit frightened, Patty?&#8221; asked Briar.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Patty, with a sigh. &#8220;If only I could get
+the real heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter.
+Oh, Briar, Briar!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t talk of it now,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;To-night when we
+are alone, when we are by ourselves in our own room, but
+not now. Come, let us answer father&#8217;s bell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>They opened the door and presented themselves&mdash;two
+pretty little figures with rosy faces and bright eyes&mdash;two
+neatly dressed, lady-like little girls.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you want anything, father?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;Come in and shut the door.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The girls did what he told them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who did this?&#8221; asked the master of The Dales. He
+swept his hand with a certain majesty of gesture round
+the restored room. &#8220;Who brushed the walls? Who put
+those flimsies to the windows? Who touched my beloved
+books? Who was the person? Name the culprit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There were quite a lot of us, father. We all did it,&#8221;
+said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You all did it? You mean to tell me, little girl, that
+you did it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I dusted a lot of the books, father. I didn&#8217;t injure one
+of them, and I put them back again just in the same place.
+My arms ached because the books were so heavy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Quite right that they should ache. Do you know what
+injury you have done me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Patty suddenly. &#8220;We made the room clean,
+father. It isn&#8217;t right to live in such a dirty room. Plato
+wouldn&#8217;t have liked it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now what do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale&#8217;s white face quieted down suddenly; for his
+daughter&mdash;his small, young, ignorant daughter&mdash;to dare to
+mention the greatest name, in his opinion, of all the ages,
+was too much for him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are always talking to us about Plato,&#8221; said Patty,
+who grew braver and braver as she proceeded. &#8220;You talk
+of Plato one day, and Virgil another day, and you always
+tell us how great they were; but if they were really great
+they would not be dirty, and this room was horrid and
+dirty, father. It really was. Nice, great, good, noble people
+are clean. Aunt Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt
+Sophy came we have been very happy, and the house has
+been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and so does
+Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made
+your room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato
+and Virgil&mdash;that is, if they can see us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?&#8221; said Mr.
+Dale.
+</p>
+<p>He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead,
+and gazed at the children.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is the door,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Go.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span></p>
+<p>They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Upon my word!&#8221; he said several times. &#8220;Upon&mdash;my&mdash;word!
+So Plato liked things clean, and Virgil liked things
+orderly. Upon&mdash;my&mdash;word!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was
+working, for his glasses were sometimes removed and then
+put on again, and several times he brushed his hand through
+his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and, gazing at the frills
+of the white window-curtains, he opened the French windows,
+and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open
+air. He went for a walk&mdash;a long one. When he came back
+he entered his clean study, to find the lamp burning brightly,
+his Plato restored to its place by his left-hand side, and
+a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own old
+pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled
+with fresh ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink,
+and wrote on a sheet of paper, &#8220;Plato likes things clean,
+and Virgil likes things orderly,&#8221; and then pinned the paper
+on the opposite wall.
+</p>
+<p>For the rest of the evening the astonished household
+were much beguiled and overcome by the most heavenly
+strains from Mr. Dale&#8217;s violin. He played it in the study
+until quite late at night; but none of the household went to
+bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that music.
+</p>
+<p>About eleven o&#8217;clock Patty and Briar found themselves
+alone.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Patty suddenly, &#8220;I have made up my mind.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Briar, &#8220;I thought you had.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her
+everything.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck,
+and kissed her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what she will say,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say!&#8221; echoed Patty. &#8220;She will be hurt. Perhaps she&#8217;ll
+punish us; but that doesn&#8217;t matter, for in the end she is
+quite, quite certain to forgive us. I am going to tell her.
+I couldn&#8217;t go through another night like last night again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor could I,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;I stayed awake and thought
+of Paulie, and I seemed to see her face as it might look if
+she were really dead. I wish they&#8217;d all come back, for
+Paulie is better. And then we&#8217;d have just a dreadful ten
+minutes, and everything would be all right.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it,&#8221; said Patty. &#8220;Everything would be all right.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+<h3>&#8220;YOU ARE NOT TO TELL.&#8221;</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Pauline was certainly better, although she was not what
+she was before. In body she was to all appearance quite
+well. She ate heartily, took long walks, and slept soundly
+at night; but she was dull. She seldom laughed; she took
+little interest in anything. As to the sea, she had a positive
+horror of it. When she went out for walks she invariably
+chose inland directions. She liked to walk briskly over
+the great moors which surround Easterhaze, and to sit
+there and think, though nobody knew what she was thinking
+about. Her face now and then looked pathetic, but on
+the whole it was indifferent. Miss Tredgold was much
+concerned. She made up her mind.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The seaside is doing the child no good,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;I
+will take her straight back home. She is certainly not herself;
+she got a much greater shock than we knew of or
+had any idea of. When she gets home the sight of the
+other children and the old place will rouse her. She is not
+consumptive at the present moment. That is one thing to
+be thankful for. I shall take her to London for the winter.
+If going back to The Dales does not arouse her, she must
+go somewhere else, for roused she certainly must be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold, having made up her mind, spoke to Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are going home to-morrow, Verena,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And a very good thing,&#8221; answered the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you really think so?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do, Aunt Sophy. Pauline has got all she can get
+out of the sea at present. She does not love the sea; she is
+afraid of it. She may be better when she is home.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet she is well,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;The doctor
+pronounces her in perfect health.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In body she is certainly well,&#8221; said Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, then, you have observed it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I have,&#8221; replied Verena slowly. &#8220;There is some
+part of her stunned. I can&#8217;t make out myself what ails her,
+but there is undoubtedly one part of her stunned.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We will take her home,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>The good lady was a person of very direct action and
+keen resource. She had whisked Pauline and Verena off
+to the sea almost at a moment&#8217;s notice, and quite as quickly
+she brought them back. They were all glad to go. Even
+Pen was pleased. Pen looked very still and solemn and
+contented during these days. She sat close to Pauline and
+looked into her eyes over and over again; and Pauline never
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span>
+resented her glance, and seemed to be more pleased to be
+with Penelope than with anybody else.
+</p>
+<p>The nice landau which Miss Tredgold had purchased met
+the travellers at Lyndhurst Road, and the first piece of
+news which Briar, who had come to meet them, announced
+was that the ponies had arrived.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Peas-blossom and Lavender are so sweet!&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;They came yesterday. We are quite longing to ride them.
+As to Peas-blossom, he is quite the dearest pony I ever
+looked at in my life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Peas-blossom will be Pauline&#8217;s special pony,&#8221; said Miss
+Tredgold suddenly. &#8220;Do you happen to know if the sidesaddles
+have arrived?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, they have; and the habits, too,&#8221; said Briar.
+&#8220;It is delicious&mdash;delicious!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then, Pauline, my dear, you shall have a ride to-morrow
+morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline scarcely replied. She did not negative the idea
+of the ride, but neither did she accept it with any enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>There was a wild moment when the entire family were
+reassembled. All the girls surrounded Pauline, and kissed
+her and hugged her as though she had come back from the
+dead.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You quite forget,&#8221; said Penelope, &#8220;that I was nearly
+drownded, too. I was very nearly shutting up of my eyes,
+and closing of my lips, and stretching myself out and lying
+drownded and still on the top of the waves. I was in as
+big a danger as Pauline, every bit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you didn&#8217;t get ill afterwards, as Paulie did,&#8221; said
+the other girls.
+</p>
+<p>They kissed Pen, for, being their sister, they had to love
+her after a fashion; but their real adoration and deepest
+sympathy were centred round Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Pen, who never cared to find herself neglected,
+ran off to discover nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; she said when she saw that worthy, &#8220;here I am.
+I&#8217;m not pale now. I am rosy. The seaside suits me. The
+salty waves and the sands, they all agrees with me. How
+are you, nursey?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; replied nurse, &#8220;and glad to see you again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how is Marjorie? Kiss me, Marjorie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>She snatched up her little sister somewhat roughly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t make the darling cry,&#8221; said nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; replied Pen. &#8220;Sit down, baby; I have no time
+to &#8217;tend you. Nursey, when I was at the sea I was a very
+&#8217;portant person.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Were you indeed. Miss Pen? But you always think
+yourself that. And how is Miss Pauline?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie?&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;She&#8217;s bad.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bad!&#8221; echoed nurse.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, all-round bad,&#8221; said Penelope.
+</p>
+<p>As she spoke she formed her mouth into a round O, and
+looked with big eyes at nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The seaside didn&#8217;t agree with her,&#8221; said Pen. &#8220;Nor
+does the fuss, nor the petting, nor the nice food, nor anything
+else of that sort. The only thing that agrees with
+Paulie is me. She likes to have me with her, and I understand
+her. But never mind about Paulie now. I want
+to ask you a question. Am I the sort of little girl that lions
+would crunch up?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never!&#8221; cried nurse. &#8220;You are the queerest child!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But am I, nursey? Speak.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose so, Miss Pen.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought so,&#8221; answered Pen, with a sigh. &#8220;I thought
+as much. I am bad through and through, then. They
+never eat good uns. You know that, don&#8217;t you, nursey?
+They wouldn&#8217;t touch Marjorie, though she is so round and
+so white and so fat; and they wouldn&#8217;t look at Adelaide
+or Josephine, or any of those dull ones of the family; but
+they&#8217;d eat me up, and poor Paulie. Oh! they&#8217;d have a
+nice meal on Paulie. Thank you, nursey. I am glad I
+know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is the child driving at?&#8221; thought nurse as Penelope
+marched away. &#8220;Would lions crunch her up, and
+would they crunch up Miss Paulie? Mercy me! I wouldn&#8217;t
+like any of us to be put in their way. I do hope Miss Pen
+won&#8217;t go off her head after a time; she is too queer for
+anything. But what is wrong with Miss Pauline? I don&#8217;t
+like what she said about Miss Pauline.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>When nurse saw Pauline she liked matters even less.
+For though her dearly beloved young lady looked quite
+well in health, her eyes were no longer bright, and she
+did not take the slightest interest in the different things
+which the children had to show her. When asked if she
+would not like to visit the stables, now in perfect restoration,
+and see for herself those darling, most angelic creatures
+that went by the names of Peas-blossom and Lavender,
+she said she was tired and would rather sit in the rocking-chair
+on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>The others, accompanied by Aunt Sophia, went off to view
+the ponies; and then at the last moment Pen came back.
+She flung herself on the ground at Pauline&#8217;s feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I has quite made up my mind for ever and ever,&#8221; she
+said. &#8220;Not even lions will drag it from me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; asked Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, all that I know: about who stole the thimble,
+and about the picnic on the birthday, and about what Briar
+and Patty did, and about you, Paulie, and all your wicked,
+wicked ways. I meant to tell once, but I will never tell
+now. So cheer up; even lions won&#8217;t drag it from me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline put her hand to her forehead.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I keep having these stupid headaches,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They
+come and go, and whenever I want to think they get worse.
+I suppose I have been very bad, and that all you say is
+right, but somehow I can&#8217;t think it out. Only there is one
+thing, Pen&mdash;if I were you I wouldn&#8217;t do wrong any more.
+It isn&#8217;t worth while.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is quite worth while getting you cheered up,&#8221; said
+Pen, &#8220;so I thought I&#8217;d let you know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>That same evening Briar and Patty held a consultation
+in their own room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must do it after breakfast to-morrow,&#8221; said Patty.
+</p>
+<p>Just then there was a slight rustle. Briar paused to
+listen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those horrid mice have come back again,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;We must get Tiddledywinks to spend a night or two in
+this room.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, bother the mice!&#8221; was Patty&#8217;s response. &#8220;Let us
+arrange when we must see her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have planned it all out,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;We must tell
+her just everything we know. She won&#8217;t be so terribly
+angry with Paulie, because poor Paulie is not well. But I
+suppose she will punish us terribly. I have been thinking
+what our punishment ought to be.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; asked Patty.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, not to ride either of the ponies until after Christmas.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! don&#8217;t tell her to do that,&#8221; said Patty, in some alarm.
+&#8220;I have been so pining for my rides.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s that mouse again,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>The children now looked under the little beds, and under
+the farther one there was something which would certainly
+have preferred to be thought an enormous mouse.
+On being dragged to the front, the stout, dishevelled figure
+of Penelope Dale was discovered.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I comed a-purpose,&#8221; said Pen, who did not look the
+least taken aback. &#8220;I saw by your faces that you were
+up to fun, and I thought I&#8217;d like to be in it. It is well I
+comed. I am willing to talk to you about everything. Call
+me a mouse if you like. I don&#8217;t care. I meant to listen. I
+am glad I comed.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are too mean for anything,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;You are
+the horridest girl I ever came across. Why did you dare
+to hide under my bed in order to listen to what I had to
+say to Patty?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knew it all afore,&#8221; said Penelope, &#8220;so that wasn&#8217;t
+why I comed. I comed to keep you from doing mischief.
+What are you going to tell to-morrow?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That isn&#8217;t your business,&#8221; said Briar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I am going to make it my business. What you
+have to tell isn&#8217;t news to me. You are going to &#8217;fess &#8217;cos
+of the pain in your little hearts. You must keep your pain,
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span>
+and you must not &#8217;fess. You are going to tell Aunt Sophy
+about that wicked, wicked birthday night&mdash;how you stole
+away in the dark across the lawn, and wore your Glengarry
+caps, and how you didn&#8217;t come back until the morning.
+But you mustn&#8217;t tell. Do you hear me, Briar and Patty?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why not? Why should you talk to us like that?&#8221;
+asked Patty. &#8220;Why shouldn&#8217;t we say exactly what we
+like?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t tell &#8217;cos of Paulie. She is ill&mdash;more ill
+than you think. She mustn&#8217;t be punished, nor fretted, nor
+teased, nor worrited. If you tell it will worrit her, so you
+mustn&#8217;t tell. Why do you want to tell? You have kept it
+dark a long time now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because we are unhappy,&#8221; said Patty then. &#8220;We haven&#8217;t
+got hard hearts like yours. My heart aches so badly that I
+can&#8217;t sleep at nights for thinking of the lies I&#8217;ve told and
+how wicked I am.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pooh!&#8221; said Penelope. &#8220;Keep your achy hearts; don&#8217;t
+worrit.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s past bearing,&#8221; said Briar. &#8220;What we feel is
+remorse. We must tell. The Bible is full of the wickedness
+of people not confessing their sins. We can&#8217;t help ourselves.
+We are obliged to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just because you have a bit of pain,&#8221; said Pen in a
+tone of deepest contempt. &#8220;I suppose you think I never
+have any pain. Little you know. I have done a lot of
+wicked things. I consider myself much the most desperate
+wicked of the family. Your little pains is only pin-pricks
+compared to mine. It would relieve me to tell, but I love
+Paulie too much, so I won&#8217;t. We have all got to hold our
+tongues for the present. Now good-night. I am not a
+mouse, nor a rat, nor a ferret. But I mean what I say.
+You are not to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+<h3>DECEITFUL GIRLS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Tredgold was dreadfully puzzled to know what to
+make of the girls. The time was autumn now; all pretense
+of summer had disappeared. Autumn had arrived
+and was very windy and wet, and the girls could no longer
+walk in twos and twos on the pretty lawn. They had to
+keep to the walks, and even these walks were drenched, as
+day after day deluges of rain fell from the heavens. The
+Forest, too, was sodden with the fallen leaves, and even
+the ponies slipped as they cantered down the glades. Altogether
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span>
+it was a most chilling, disappointing autumn, winter
+setting in, so to speak, all at once. Verena said she
+never remembered such an early season of wintry winds
+and sobbing skies. The flowers disappeared, several of
+the Forest trees were rooted up in consequence of the
+terrible gales, and Miss Tredgold said it was scarcely safe
+for the children to walk there.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The best cure for weather of this sort,&#8221; she said to
+herself, &#8220;is to give the young people plenty to do indoors.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly she reorganized lessons in a very brisk and
+up-to-date fashion. She arranged that a good music-master
+was to come twice a week from Southampton. Mistresses
+for languages were also to arrive from the same place. A
+pretty little pony-cart which she bought for the purpose
+conveyed these good people to and from Lyndhurst Road
+station. Besides this, she asked one or two visitors to
+come and stay in the house, and tried to plan as comfortable
+and nice a winter as she could. Verena helped her,
+and the younger girls were pleased and interested; and
+Pen did what she was told, dashing about here and there,
+and making suggestions, and trying to make herself as
+useful as she could.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The child is improved,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold to Verena.
+&#8220;She is quite obliging and unselfish.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena said nothing.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you think of my new plans, Verena?&#8221; said
+her aunt. &#8220;Out-of-door life until the frost comes is more
+or less at a standstill. Beyond the mere walking for
+health, we do not care to go out of doors in this wet and
+sloppy weather. But the house is large. I mean always
+to have one or two friends here, sometimes girls to please
+you other girls, sometimes older people to interest me. I
+should much like to have one or two <i>savants</i> down to talk
+over their special studies with your father; but that can
+doubtless be arranged by-and-by. I want us to have cheerful
+winter evenings&mdash;evenings for reading, evenings for
+music. I want you children to learn at least the rudiments
+of good acting, and I mean to have two or three
+plays enacted here during the winter. In short, if you will
+all help me, we can have a splendid time.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I will help you,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;But,&#8221; she added,
+&#8220;I have no talent for acting; it is Paulie who can act so
+well.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish your sister would take an interest in things,
+Verena. She is quite well in body, but she is certainly not
+what she was before her accident.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t understand Pauline,&#8221; said Verena, shaking her
+head.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor do I understand her. Once or twice I thought I
+would get a good doctor to see her, but I have now nearly
+resolved to leave it to time to restore her.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;But the other girls&mdash;can you understand the other girls,
+Aunt Sophy?&#8221; asked Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Understand them, my dear? What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t mean the younger ones&mdash;Adelaide and Lucy
+and the others. I mean Briar and Patty. They are not a
+bit what they were.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now that you remark it, I have noticed that they are
+very grave; but they always do their lessons well, and I
+have nothing to complain of with regard to their conduct.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor have you anything to complain of with regard to
+Paulie&#8217;s conduct,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;It isn&#8217;t that.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then what is it, my dear?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is that they are not natural. There is something on
+their minds. I am certain of it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Verena,&#8221; said her aunt gently, &#8220;I wonder if I might confide
+in you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena started back; a distressed look came over her
+face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If it happens to be anything against Paulie, perhaps I
+had better not hear,&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do not know if it is for her or against her. I am as
+much in the dark as you. I have not spoken of it yet to
+any one else, but I should like to mention it to you. It
+seems to me that light ought to be thrown on some rather
+peculiar circumstances or your sister will never get back
+her old brightness and gaiety of heart.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then if you think so, please tell me, Aunt Sophy,&#8221; said
+Verena.
+</p>
+<p>She got up as she spoke and shut the door. She was a
+very bright and pretty-looking girl, but her face sometimes
+wore too old a look for her age. Her aunt looked at her
+now with a mingling of affection and compassion.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come,&#8221; she said, &#8220;sit on this sofa, darling. We can
+understand each other better when we are close together.
+You know how much I love you, Renny.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There never, never was a better aunt,&#8221; said the girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not that. But I do love you. Now, dear, I will
+tell you. You remember when first I came?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t I? And how angry we were!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor children! I don&#8217;t wonder. But don&#8217;t you think,
+Verena, I was a very brave woman to put myself into such
+a hornet&#8217;s nest?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Indeed you were wonderful. It was your bravery that
+first attracted me. Then I saw how good you were, and
+how kindly you meant, and everything else became easy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But was it equally easy for Pauline?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I don&#8217;t know. I am sure I do know, however, that
+now she loves you very much.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! now,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;But what about the
+early time?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t quite know.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Verena, if I am to be frank with you, you must be
+frank with me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think perhaps she was not won round to you quite as
+easily as I was.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are right, my dear. It was harder to win her; but
+she is worth winning. I shall not rest until I bring her
+round altogether to my side. Now, little girl, listen. You
+know what a very odd child we are all forced to consider
+your sister Pen?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should think so, indeed.&#8221; Verena laughed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, your sister found out one day, not very long after
+I came, that I had lost a thimble.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your beautiful gold thimble? Of course we all knew
+about that,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;We were all interested, and we
+all tried to find it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought so. I knew that Pen in particular searched
+for it with considerable pains, and I offered her a small
+prize if she found it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena laughed.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor Pen!&#8221; she said. &#8220;She nearly broke her back one
+day searching for it. Oh, Aunt Sophy! I hope you will
+learn to do without it, for I am greatly afraid that it will
+not be found now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet, Verena,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold&mdash;and she laid
+her hand, which slightly shook, on the girl&#8217;s arm&mdash;&#8220;I could
+tell you of a certain person in this house to whom a certain
+dress belongs, and unless I am much mistaken, in the
+pocket of that dress reposes the thimble with its sapphire
+base, its golden body, and its rim of pale-blue turquoise.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophy! What do you mean?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena&#8217;s eyes were wide open, and a sort of terror filled
+them.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t start, dear. That person is your sister Pauline.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Pauline! Impossible! Impossible!&#8221; cried Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true, nevertheless. Do you remember that day
+when she was nearly drowned?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can I forget it?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The next morning I was in her room, and the servant
+brought in the dark-blue serge dress she wore, which had
+been submerged so long in the salt water. It had been
+dried, and she was bringing it back. The girl held in her
+hand the thimble&mdash;the thimble of gold and sapphire and
+turquoise. She held the thimble in the palm of her hand,
+and said, &#8216;I found it in the pocket of the young lady&#8217;s
+dress. It is injured, but the jeweller can put it right
+again.&#8217; You can imagine my feelings. For a time I was
+motionless, holding the thimble in my hand. Then I resolved
+to put it back where it had been found. I have
+heard nothing of it since from any one. I don&#8217;t suppose
+Pauline has worn that skirt again; the thimble is doubtless
+there.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, may I run and look? May I?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no; leave it in its hiding-place. Do you think the
+thimble matters to me? What does matter is this&mdash;that
+Pauline should come and tell me, simply and quietly, the
+truth.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She will. She must. I feel as if I were in a dream. I
+can scarcely believe this can be true.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Alas! my dear, it is. And there is another thing. I
+know what little trinkets you each possess, for you showed
+them to me when first I came. Have you any reason to
+believe, Verena, that Pauline kept one trinket back from
+my knowledge?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no, Aunt Sophy; of course she did not. Pauline has
+fewer trinkets than any of us, and she is fond of them.
+She is not particularly fond of gay clothes, but she always
+did like shiny, ornamenty things.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When she was ill I saw round her neck a narrow gold
+chain, to which a little heart-shaped locket was attached.
+Do you know of such a locket, of such a chain?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold rose to her feet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Verena,&#8221; she said, &#8220;things must come to a climax. Pauline
+must be forced to tell. For her own sake, and for the
+sake of others, we must find out what is at the back of
+things. Until we do the air will not be cleared. I had an
+idea of taking you to London for this winter, but I shall
+not do so this side of Christmas at any rate. I want us all
+to have a good time, a bright time, a happy time. We cannot
+until this mystery is explained. I am certain, too, that
+Pen knows more than she will say. She always was a
+curious, inquisitive child. Now, until the time of the
+accident Pen was always pursuing me and giving me hints
+that she had something to confide. I could not, of course,
+allow the little girl to tell tales, and I always shut her up.
+But from the time of the accident she has altered. She is
+now a child on the defensive. She watches Pauline as if
+she were guarding her against something. I am not unobservant,
+and I cannot help seeing. From what you tell me,
+your sisters Briar and Patty are also implicated. My dear
+Verena, we must take steps.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;But what steps?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me think. It has relieved my mind to tell you
+even this much. You will keep your own counsel. I will
+talk to you again to-morrow morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena felt very uncomfortable. Of all the Dales she was
+the most open, in some ways the most innocent. She
+thought well of all the world. She adored her sisters and
+her father, and now also her aunt, Miss Tredgold. She
+was the sort of girl who would walk through life without
+a great deal of sorrow or a great deal of perplexity. The
+right path would attract her; the wrong would always be
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span>
+repellent to her. Temptation, therefore, would not come
+in a severe guise to Verena Dale. She was guarded against
+it by the sweetness and purity and innocence of her nature.
+But now for the first time it seemed to the young
+girl that the outlook was dark. Her aunt&#8217;s words absolutely
+bewildered her. Her aunt suspected Pauline, Pen,
+Briar, and Patty of concealing something. But what had
+they to conceal? It is true that when Aunt Sophia first
+arrived they had felt a certain repugnance to her society,
+a desire to keep out of her way, and a longing for the old
+wild, careless, slovenly days. But surely long ere this
+such foolish ideas had died a natural death. They all loved
+Aunt Sophia now; what could they have to conceal?
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I dare not talk about it to the younger girls. I don&#8217;t
+want to get into Pen&#8217;s confidence. Pen, of all the children,
+suits me least. The people to whom I must appeal are
+therefore Briar or Patty, or Pauline herself. Patty and
+Briar are devoted to each other. The thought in one heart
+seems to have its counterpart in that of the other. They
+might even be twins, so deeply are they attached. No; the
+only one for me to talk to is Pauline. But what can I say
+to her? And Pauline is not well. At least, she is well and
+she is not well. Nevertheless I will go and see her. I will
+find her now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena went into the nursery. Pauline was sometimes
+there. She was fond of sitting by the cosy nursery fire
+with a book in her hand, which of late she only pretended
+to read. Verena opened the nursery door and poked in
+her bright head and face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in, Miss Renny, come in,&#8221; said nurse.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not going to stay, nurse. Ah, Marjorie, my pet!
+Come and give me a sweet kiss.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The little baby sister toddled across the floor. Verena
+lifted her in her arms and kissed her affectionately.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought perhaps Miss Pauline was here, nurse. Do
+you happen to know where she is?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Pauline has a very bad headache,&#8221; said nurse&mdash;&#8220;so
+bad that I made her go and lie down; and I have just
+lit a bit of fire in her bedroom, for she is chilly, too, poor
+pet! Miss Pauline hasn&#8217;t been a bit herself since that
+nasty accident.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sure she hasn&#8217;t; but I did not know she was
+suffering from headache. I will go to her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena ran along the passage. Her own room faced
+south; Pauline&#8217;s, alongside of it, had a window which
+looked due east. Verena softly opened the door. The
+chamber was tiny, but it was wonderfully neat and cheerful.
+A bright fire burned in the small grate. Pauline
+was lying partly over on her side; her face was hidden.
+Her dark hair was tumbled about the pillow.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie, it is I,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;Are you awake?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>She turned round almost cheerfully. A cloud seemed to
+vanish from her face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am so glad you have come, Renny,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I see
+so little of you lately. Get up on the bed, won&#8217;t you, and
+lie near me?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course I love to be with you, but I thought&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! don&#8217;t think anything,&#8221; said Pauline. &#8220;Just get on
+the bed and cuddle up close, close to me. And let us imagine
+that we are back in the old happy days before Aunt
+Sophy came.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena did not say anything. She got on the bed, flung
+her arms round Pauline&#8217;s neck, and strained her sister to
+her heart.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I love you so much!&#8221; she said.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you, Renny? That is very, very sweet of you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you love me, don&#8217;t you, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pauline! You don&#8217;t know? You don&#8217;t know if you
+love me or not?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think that I love anybody, Renny.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Paulie! then there must be something dreadfully
+bad the matter with you.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline buried her face in Verena&#8217;s soft white neck and
+lay quiet.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does your head ache very badly, Paulie?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pretty badly; but it is not too bad for us to talk&mdash;that
+is, if you will keep off the unpleasant subjects.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what unpleasant subjects can there be? I don&#8217;t
+understand you, Paulie. I cannot think of anything specially
+unpleasant to talk of now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a bit of a goose, you know,&#8221; replied Pauline with
+a smile.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I? I didn&#8217;t know it. But what are the subjects
+we are not to talk about?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you must know! Aunt Sophia, for instance, and
+that awful time at Easterhaze, and the most terrible of
+all terrible days when I went to the White Bay, and Nancy
+King, and&mdash;and my birthday. I can&#8217;t talk of these subjects.
+I will talk of anything else&mdash;of baby Marjorie, and
+how pretty she grows; how fond we are of nurse, and of
+father, and&mdash;oh!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline burst into a little laugh.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know that John is courting Betty? I know he
+is. He went up to her the other day in the garden and
+put his hand on her shoulder, and when he thought no one
+was by he kissed her. I hid behind the hedge, and I had
+the greatest difficulty to keep back a shout of merriment.
+Isn&#8217;t it fun?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose so,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;But, Pauline, what you
+say makes me unhappy. I wish I might talk out to you.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span></p>
+<p>Pauline raised herself on her elbow and looked full into
+Verena&#8217;s face.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What about?&#8221; she asked.
+</p>
+<p>Verena did not speak for a minute.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where are your dresses?&#8221; she asked suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dresses! You silly girl! In that cupboard, of
+course. I am getting tidy. You know I would do anything
+I possibly could to please Aunt Sophy. I can&#8217;t do big things
+to please her&mdash;I never shall be able to&mdash;so I do little things.
+I am so tidy that I am spick-and-span. I hate and loathe
+it; but I wouldn&#8217;t leave a pin about for anything. You
+open that door and look for yourself. Do you see my
+skirts?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena got off the bed and opened the cupboard door.
+Pauline had about half-a-dozen skirts, and they all hung
+neatly on their respective hooks. Amongst them was the
+thick blue serge which she had worn on the day when she
+had gone to the White Bay. Verena felt her heart beating
+fast. She felt the color rush into her cheeks. She paused
+for a moment as if to commune with her own heart. Then
+her mind was made up.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you doing, Renny?&#8221; said her sister. &#8220;How
+funny of you to have gone into the cupboard!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>For Verena had absolutely vanished. She stood in the
+cupboard, and Pauline from the bed heard a rustle. The
+rustling grew louder, and Pauline wondered what it meant.
+A moment later Verena, her face as red as a turkey-cock,
+came out.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Paulie,&#8221; she said&mdash;&#8220;Paulie, there is no good going on
+like this. You have got to explain. You have got to get
+a load off your mind. You have got to do it whether you
+like it or not. How did you come by this? How&mdash;did&mdash;you&mdash;come&mdash;by&mdash;this?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>As Verena spoke she held in her open palm the long-lost
+thimble. Poor Pauline had not the most remote idea that
+the thimble was still in the pocket of the blue serge dress.
+She had, indeed, since the day of her accident, forgotten its
+existence.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where did you get it?&#8221; she asked, her face very white,
+her eyes very startled.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In the pocket of the dress you wore on the day you
+were nearly drowned in the White Bay.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I told you not to mention that day,&#8221; said Pauline. Her
+whole face changed. &#8220;I remember,&#8221; she said slowly, but
+she checked herself. The words reached her lips, but did
+not go beyond them. &#8220;Put it down, Verena,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Put
+it there on the mantelpiece.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then you won&#8217;t tell me how you got it? It is not yours.
+You know it belongs to Aunt Sophy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And it is not yours, Renny, and you have no right to
+interfere. And what is more, I desire you not to interfere.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span>
+I don&#8217;t love anybody very much now, but I shall hate you if
+you interfere in this matter.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena laid the thimble on the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can leave me, Renny. I am a very bad girl; I
+don&#8217;t pretend I am anything else, but I won&#8217;t talk to you
+now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; said poor Verena. &#8220;Oh!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Before she reached the door of the room she had burst
+into tears. Her agony was so great at Pauline&#8217;s behavior
+to her that her tears became sobs, and her sobs almost
+cries of pain. Pauline, lying on the bed, did not take the
+least notice of Verena. She turned her head away, and
+when her sister had left the room and shut the door Pauline
+sprang from the bed and turned the key in the lock.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, I am safe,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;What is the matter
+with me? There never was anything so hard as the heart
+that is inside me. I don&#8217;t care a bit whether Renny cries
+or whether she doesn&#8217;t cry. I don&#8217;t care a bit what happens
+to any one. I only want to be let alone.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>At dinner-time Pauline appeared, and tried to look as
+though nothing had happened. The other girls looked
+neat and pretty. They had not the least idea through what
+a tragedy Verena and Pauline were now living. Verena
+showed marks of her storm of weeping, and her face was
+terribly woebegone. Miss Tredgold guessed that things
+were coming to a crisis, and she was prepared to wait.
+</p>
+<p>Now, Miss Tredgold was a very good woman; she was
+also a very wise and a very temperate one. She was filled
+with a spirit of forbearance, and with the beautiful grace
+of charity. She was all round as good a woman as ever
+lived; but she was not a mother. Had she been a mother
+she would have gone straight to Pauline and put her arms
+round her, and so acted that the hard little heart would
+have melted, and the words that could not pass her lips
+would have found themselves able to do so, and the misery
+and the further sin would have been averted. But instead
+of doing anything of this sort, Miss Tredgold resolved to
+assemble the children after breakfast the next day, and
+to talk to them in a very plain way indeed; to assemble all
+before her, and to entreat the guilty ones to confess, promising
+them absolute forgiveness in advance. Having made
+up her mind, she felt quite peaceful and happy, and went
+down to interview her brother-in-law.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale still continued to like his study. He made no
+further objection to the clean and carefully dusted room.
+If any one had asked him what was passing in his mind, he
+might have said that the spirits of Homer and Virgil approached
+the sacred precincts where he wrote about them
+and lived for them night after night, and that they put
+the place in order. He kept the rough words which he had
+printed in large capitals on the night when he had returned
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span>
+to his study still in their place of honor on the
+wall, and he worked himself with a new sense of zest and
+freedom.
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold entered the room without knocking.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Henry,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and how goes the world?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The world of the past comes nearer and nearer,&#8221; was
+his reply. &#8220;I often feel that I scarcely touch the earth of
+the nineteenth century. The world of the past is a very
+lovely world.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit better than the world of the present,&#8221; said
+Miss Sophia. &#8220;Now, Henry, if you can come from the
+clouds for a minute or two&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh? Ah! What are you saying?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;From the clouds, my dear brother, right down to this
+present prosaic and workaday world. Can you, and will
+you give me five minutes of your attention?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh? Yes, of course, Sophia.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale sat very still, drumming with his right hand on
+his pad of blotting-paper. Miss Tredgold looked at him;
+then she crossed the room, took away the pad, his pen and
+ink, the open volume of Homer, and removed them to another
+table.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sit with your back to them; keep your mind clear and
+listen to me, Henry.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be sure.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want you to come into the schoolroom after breakfast
+to-morrow morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To the schoolroom?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have a reason. I should like you to be present.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it is just my most important hour. You commence
+lessons with the girls&mdash;when, Sophia?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We sit down to our work at nine o&#8217;clock. Prayers take
+ten minutes. I should like you to be present at prayers&mdash;to
+conduct Divine worship in your own house on that occasion.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my dear Sophia! Not that I have any objection&mdash;of
+course.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should hope you have no objection. You will take
+prayers, and afterwards you will assist me in a most painful
+task which lies before me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Painful, Sophia? Oh, anything I can do to help you,
+my dear sister, I shall be delighted to undertake. What is
+it? I beg of you to be brief, for time does fly. It was only
+a quarter of an hour ago that I found Homer&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could say a very ugly word about Homer,&#8221; said Miss
+Tredgold. &#8220;Sometimes I wish that I were a man in order
+that I might swear hard at you, Henry Dale. As I am a
+woman I must refrain. Do you know that your daughter
+Pauline, your daughter Briar, your daughter Patty, and
+your extraordinary daughter Penelope are all of them about
+as naughty children as they can be. Indeed, in the case
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span>
+of Pauline I consider her worse than naughty. What she
+has done I don&#8217;t know, and I don&#8217;t know what the others
+have done; but there is a weight on their minds, and those
+four girls must be got to confess. And you must be present,
+and you must speak as a father to them. Now do you understand?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am to be in the schoolroom to-morrow,&#8221; said Mr. Dale,
+&#8220;and four of my girls are turning wicked, and I am not to
+know what they have done. I will be in the schoolroom
+at nine o&#8217;clock to-morrow, Sophia. May I thank you to
+hand me back my blotting-pad, my pen and bottle of ink,
+and my beloved Homer? Take care of the volume. Take it
+tenderly. Put both hands under the binding. Ah! that is
+so. You will have the goodness to leave me now, Sophia.
+To-morrow morning at nine o&#8217;clock precisely.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold went out of the room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How my poor dear sister ever brought herself to marry
+that man,&#8221; she whispered under her breath, &#8220;I know not.
+But he is capable of being roused, and I rather fancy I
+shall manage to rouse him to-morrow.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+<h3>PAULINE IN DISTRESS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Pauline went up to her room late that evening she
+gave Verena a very cold good-night. Her little fire was
+still burning, for nurse had taken care of it. Verena heard
+her lock the door. Had she not done so her sister would
+have gone to her, and begged and prayed, as such a sweet
+girl might, for the confidence of Pauline. Verena had to get
+into bed feeling lonely and unhappy. Just as she was doing
+so she heard a firm step walking down the corridor. A
+hand turned the handle of Pauline&#8217;s door, and Verena heard
+Pen&#8217;s voice say:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s me, Paulie. It&#8217;s me. Let me in, Paulie.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Verena instantly opened her own door.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go away, Pen,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Go straight back to your
+bed. You are not to go near Pauline to-night.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, but I want her,&#8221; said Pauline, opening the door
+and putting out her head.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;You shall see her with me.
+I will ring the bell and ask nurse to fetch Aunt Sophy.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline gave a shrill laugh.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t worth all that fuss. Go to bed, Pen. We shall
+have plenty of time for our chat to-morrow morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Penelope looked disgusted. Verena stood in the passage
+until her stout little figure had disappeared. She then
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span>
+turned, hoping that Pauline would speak to her; but Pauline
+had gone into her room and locked the door.
+</p>
+<p>Now, Pauline Dale was at this time going through a
+curious phase. She was scarcely to be blamed for her
+conduct, for what she had lately lived through had produced
+a sort of numbness of her faculties, which time
+seemed to have no intention of restoring to her. To look
+at her face now no one would suppose her to be in the ordinary
+sense of the word an invalid; for she was rosy, her
+eyes were bright, her appetite was good, and she had
+plenty of strength. Nevertheless there was a certain part
+of her being which was numb and cold and half-dead. She
+was not frightened about anything; but she knew that she
+had behaved as no right-minded or honorable girl should
+have done. Verena&#8217;s words that afternoon had roused her,
+and had given her a slight degree of pain. She lay down
+on her bed without undressing. She left the blind up so
+that the moon could shine through her small window, and
+she kept repeating to herself at intervals through the night
+the words that had haunted her when she was at Easterhaze:
+&#8220;Wash and be clean.&#8221; It seemed to Pauline that
+the sea was drawing her. The insistent voice of the sea
+was becoming absolutely unpleasant. It echoed and echoed
+in her tired brain: &#8220;Wash&mdash;wash and be clean.&#8221; After
+her accident she had hated the sea while she was there,
+but now she wanted to get back to it. She dreaded it and
+yet she was hungry for it.
+</p>
+<p>As she lay with her eyes wide open it seemed to her that
+she was looking at the sea. It seemed to her, too, that she
+really did hear the murmur of the waves. The waves came
+close, and each wave as it pressed nearer and nearer to the
+excited child repeated the old cry: &#8220;Wash and be clean.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, if only I could get to the sea!&#8221; was her thought.
+She pressed her hand to that part of her forehead which
+felt numb and strange. All of a sudden the numbness and
+strangeness seemed to depart. She saw one vivid picture
+after another, and each picture revealed to her the sin
+which she had sinned and the wrong she had committed.
+At last she saw that fearful picture when she stood with
+her little sister in the White Bay, and the waves had so
+nearly drowned them. She sat up in bed. The idea of
+going straight to Aunt Sophia and of telling her everything
+did not occur to her. She wanted to get back to the sea.
+How could she manage this? She was not in the least afraid
+of Aunt Sophy; she was only afraid of the God whom she
+had offended. She got up, pushed back her black hair, tied
+it neatly behind her ears, and taking her little sailor-hat
+and her dark-blue serge jacket, she put them on. She would
+go back to the sea. She did not know exactly how she could
+manage it, but somehow she would. When she was dressed
+she opened a drawer. She must have money. Aunt Sophia
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span>
+was liberal in the matter of pocket-money, but Pauline was
+careless and spent hers as she got it. All she possessed now
+was a shilling. She put the shilling into her pocket. Turning
+round, she saw the flash of the gold thimble as it rested
+on the mantelpiece. She slipped that also into her pocket.
+She then opened the window, and, as she had done on a previous
+night long ago, she got out and let herself down to
+the ground. She was now out all alone about midnight.
+Once again the numb feeling had come back to her; nevertheless
+her mind was made up. She would at any cost get
+back to the sea.
+</p>
+<p>She walked across the grass. By-and-by she found herself
+at the wicket-gate. When she reached the gate she had
+a sudden overwhelming memory of Nancy King. During the
+last few weeks she had forgotten Nancy. Now she thought
+of her. Standing with one hand on the post of the wicket-gate,
+she reflected on an idea which presented itself to her.
+If she, Pauline, was wicked&mdash;if she had been a naughty girl
+from the first&mdash;surely Nancy was worse! If it was necessary
+for Pauline to wash and be clean, it was still more necessary
+for Nancy. Together they could visit the seaside; together
+lave themselves in the waves; together reach that beautiful
+state where sin did not trouble.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline smiled to herself. She walked through the Forest
+in the dead of night, and presently reached Nancy&#8217;s home.
+Now, it would have been a very bad thing for Pauline, as it
+had very nearly been a bad thing for Penelope some weeks
+ago, had Lurcher been out. But Lurcher was ill, and had
+been sent to a neighboring vet.&#8217;s. And it also happened&mdash;just,
+as it were, in the nick of time&mdash;that Farmer King was
+returning very late from visiting a neighboring fair. He
+had been kept by a friend until past midnight, and had
+driven home through the woods. As Pauline got to the gate
+the farmer drew up his mare within a few feet of the tired
+girl. He saw a girl standing by the gate, and could not make
+out who she was or what she was doing. He said gruffly:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You get out of this. What are you doing here at this
+time of night?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Then Pauline raised a white face. He recognized the face,
+gave a smothered, hasty exclamation, sprang to the ground,
+flung the reins over the neck of the mare, and came towards
+the girl.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Pauline,&#8221; he said, &#8220;what in the name of all that is
+wonderful are you doing here at this hour?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline looked full up at him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You said you would help me. You said you would if
+ever the time came. I want to be helped&mdash;oh, so badly!&mdash;and
+I have come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because I said that?&#8221; exclaimed the farmer, his face
+flushing all over with intense gratification. &#8220;Then you be
+certain of one thing, my dear&mdash;sure and positive certain&mdash;that
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span>
+when Farmer King says a thing he will do it. You
+come straight in with me, missy&mdash;straight in with me this
+blessed minute.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline gave him her hand. It was quite wonderful how
+he soothed her, how her fear seemed to drop away from
+her, how contented and almost happy she felt.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are very strong, aren&#8217;t you?&#8221; she said. &#8220;You are
+very, very strong?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should about think I am. I can lift a weight with any
+man in England, cut up a sheep with any man in existence,
+run a race with any farmer of my age. Strong! Yes, you
+are right there, missy; I am strong&mdash;strong as they&#8217;re
+made.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then you are what I want. You will help me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The farmer opened the hall door with his latch-key.
+Nancy had been in bed for an hour or more. The farmer
+unlocked the door which led into the kitchen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The parlor will be cold,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and the drawing-room
+will be sort of musty. We don&#8217;t use the drawing-room
+every night. But the kitchen&mdash;that will be all right.
+You come right into the kitchen, Miss Pauline, and then
+you&#8217;ll tell me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>He took her into the kitchen, lit a big lamp which hung
+over the fireplace, and poked the ashes in the big stove.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You do look white and trembly all over. Shall I call
+Nancy to see you, miss?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Please, please do.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Farmer King went noisily upstairs.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nancy!&#8221; he called to his daughter. &#8220;I say, Nancy!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy was in her first sleep. She opened her eyes at the
+sound of the farmer&#8217;s voice, and said in a sleepy tone:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what now, dad? I wish you wouldn&#8217;t call me just
+because you come in late.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You get up, my girl. There&#8217;s trouble downstairs. Missy
+has come.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Missy? Miss Pen?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, not Miss Pen; the other one&mdash;the one we love, both
+of us&mdash;the one who was our queen&mdash;Miss Pauline. She&#8217;s
+downstairs, and she&#8217;s shocking bad. She has come to me to
+help her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, of course she&#8217;s bad, father,&#8221; said Nancy. &#8220;Don&#8217;t
+you know all that happened? Pauline was nearly drowned
+at Easterhaze, and they say she hasn&#8217;t been quite, so to say,
+right in her head ever since. I have been nearly mad about
+it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sane, you mean, to my way of thinking,&#8221; exclaimed the
+farmer; &#8220;for you never said a word to me about it, eating
+your meals as hearty and contented as you please, buying
+your winter finery, and talking about going to London for
+Christmas. Give me a friend who will think of me when I
+am in trouble. But the lass knows what&#8217;s what, and it isn&#8217;t
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span>
+to you she has come; it&#8217;s to me. She wants me to help her
+because I made her a promise, forsooth! But you come right
+down, for she will want a bit of cuddling from a girl like
+yourself. Come right down this minute and see her, for she
+badly wants some one to do something for her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Now, Nancy was really fond of Pauline, notwithstanding
+her father&#8217;s words, and she got up willingly enough and ran
+downstairs to the kitchen; and when she saw her little friend
+sitting by the fire, looking very white, her head dropped forward,
+and her big black eyes fixed with an almost vacant expression
+straight before her, a great lot of Nancy&#8217;s heart did
+go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side,
+threw her arms round her, and hugged her over and over
+again.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come,&#8221; said the farmer, &#8220;it&#8217;s a bit of something to eat
+she wants; then to go upstairs and share your bed with you,
+Nance. And in the morning, why, I am at her service.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, that&#8217;s what you do want, isn&#8217;t it, Paulie?&#8221; said
+Nancy.
+</p>
+<p>Pauline nodded. She felt almost incapable of speaking.
+So the farmer brought her food, and made her eat and
+drink. And then she went upstairs with Nancy, and Nancy
+made her he down by her side, and when they were both
+together in the dark, in the warm bed in the pretty room,
+Pauline flung her arms round Nancy and began to cry. It
+was really quite a long time since Pauline had cried. At
+first her tears came slowly and with great difficulty; but in
+a little they rained from her eyes more and more easily, until
+at last they came in torrents, and her tears hurt her and
+shook her little frame, and came faster, and yet faster, until
+from sheer exhaustion she dropped asleep. But when
+Pauline woke from that sleep it seemed to her that the numb
+part had greatly left her brain and that she could think
+clearly. Only, still she had no wish to go back to The Dales.
+She only wanted to wash and be clean.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are the queerest girl that ever lived,&#8221; said Nancy.
+&#8220;You come right downstairs and have breakfast. Of course,
+they are sure to look for you and try to find you, but you
+must come straight downstairs now and hear what father
+has got to say.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline got up willingly enough and went downstairs.
+There was a groaning breakfast on the board. On most occasions
+the farmers&#8217; servants ate below the salt, but now only
+the farmer and his daughter Nancy were present.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s cake worth eating,&#8221; said the farmer, &#8220;and new-laid
+eggs worth taking; and here&#8217;s honey the like of which is
+not to be found anywhere else, even in the New Forest. And
+here&#8217;s chicken rissoles, and here&#8217;s cooked ham. Now, missy,
+fall to&mdash;fall to.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Pauline ate very little, and then she turned to the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And now you want me to help you?&#8221; he said.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I want you to take me to the seaside. I want Nancy to
+come, too. I want to go where the waves are high, and where
+I can wash and be clean.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My word!&#8221; said the farmer, &#8220;what does the little lass
+say?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to go home. I can&#8217;t go home. If I am alone
+with you and with Nancy I might get better. Don&#8217;t let me
+go home.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My lass, my lass, you have applied to Farmer King in
+your trouble, and Farmer King won&#8217;t desert you. I have
+not the most remote notion what trouble it can be that worrits
+a poor little lass, but, such as it is, Farmer King will be
+your friend. There is no doubt, my dear, that when they
+miss you at The Dales they will come to look for you here,
+and what am I to do?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hide me! Oh, hide me! I can&#8217;t go home.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a lark!&#8221; cried Nancy. &#8220;We could, couldn&#8217;t we,
+father?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And we won&#8217;t,&#8221; said the farmer, bringing his hand down
+with a great bang on the table. &#8220;What we do we&#8217;ll do above-board.
+We did wrong that time in the summer when we
+took miss to that picnic and got her into trouble. Now we&#8217;re
+bound to see her out of her trouble. It has to do with that
+night partly, hasn&#8217;t it, missy?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have never been happy since,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, my dear, I said I would help you out if the
+time came, and I will. You shall stay here&mdash;I vow it&mdash;and
+I am just going to get on my horse Caesar, and I shall ride
+over to The Dales this blessed minute. You leave it to me.
+You leave it all to me, my dear.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+<h3>FARMER KING.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Since Pauline&#8217;s illness she had very often not been down
+in time for breakfast. The fact, therefore, that she did not
+appear on this special morning caused no excitement in the
+mind of any one. Miss Tredgold was so much absorbed in
+the task which lay before her that she scarcely noticed the
+little girl&#8217;s absence; nurse would see to her, would take her
+a proper meal, would do all that was necessary. Very often
+nurse did not disturb Pauline until long after the others had
+breakfasted, for the doctor had said that she ought never to
+be wakened when asleep, and that she ought to have as much
+rest and sleep as possible. So breakfast came to an end.
+There was a weight in the air. Now, it happened that the day
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span>
+was a specially fine one, for the skies, after crying so many
+tears, had cleared up, the sun had come out, and the few
+flowers that were left held up their heads gayly and tried
+to forget the storm through which they had lived and the
+winter days which were before them.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale had, of course, forgotten what he had promised
+his sister-in-law to do on the previous night. But Miss
+Tredgold had not the slightest idea of letting him off.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, Henry,&#8221; she said; &#8220;we will go into the schoolroom
+to prayers.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Accordingly they went, and Mr. Dale read prayers in his
+somewhat sleepy tones. The children, with the exception of
+Pauline, were all present. At last family worship was finished
+and the servants were allowed to leave the room. As
+nurse was going she looked at Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Pauline is sleeping longer than usual,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;She asked me a few days ago never to waken her, and said
+she would ring her bell when she wanted breakfast or hot
+water. I had better find out if she is awake.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, do, nurse,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold briskly; &#8220;and ask her
+to be quick and come downstairs. I want all the children except
+little Marjorie to be present.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my dear Sophia!&#8221; said Mr. Dale at that moment,
+&#8220;you cannot expect me to wait here with all my morning&#8217;s
+work neglected while one of the girls chooses to dress herself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s a very interesting paper on Plato,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold
+suddenly, and as she spoke she handed Mr. Dale the
+last number of the <i>Spectator</i>. &#8220;I thought you might like to
+see it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eh? What?&#8221; he cried. &#8220;An article on Plato. By
+whom?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;By the great classical scholar, Professor Mahaffy,&#8221; replied
+Miss Tredgold calmly.
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale was in an intense state of excitement.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When did this come?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;On Saturday morning.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But this is Wednesday. How is it I did not see it before?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To tell you the truth, Henry, I read it and kept it back
+on purpose. I want to keep your attention until all the family
+are assembled. Here is your chair, here are your spectacles,
+and here is the paper.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Dale took the paper, muttering to himself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mahaffy&mdash;Mahaffy; one of the greatest scholars of the
+time;&#8221; and then he was lost to external things.
+</p>
+<p>Yes, Mr. Dale of The Dales, the head of an ancient house,
+the father of a large family, forgot everything on earth except
+a certain disputed passage in which he and Professor
+Mahaffy diametrically disagreed. He continued to forget
+everything else, even when nurse rushed into the room.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, she has gone!&#8221; cried the good woman. &#8220;She ain&#8217;t
+in her bed; and what&#8217;s more, she&#8217;s been out of it for hours,
+and the window is open. Oh, whatever has come to the
+child? Where in the world is she?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Miss Tredgold looked terribly startled. Verena&#8217;s face
+turned like a sheet. Briar and Patty clasped each other&#8217;s
+hands. Pen said to herself:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is the time for a good sort of child like me to do
+something.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Then a clatter of horse&#8217;s hoofs was heard on the gravel
+outside, and a stoutly built, rubicund man, on a very large
+horse, drew rein at the front door.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s Farmer King!&#8221; cried Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, it&#8217;s Farmer King,&#8221; said Pen.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Penelope, be quiet,&#8221; said her aunt.
+</p>
+<p>The next moment the door was opened, and the parlor-maid
+said that Farmer King had come and was anxious to
+see Mr. Dale and Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Show him in here,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;Henry, have
+the goodness to give me that paper.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I&mdash;&mdash; My dear Sophia, I have not finished reading
+it. I don&#8217;t agree a bit with Mahaffy&mdash;not a bit. He takes
+the text in its literal meaning. He ought to read it with
+the context. Now, there is not the slightest manner of
+doubt that Plato meant&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Henry! Are you mad? Give me that paper.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>It is to be regretted that Miss Tredgold snatched the <i>Spectator</i>
+from Mr. Dale&#8217;s unwilling hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Henry, wake up,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Pauline is lost, and
+Farmer King has come to speak to us both on a matter of
+importance.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Just then Farmer King came into the room. Now, the
+Kings may have been the humble retainers of the Dales for
+generations, but there was not the slightest doubt that
+Farmer King made a far more imposing appearance at that
+moment than did Mr. Dale of The Dales; for Mr. Dale stood
+up, thin, bewildered, shivering, his mind in the past, his
+eyes consumed by a sort of inward fire, but with no intelligence
+as far as present things were concerned; and Farmer
+King was intensely wide awake, and, so to speak, all there.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon, Mr. Dale,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And I beg your
+pardon, miss. I presume I am speaking to Miss Tredgold?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are, Mr. King,&#8221; said that lady.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good-day to you all, misses,&#8221; said the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>He looked round at the somewhat frightened little group
+of sisters in the background.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have come to say something,&#8221; said the farmer. &#8220;It is
+something about Miss Pauline. It is something about myself
+and Nancy, and it has to do with you, sir&#8221;&mdash;here he bowed
+low to Mr. Dale&mdash;&#8220;and with you, madam&#8221;&mdash;his bow was not
+quite so reverential when he turned to the lady.
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it? Please speak,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;We are
+very anxious about Pauline. Our nurse has just told us that
+she is not in her bedroom. Do you know where she is?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam, about half an hour ago I left Miss Pauline
+seated in my warm kitchen, in the company of my good
+daughter, Nancy, and eating as good a breakfast as I could
+provide for her. She did not eat much, madam, but it is
+there for her acceptance. The young lady is heartily welcome.
+She prefers us to you for the time being. She did
+not want you to know anything about it, but that ain&#8217;t quite
+my way, so I came to explain.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Please, please, Aunt Sophy, don&#8217;t be too angry,&#8221; here
+came from Verena&#8217;s lips.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Silence, Verena!&#8221; said her father.
+</p>
+<p>Surely there was quite a new note in his voice! He rose;
+his languor left him; he came up to Farmer King and held
+out his hand.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, good old friend,&#8221; he said, &#8220;it seems ages since we
+met. Do you remember that day when we were boys together
+and went in search of robins&#8217; eggs?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t I?&#8221; said the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>He gave an embarrassed laugh, which ended in a sort of
+roar.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And haven&#8217;t I the eggs safe still?&#8221; he said. &#8220;I have
+parted with many things, but not with the eggs the young
+squire and I took together.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is ages since we met,&#8221; said Mr. Dale. &#8220;You are looking
+very well, Robert&mdash;admirably well. I am pleased to see
+you. Sit down, won&#8217;t you? Pray sit down.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That man is enough to turn the brain of any one,&#8221; was
+Miss Tredgold&#8217;s private ejaculation. Aloud she said:
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I presume, Farmer King, that you have not come here
+without a story to tell.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is just it, madam. And now, if I may speak, I will
+tell you my story.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are all prepared to listen,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Robert, and with attention&mdash;with attention and interest,&#8221;
+said Mr. Dale. &#8220;Why, upon my word, this is almost
+as good as a fresh rendering of the immortal Plato. Sit
+down, farmer, sit down.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The farmer did not sit down.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no use mincing matters,&#8221; he said, &#8220;nor walking round
+the bush. It is just this. If there is a family on this earth
+that I have been proud to have to do with, it is that of the
+Dales. If there were children that I loved next to my own,
+it was the Dales. Why, I was brought up, so to speak, to
+look on them as my liege lords. My mother had the old
+feudal principles in her, and she never went with the times.
+She never held that we were as good as our betters. We
+were good enough, straight enough, honest enough, but we
+hadn&#8217;t the blue blood of the Dales in us. That is how I was
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span>
+brought up. Well, you, sir, were married, and came to live
+here with your good lady. It was the will of the Almighty
+that she should be taken, and the children were left motherless;
+and my little Nancy and I, we used to watch to do
+them a kindness. They were right pleased to come over and
+see us, and to ride barebacked on my two Forest ponies, and
+have their fun whenever they could get as far away as The
+Hollies. And Nancy was free to come to your house, and
+much she enjoyed it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Robert, very natural&mdash;very natural indeed,&#8221; said
+Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I took it; so I took it.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Here the farmer flashed an angry eye in the direction of
+Miss Tredgold.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But never mind,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I did not presume&mdash;far
+from that&mdash;far indeed from that. It pleased the Almighty
+to give you ten daughters, Mr. Dale, and to give me but one.
+And I love my one as much, perhaps, as you love the whole
+of your ten. But be that as it may, when Nancy went to
+The Dales to have her fun and her larks and her gay time,
+I was as pleased as Punch. And then this good lady came,
+and she said to herself, &#8216;Who is Nancy King?&#8217; and the
+young ladies told her the plain truth; and then this good
+lady did not take the trouble to inquire. A farmer&#8217;s daughter
+was only a farmer&#8217;s daughter to her. Oh, I am not blaming
+her; but a little thought, a little less prejudice, would
+have prevented a lot of mischief. Anyhow, the good aunt
+gave the word&mdash;my girl and the young ladies were to have
+nothing to do with each other in the future. Mark you that,
+sir, when they were brought up, so to speak, together&mdash;always
+tumbling about in the same hay-field, and riding the
+same ponies, and playing the same games. It was all to end
+because of madam. Now, Mr. Dale, I was real mad when
+Nancy came and told me what had happened. My feelings
+were hot and strong and bitter, and I thought the treatment
+dealt out to my child and me none too just. So, sir, when
+Nancy asked me to help her, I helped with a will. When
+Miss Pauline came over to see us&mdash;which she did unknown
+to her aunt&mdash;I gave her the best of welcomes, and we started
+our midnight picnic for no other reason in life but to have
+her with us.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When did you have your midnight picnic?&#8221; asked Miss
+Tredgold very gently. &#8220;When? Kindly give me the date.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The farmer looked into her face. When he saw how white
+she was, and when he glanced at the two little girls, Briar
+and Patty, his heart smote him.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was given over to evil feelings at that time,&#8221; he said,
+&#8220;and I don&#8217;t pretend for a moment I did right. Miss Pauline
+didn&#8217;t want to be coaxed, but Nancy was a rare temptress.
+We did our best, and the children came&mdash;three of them.
+You want to know the date, madam. It was the date of Miss
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span>
+Pauline&#8217;s birthday&mdash;the night after her birthday. Oh, yes,
+madam, we had our wild time&mdash;a right good time, too.&#8221; The
+farmer gave a short laugh. &#8220;You thought your young
+ladies quite out of the reach of the influence of Farmer
+King and his family; but you never guessed, madam, that all
+through one long beautiful summer night we had revels in
+the woods&mdash;dancing, madam; and a picnic, no less; and
+the young miss crowned with flowers as queen, and
+given the best presents we could give her. We took
+a drive under the oaks and elms and beeches of the
+New Forest, and you never guessed, madam&mdash;never. But
+Miss Pauline, Miss Briar, and Miss Patty were there,
+and Miss Pauline was our queen. Ah! she had a gay birthday,
+but you ask her what sort of a birthnight she had. It
+is true she was queen of the day, but that was nothing to
+the time when she was queen of the night. Well, sir&#8221;&mdash;the
+farmer&#8217;s eyes shone as he spoke&mdash;&mdash; &#8220;I meant it as a big joke,
+and I was desperately proud of myself; but I saw even
+then that Miss Pauline was fretting, and I spoke to her
+quite seriously, and I said, &#8216;If ever the time comes when
+you want a friend, I am the man for your purpose. Don&#8217;t
+you forget that; because you are a Dale and I am a King,
+and you Dales have always been our liege lords, so don&#8217;t you
+forget that.&#8217; And the child, sir, she believed me. Lots of
+things happened afterwards, but of them I have nothing to
+say until last night. Miss Pauline came back to me, and she
+reminded me of what I had said to her that night in the
+woods. And, sir&mdash;and, madam&mdash;I mean to keep my promise.
+I came home at midnight, and there she was standing at the
+gate, white and slim and pretty as though she was a moonbeam.
+And she said, &#8216;You promised to help me when I was
+in trouble, and I have come to you to get you to keep your
+promise.&#8217; Now, sir and madam, I have come here about that.
+The young lady wants to be helped. She has got a shock,
+and wants a bit of humoring. She says some words which
+have no meaning to me, but they mean something to her,
+and she must be humored. &#8216;I want to wash and be clean,&#8217;
+she keeps saying; and she wants Nancy and me to take her
+away to the seaside where the waves are big and strong, and
+she insists on it that she will only go with Nancy and me.
+So, Miss Tredgold and Mr. Dale, I have come here to-day to
+say that we mean to take her.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can I see her?&#8221; asked Miss Tredgold. &#8220;I have nothing
+to say. Perhaps I did wrong that time. We all make mistakes
+sometimes. I ought to have known you better, Mr.
+King. But that time is over. The important thing now is
+to restore the balance of Pauline&#8217;s mind. Can I see her?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can, madam, when the right time comes; but that is
+not to-day, and it won&#8217;t be to-morrow. This is my business
+now, madam, and you must leave it to me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+<h3>THE CLEANSING WATERS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>That very day Farmer King went away with his daughter
+and Pauline. They went to a small village called Rosestairs,
+not many miles from Easterhaze. The farmer was immensely
+proud and pleased at having the care of Pauline, and he was
+determined that if man could restore her to health, he would
+be that individual. Rosestairs was a very pretty little place,
+and quite sheltered. The Kings took lodgings in a tiny cottage,
+where they lived as plainly as people could. Here Pauline
+rested and took long walks, and, as she expressed it
+afterwards, found herself again. But although day by day
+the weight in her head grew less, the haunting words still
+clung to her: &#8220;Wash and be clean.&#8221; One night they entered
+into her dreams, and she awoke quite early with the
+words hovering on her lips: &#8220;Wash, Pauline; wash and be
+clean.&#8221; Nancy was sleeping peacefully by her side. Pauline
+raised her head. She felt well&mdash;absolutely well&mdash;but for
+those haunting words. She stole out of bed and went and
+stood by the window.
+</p>
+<p>The sea was only a few yards off, and the waves were coming
+in fresh and lovely and sparkling. &#8220;Come, wash,&#8221; they
+seemed to say, and each soft thud of a wave on the shore
+seemed to repeat the words.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will&mdash;I will; I must,&#8221; thought the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>She opened her trunk very softly, took out her bathing-dress,
+put it on, and ran down to the beach. There was no
+one about. In a moment she had entered the waves. She
+breasted them as far as her waist; she ducked and covered
+herself with the invigorating salt water. And as the sparkling
+salt water rolled over her, it seemed to her fancy that
+a load rolled off her mind. She felt light of heart and gay.
+She felt cheerful and happy. A few minutes later she was
+back in the cottage. Nancy turned in her sleep, started,
+opened her sleepy eyes, and looked at the dripping figure
+standing in the middle of the room.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Paulie,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;what are you doing? Oh, you
+are dripping wet; your hair and all. What have you been
+at?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am wet because I have washed. I have washed and I
+am clean. Oh, Nancy, Nancy! it is as right as possible. The
+terrible, haunting words have gone, and the longing for the
+sea has gone. I know that I am forgiven. Nancy, do you
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span>
+hear? I am washed, and I am clean. Oh! I know at last
+what it means.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For goodness&#8217; sake take off those wet things and get back
+into bed and let me warm you up. You will catch your
+death.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My death!&#8221; cried Pauline, &#8220;when I am so happy I
+scarcely know how to contain myself.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Nancy sprang out of bed, dragged Pauline towards her, and
+helped her to pull off her wet things. Then she wrapped her
+up in her warm night-dress, made her cuddle down in bed,
+and kissed her and hugged her.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, dear!&#8221; she said, &#8220;you are the queerest girl; but your
+face looks as it did long ago.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel as I did long ago&mdash;or, rather, I feel different. I
+was a child then and did not understand much. Now, it
+seems to me, I understand a great deal&mdash;yes, a great deal.
+Oh! and there is your father in the garden. I must dress;
+I must go to him.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>So Pauline jumped out of bed, got quickly into her
+clothes, and ran out to join the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mr. King,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;I am quite well again.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It looks like it, little missy,&#8221; said the farmer.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am,&#8221; repeated Pauline. &#8220;I am as perfectly well as a girl
+can be. You know how often I told you I wanted to wash
+and be clean. I had my wash this morning, and it was
+really what I did want, for that dull feeling has left my head.
+I know just everything, and how I behaved, and all the rest,
+and I am prepared to take the bitter as well as the sweet. It
+is very, very sweet living here with you and Nancy, and
+whatever happens, you will be my friends as long as I live.
+And it is very bitter to think that I must tell Aunt Sophia
+and Verena and the rest of them the whole truth; but, bitter
+or not, I am going to do it, and I am going back to them,
+for it is right. I want to go back to them this very day.
+May I?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, my lass; I understand you,&#8221; said the farmer
+gravely.
+</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+
+<p>It was a lovely day for the time of year; although it was
+November, the sun shone brilliantly. Miss Tredgold stood on
+the lawn in front of the house and talked to Verena, who
+stood by her side.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I understand all of you now, Verena,&#8221; she said, &#8220;except
+Pauline. I never did understand her, and I sometimes think
+I never shall, poor child!&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, you will,&#8221; said Verena. &#8220;When Paulie comes
+back she will be as you never knew her&mdash;as she used to be,
+her sweetest and best. In some ways she is stronger and
+better and braver than any of us. I think she ought to
+make a splendid woman some day, for she has so much character
+and so much determination.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I have done the rest of you good by coming here;
+but if I have done Pauline harm, I sometimes wonder if I
+can ever be happy again,&#8221; said the poor lady.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have not done her harm. Only wait until she comes
+back. She is just getting the right treatment now. She
+felt everything so terribly that her mind was quite numb
+and incapable of conducting her right for a time; but wait
+until she returns.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Day after day I long and hope for her return,&#8221; said Miss
+Tredgold, &#8220;but day after day there is a fresh excuse.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet you say you want her to return,&#8221; said Verena.
+&#8220;Oh, aunty, aunty! who is this coming up the path? Here
+she is&mdash;Paulie herself; and Nancy is following her, and there
+is Farmer King. They have entered by the wicket-gate and
+are coming up through the plantation. Oh, look, look! And
+she is well. I know by the way she walks, by the way she
+runs, by the way she smiles. She is as well as ever she was
+in all her life.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Better&mdash;far better than ever!&#8221; cried Pauline&#8217;s gay and
+almost rollicking voice. &#8220;Here I am, stronger than ever, and
+quite, quite well.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>The next moment Pauline&#8217;s arms were flung round her
+aunt&#8217;s neck.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must forgive me first of all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I have
+come back to confess, and I want to get my confession over.
+I want all the others to stand round and listen. Ah! here
+they come. Don&#8217;t rush at me for a moment, girls. Don&#8217;t hug
+me or do anything of that sort. Stand still and listen, listen,
+listen. I was rebellious, and I did wrong, and&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My darling,&#8221; interrupted Miss Tredgold, &#8220;we know the
+whole story. We only want you to confess that you did
+wrong, and then never, never to allude to it again; for I see,
+Pauline, by your eyes that you mean to do right now.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will obey you because I love you,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There, madam! I think she is pretty well restored,&#8221; cried
+the farmer. &#8220;And she is the best young lady in the world.
+Nancy and I have brought her home, and now, with your
+permission, madam, we will take our leave.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing of the sort!&#8221; cried Miss Tredgold. &#8220;If you did
+wrong, Pauline, I was by no means altogether in the right.
+I little knew when I told you, my dears, to have nothing
+more to do with Farmer King and his daughter, that I was
+preventing your enjoying the society of a gentleman. Please
+shake hands with me, Mr. King.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>Farmer King&#8217;s face was quite pale with emotion.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I admire you; I thank you,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold. &#8220;You
+are a man in a thousand;&#8221; and again she held out her hand.
+</p>
+<p>This time Farmer King wrung it. But he was absolutely
+speechless; not a single word passed his lips.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nancy,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold, &#8220;I revoke what I said. You
+must come and see my girls whenever you like.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;On condition, madam,&#8221; said the farmer, &#8220;that the young
+ladies sometimes come to see Nancy and me.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly,&#8221; said Miss Tredgold; &#8220;but I also must put in a
+condition.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is that, madam?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I occasionally accompany them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>But at this the farmer gave such a cheer of hearty goodwill
+that all the children joined in in spite of themselves.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Was there ever anything quite so jolly in all the world?&#8221;
+cried Pauline. &#8220;I feel younger than ever, and jollier than
+ever. Here comes father, too. We are all together. Father,
+I am back again, and it is all owing to Farmer King and
+Nancy that I am cured. Whom shall we cry three cheers for?
+You give the word.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Sophy, of course,&#8221; cried Verena.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hip! hip! hurrah!&#8221; shouted the Dale family.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I should like to suggest a hearty cheer for my good
+old friend, Farmer King,&#8221; said Mr. Dale.
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And for his cure,&#8221; said Pauline.
+</p>
+<p>And then the Dale family and the King family joined hands
+and shouted &#8220;Hip! hip! hurrah!&#8221; once more.
+</p>
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE END.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- generated by ppgen.rb version: 2.07 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Sat Jun 21 07:57:37 -0600 2008 -->
+
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+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Girls of the Forest, by L. T. Meade
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Girls of the Forest, by L. T. Meade
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Girls of the Forest
+
+Author: L. T. Meade
+
+Release Date: June 22, 2008 [EBook #25872]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIRLS OF THE FOREST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+GUARANTEE
+
+The story in this book is complete as written
+and published by the Author
+
+MACLELLAN .N.Y. COMPANY
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST
+
+L. T. MEADE
+
+AUTHOR OF ALWYN'S FRIENDS, BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS,
+GOOD LUCK, PLAYMATES, PRETTY GIRL AND THE OTHERS,
+THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL, ETC.
+
+AKRON, OHIO
+MACLELLAN .N.Y. COMPANY
+PUBLISHERS
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born
+at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade,
+rector at Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She
+wrote her first book, _Lettie's Last Home_, at the age of 17, and since
+then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining wide
+popularity on both sides of the Atlantic.
+
+She worked in the British Museum, lived in Bishopsgate Without, making
+special studies of East London life, which she incorporated in her
+stories. She edited the _Atlanta_, a magazine, for six years. Her
+pictures of girls, especially in the influence they exert on their
+elders, are drawn with intuitive fidelity, pathos, love, and humor, as in
+_Girls of the Forest_, flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled
+extensively, and is devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports.
+
+Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with
+questions of home life, are: _A Knight of To-day_ (1877), _Bel-Marjory_
+(1878), _Mou-setse: a Negro Hero_ (1880), _Mother Herring's Chickens_
+(1881), _A London Baby: The Story of King Roy_ (1883), _Two Sisters_
+(1884), _The Angel of Life_ (1885), _A World of Girls_ (1886), _Sweet
+Nancy_ (1887), _Nobody's Neighbors_ (1887), _Deb and The Duchess_ (1888),
+_Girls of the Forest_ (1908), _Aylwyn's Friends_ (1909), _Pretty Girl and
+the Others_ (1910).
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+GIRLS OF THE FOREST.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE GUEST WHO WAS NEITHER OLD NOR YOUNG.
+
+
+It was a beautiful summer's afternoon, and the girls were seated in a
+circle on the lawn in front of the house. The house was an old
+Elizabethan mansion, which had been added to from time to time--fresh
+additions jutting out here and running up there. There were all sorts of
+unexpected nooks and corners to be found in the old house--a flight of
+stairs just where you did not look for any, and a baize door shutting
+away the world at the moment when you expected to behold a long vista
+into space. The house itself was most charming and inviting-looking; but
+it was also, beyond doubt, much neglected. The doors were nearly
+destitute of paint, and the papers on many of the walls had completely
+lost their original patterns. In many instances there were no papers,
+only discolored walls, which at one time had been gay with paint and
+rendered beautiful with pictures. The windows were destitute of curtains;
+the carpets on the floors were reduced to holes and patches. The old
+pictures in the picture gallery still remained, however, and looked down
+on the young girls who flitted about there on rainy days with kindly, or
+searching, or malevolent eyes as suited the characters of those men and
+women who were portrayed in them.
+
+But this was the heart of summer, and there was no need to go into the
+musty, fusty old house. The girls sat on the grass and held consultation.
+
+"She is certainly coming to-morrow," said Verena. "Father had a letter
+this morning. I heard him giving directions to old John to have the trap
+patched up and the harness mended. And John is going to Lyndhurst Road to
+meet her. She will arrive just about this time. Isn't it too awful?"
+
+"Never mind, Renny," said her second sister; "the sooner she comes, the
+sooner she'll go. Briar and Patty and I have put our heads together, and
+we mean to let her see what we think of her and her interfering ways. The
+idea of Aunt Sophia interfering between father and us! Now, I should like
+to know who is likely to understand the education of a girl if her own
+father does not."
+
+"It is all because the Step has gone," continued Verena. "She told us
+when she was leaving that she meant to write to Aunt Sophia. She was
+dreadfully cross at having to go, and the one mean thing she ever did in
+all her life was to make the remark she did. She said it was very little
+short of disgraceful to have ten girls running about the New Forest at
+their own sweet will, without any one to guide them."
+
+"Oh, what a nuisance the Step is!" said Rose, whose pet name was Briar.
+"Shouldn't I like to scratch her! Dear old Paddy! of course he knows how
+to manage us. Oh, here he comes--the angel! Let's plant him down in our
+midst. Daisy, put that little stool in the middle of the circle; the
+Padre shall sit there, and we'll consult as to the advent of precious
+Aunt Sophia."
+
+Patty, Briar, and Verena now jumped to their feet and ran in the
+direction where an elderly gentleman, with a stoop, gray hair hanging
+over his shoulders, and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his
+nose, was walking.
+
+"Paddy, Paddy! you have got to come here at once," called out Briar.
+
+Meanwhile Verena took one of his arms, Patty clasped the other, Briar
+danced in front, and so they conducted him into the middle of the group.
+
+"Here's your stool, Paddy," cried Briar. "Down you squat. Now then,
+squatty-_vous_."
+
+Mr. Dale took off his spectacles, wiped them and gazed around him in
+bewilderment.
+
+"I was construing a line of Virgil," he said. "You have interrupted me,
+my dears. Whatever is the matter?"
+
+"We have brought the culprit to justice," exclaimed Pauline. "Paddy,
+forget the classics for the time being. Think, just for a few moments, of
+your neglected--your shamefully neglected--daughters. Ten of them, Paddy,
+all running wild in the Forest glades. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
+Don't you feel that your moment of punishment has come? Aunt Sophia
+arrives to-morrow. Now, what have you got to say for yourself?"
+
+"But, my dear children, we can't have your Aunt Sophia here. I could not
+dream of it. I remember quite well she came here once a long time ago. I
+have not got over it yet. I haven't really."
+
+"But she is coming, Paddy, and you know it quite well, for you got the
+letter. How long do you think you can put up with her?"
+
+"Only for a very short time, Pauline; I assure you, my darling, she is
+not--not a pleasant person."
+
+"Describe her, Paddy--do," said Verena.
+
+She spoke in her very gentlest tone, and held out one of her long white
+hands and allowed her father to clasp it. Verena was decidedly the
+best-looking of the eight girls sitting on the grass. She was tall; her
+complexion was fair; her figure was naturally so good that no amount of
+untidy dressing could make it look awkward. Her hair was golden and soft.
+It was less trouble to wind it up in a thick rope and hairpin it at the
+back of her head than to let it run wild; therefore she was not even
+untidy. Verena was greatly respected by her sisters, and Briar was rather
+afraid of her. All the others sat silent now when she asked the old Padre
+to describe Aunt Sophia.
+
+"My dear," he answered, "I have not the slightest idea what her
+appearance is like. My memory of her is that she was fashionable and very
+conventional."
+
+"What on earth is 'conventional'?" whispered Pat.
+
+"Don't interrupt, Patty," said Verena, squeezing her father's hand. "Go
+on, Paddy; go on, darling of my heart. Tell us some more. Aunt Sophia is
+fashionable and conventional. We can look out the words in the dictionary
+afterwards. But you must know what she is like to look at."
+
+"I don't, my dears; I cannot remember. It was a good many years ago when
+she came to visit us."
+
+"He must be prodded," said Briar, turning to Renny. "Look at him; he is
+going to sleep."
+
+"Excuse me, girls," said the Squire, half-rising, and then sitting down
+again as Verena's young hand pushed him into his seat. "I have just made
+a most interesting discovery with regard to Virgil--namely, that----"
+
+"Oh, father! we don't want to know about it," said Briar. "Now, then,
+Renny, begin."
+
+"Her appearance--her appearance!" said Verena gently.
+
+"Whose appearance, dear?"
+
+"Why, Aunt Sophia's; the lady who is coming to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Mr. Dale; "but she must not come. This cannot be
+permitted; I cannot endure it."
+
+"Paddy, you have given John directions to fetch her. Now, then, what is
+she like?"
+
+"I don't know, children. I haven't the slightest idea."
+
+"Prod, Renny! Prod!"
+
+"Padre," said Verena, "is she old or young?"
+
+"Old, I think; perhaps neither."
+
+"Write it down, Briar. She is neither old nor young. Paddy, is she dark
+or fair?"
+
+"I really can't remember, dear. A most unpleasant person."
+
+"Put down that she is--not over-beautiful," said Verena. "Paddy, must we
+put on our best dresses when she comes--our Sunday go-to-meeting frocks,
+you know?"
+
+"Children, wear anything on earth you like, but in Heaven's name let me
+go away now! Only to think that she will be here to-morrow! Why did Miss
+Stapleton leave us? It is really too terrible."
+
+"She left," said Briar, her eyes twinkling, "because we would call her
+Step, which means step-mother. She was so dreadfully, dreadfully afraid
+that you might find it out."
+
+"Oh, children, how incorrigible you are! The poor woman! I'd sooner have
+married---- I--I never mean to marry anybody."
+
+"Of course you don't, Padre. And you may go now, darling," said Verena.
+"Go, and be happy, feeling that your daughters will look after you. You
+are not lonely, are you, darling, with so many of us? Now go and be very
+happy."
+
+Eight pairs of lips blew kisses to the departing figure. Mr. Dale
+shambled off, and disappeared through the open window into his study.
+
+"Poor dear!" said Verena, "he has forgotten our existence already. He
+only lives when he thinks of Virgil. Most of his time he sleeps, poor
+angel! It certainly is our bounden duty to keep him away from Aunt
+Sophia. What a terror she must be! Fancy the situation. Eight nieces all
+in a state of insurrection, and two more nieces in the nursery ready to
+insurrect in their turn!"
+
+"Something must be done," interrupted Pauline. "Nurse is the woman to
+help us. Forewarned is forearmed. Nurse must put us up to a wrinkle or
+two."
+
+"Then let's go to her at once," said Verena.
+
+They all started up, and, Verena leading the way, they went through the
+little paddock to the left of the house, and so into a yard, very
+old-fashioned and covered with weeds and cobble-stones. There were
+tumble-down stables and coach-houses, hen-houses, and buildings, useful
+and otherwise, surrounding the yard; and now in the coach-house, which
+for many years had sheltered no carriage of any sort, sat nurse busy at
+work, with two little children playing at her feet.
+
+"Don't mind the babies at present," said Verena. "Don't snatch them up
+and kiss them, Briar. Patty, keep your hands off. Nurse, we have come."
+
+"So I see, Miss Verena," said nurse.
+
+She lifted her very much wrinkled old face and looked out of deep-set,
+black eyes full at the young girl.
+
+"What is it, my darling child?"
+
+"How are we to bear it? Shall we fall on our knees and get round you in a
+little circle? We must talk to you. You must advise us."
+
+"Eh, dears!" said nurse. "I am nearly past that sort of thing. I'm not as
+young as I wor, and master and me we're both getting old. It doesn't seem
+to me to matter much now whether a body's pretty or not, or whether you
+dress beautiful, or whether a thing is made to look pretty or otherwise.
+We're all food for worms, dears, all of us, and where's the use of
+fashing?"
+
+"How horrid of you, nurse!" said Verena. "We have got beautiful bodies,
+and our souls ought to be more beautiful still. What about the
+resurrection of the body, you dreadful old nurse?"
+
+"Oh, never mind me, dears; it was only a sort of dream I were dreaming of
+the funeral of your poor dear mother, who died when this dear lamb was
+born."
+
+Here nurse patted the fat arm of the youngest hope of the house of Dale,
+little Marjorie, who looked round at her with rosy face and big blue
+eyes. Marjorie was between three and four years old, and was a very
+beautiful little child. Verena, unable to restrain herself any longer,
+bent down and encircled Marjorie with her strong young arms and clasped
+her in an ecstatic embrace.
+
+"There, now," she said; "I am better. I forbid all the rest of you girls
+to touch Marjorie. Penelope, I'll kiss you later."
+
+Penelope was seven years old--a dark child with a round face--not a
+pretty child, but one full of wisdom and audacity.
+
+"Whatever we do," Verena had said on several occasions, "we must not let
+Penelope out of the nursery until she is quite eight years old. She is so
+much the cleverest of us that she'd simply turn us all round her little
+finger. She must stay with nurse as long as possible."
+
+"I know what you are talking about," said Penelope. "It's about her, and
+she's coming to-morrow. I told nurse, and she said she oughtn't never to
+come."
+
+"No, that she oughtn't," said nurse. "The child is alluding to Miss
+Tredgold. She haven't no call here, and I don't know why she is coming."
+
+"Look here, nurse," said Verena; "she is coming, and nothing in the world
+will prevent her doing so. The thing we have to consider is this: how
+soon will she go?"
+
+"She'll go, I take it," said nurse, "as soon as ever she finds out she
+ain't wanted."
+
+"And how are we to tell her that?" said Verena. "Now, do put on your
+considering-cap at once, you wise old woman."
+
+"Yes, do show us the way out, for we can't have her here," said Briar.
+"It is absolutely impossible. She'll try to turn us into fine ladies, and
+she'll talk about the dresses we should have, and she'll want father to
+get some awful woman to come and live with us. She'll want the whole
+house to be turned topsy-turvy."
+
+"Eh!" said nurse, "I'll tell you what it is. Ladies like Miss Tredgold
+need their comforts. She won't find much comfort here, I'm thinking.
+She'll need her food well cooked, and that she won't get at The Dales.
+She'll need her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won't get much of
+that sort of thing at The Dales. My dear young ladies, you leave the
+house as it is, and, mark my words, Miss Tredgold will go in a week's
+time at the latest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A HANDFUL.
+
+
+The girls looked full at nurse while she was talking. A look of
+contentment came into Verena's face. She shook herself to make sure she
+was all there; she pinched herself to be certain that she was not
+dreaming; then she settled down comfortably.
+
+"There never was anybody like you, nursey," she said. "You always see the
+common-sense, possible side of things."
+
+"Eh!" said nurse. "If I hadn't seen the common-sense, possible side of
+things many years ago, where would I be with the handling and bringing up
+of you ten young ladies? For, though I say it that shouldn't, there ain't
+nicer or bonnier or straighter children in the whole Forest; no, nor
+better-looking either, with cleaner souls inside of them; but for all
+that, anybody else"--and here nurse gave a little sort of wink that set
+Pauline screaming--"anybody else would say that you were a handful. You
+are a handful, too, to most people. But what I say now is this. You
+needn't take any notice of me; you can keep your own counsel and say
+nothing; but if you want her to go--the lady that has no call to be
+here--the lady that's forced herself where she ain't wanted--why, you
+have _got_ to be handfuls. And now I'll go into the house with my two
+precious lambs."
+
+The elder "precious lamb" looked very cross at being suddenly informed
+that she was to go indoors while the sun shone so brightly and the summer
+warmth surrounded her.
+
+"No, I won't," said Penelope. "I am going to stay out with the others.
+I'm a very big girl; I am not a baby any longer. And you aren't to keep
+me in the nursery any longer, Verena. And I won't be naughty. I'll make
+up to Aunt Sophia like anything--that I will--if you keep me in the
+nursery any longer."
+
+This was such a daring threat that, although Penelope was not thought
+much of as a rule, the girls looked at her now with a sort of awe.
+
+"She might as well stay for a quarter of an hour longer, mightn't she,
+nursey?" said Briar.
+
+"No, that she ain't to do, Miss Rose. She comes right indoors and
+prepares for her bed like a good child. Is it me that's to be shortened
+of my hours of rest by a naughty little thing like this? Come along this
+minute, miss, and none of your nonsense."
+
+So Penelope, her heart full of rage, retired into the house with nurse
+and baby Marjorie.
+
+"I hope she won't do anything mean and nasty," said Pauline. "It's the
+sort of thing she would do, for she's frightfully clever."
+
+"Oh, we needn't consider her," said Verena. "Do let's make up our minds
+what to do ourselves."
+
+"I have all sorts of things in my head," said Patty. "The pony-carriage
+might break down as it was coming from the station. I don't mean her to
+be badly hurt, but I thought she might get just a little bit hurt, so
+that she could stay in her bed for twenty-four hours. An aunt in bed
+wouldn't be so bad, would she, Renny?"
+
+"I don't know," said Verena. "I suppose we must be polite. She is
+mother's half-sister, you know. If mother were alive she would give her a
+welcome. And then Padre will have to talk to her. He must explain that
+she must go. If he doesn't, we will lead him a life."
+
+The girls talked a little longer. They walked round and round the ugly,
+ill-kept lawn; they walked under the beautiful trees, entwined their arms
+round each other's waists, and confabbed and confabbed. The upshot of it
+all was that on the following day a very large and very shabby bedroom
+was got ready after a fashion for Miss Tredgold's arrival; and John, the
+sole factotum of the establishment--the man who cleaned the boots and
+knives, and swept up the avenue, removed the weeds from the flower-beds,
+cleaned the steps whenever they were cleaned, and the windows whenever
+they were cleaned--appeared on the scene, leading a tumble-down,
+knock-kneed pony harnessed to a very shabby pony-cart.
+
+"I'm off now, miss," he said to Verena, pulling a wisp of hair as he
+spoke. "No, miss, there ain't any room. You couldn't possibly sit on the
+back seat, for it's as much as ever I'll do to bring the lady home in
+this tumble-down conveyance. Our own is too bad for use, and I had to
+borrow from Farmer Treherne, and he said he wouldn't trust any horse but
+old Jock; this carriage will just keep together until the lady's here."
+
+"But whatever he thinks," said Verena, "do you suppose we can have a
+smart, neat carriage ready to take Miss Tredgold back again this day
+week? You will see about that, won't you, John?"
+
+"I will, miss. There'll be no difficulty about that; we'll get the lady
+away whenever she wants to go."
+
+"Very well. You had better be off now. You must wait outside the station.
+When she comes out you are to touch your hat and say, 'This is the
+carriage from The Dales.' Be sure you say that, John. And look as
+important as ever you can. We must make the best of things, even if we
+are poor."
+
+"You never saw me, miss, demeaning the family," said John.
+
+He again touched his very shabby hat, whipped up the pony, and
+disappeared down the avenue.
+
+"Now, then," said Briar, "how are we to pass the next two hours? It will
+take them quite that time to get here."
+
+"And what are we going to give her to eat when she does come?" said
+Patty. "She'll be awfully hungry. I expect she'll want her dinner."
+
+"Dinner!" cried Josephine. "Dinner! So late. But we dine at one."
+
+"You silliest of silly mortals," said Verena, "Aunt Sophia is a
+fashionable lady, and fashionable ladies dine between eight and nine
+o'clock."
+
+"Do they?" said Josephine. "Then I'm glad I'm not a fashionable lady.
+Fancy starving all that long time! I'm always famished by one o'clock."
+
+"There's Penelope!" suddenly said Patty. "Doesn't she look odd?"
+
+Penelope was a very stout child. She had black eyes and black hair. Her
+hair generally stood upright in a sort of halo round her head; her face
+was very round and rosy--she looked like a kind of hard, healthy
+winter-apple. Her legs were fat, and she always wore socks instead of
+stockings. Her socks were dark blue. Nurse declared that she could not be
+fashed with putting on white ones. She wore a little Turkey-red frock,
+and she had neither hat nor coat on. She was going slowly and
+thoughtfully round the lawn, occasionally stooping and picking something.
+
+"She's a perfect mystery," said Pauline. "Let's run up to her and ask her
+what she's about."
+
+Catching Patty's hand, the two girls scampered across the grass.
+
+"Well, Pen, and what are you doing now? What curious things are you
+gathering?" they asked.
+
+"Grasses," replied Penelope slowly. "They're for Aunt Sophia's bedroom.
+I'm going to make her bedroom ever so pretty."
+
+"You little horror!" said Pauline. "If you dare to go against us you will
+lead a life!"
+
+Penelope looked calmly up at them.
+
+"I'll make a bargain," she said. "I'll throw them all away, and be
+nastier than you all--yes, much nastier--if you will make me a schoolroom
+girl."
+
+Pauline looked at her.
+
+"We may be low," she said, "and there is no doubt we are very poor, but
+we have never stooped to bribery and corruption yet. Go your own way,
+Penelope. If you think you can injure us you are very much mistaken."
+
+Penelope shook her fat back, and resumed her peregrinations round and
+round the lawn.
+
+"Really she is quite an uncomfortable child," said Pauline, returning to
+her other sisters. "What do you think she is doing now? Picking grasses
+to put in Aunt Sophia's room."
+
+"Oh, let her alone," said Verena; "it's only her funny little way. By the
+way, I wonder if Padre has any idea that Aunt Sophia is coming to-day."
+
+"Let's invade him," said Patty. "The old dear wants his exercise; he
+hasn't had any to-day."
+
+The eight girls ran with whoops and cries round the house. Penelope
+picked her grasses with more determination than ever. Her small, straight
+mouth made a scarlet line, so tightly was it shut.
+
+"I am only seven, but I'm monstrous clever," she whispered to herself. "I
+am going to have my own way. I'll love poor Aunt Sophy. Yes, I will. I'll
+kiss her, and I'll make up to her, and I'll keep her room full of lovely
+grasses."
+
+Meanwhile the other girls burst into the study. A voice was heard
+murmuring rapidly as they approached. A silvery-white head was bending
+over a page, and some words in Latin came like a stream, with a very
+beautiful pronunciation, from the scholar's lips.
+
+"Ah, Verena!" he said, "I think I have got the right lines now. Shall I
+read them to you?"
+
+Mr. Dale began. He got through about one line when Patty interrupted him:
+
+"It can't possibly be done, Paddy. We can't listen to another line--I
+mean yet. You have got to come out. Aunt Sophia is coming to-day."
+
+"Eh? I beg your pardon; who did you say was coming?"
+
+"Aunt Sophia--Miss Tredgold. She's coming to-day on a visit. She'll be
+here very soon. She's coming in an old cart that belongs to Farmer
+Treherne. She'll be here in an hour; therefore out you come."
+
+"My dears, I cannot. You must excuse me. My years of toil have brought to
+light an obscure passage. I shall write an account of it to the _Times_.
+It is a great moment in my life, and the fact that---- But who did you
+say was coming, my dears?"
+
+"Really, Paddy, you are very naughty," said Verena. "You must come out at
+once. We want you. You can't write another line. You must not even think
+of the subject. Come and see what we have done for Aunt Sophia. If you
+don't come she'll burst in here, and she'll stay here, because it's the
+most comfortable room in the house. And she'll bring her work-basket
+here, and perhaps her mending. I know she'll mend you as soon as she
+arrives. She'll make you and mend you; and you need mending, don't you,
+dear old Padre?"
+
+"I don't know, my dears. I'm a stupid old man, and don't care about
+dress. Who is the person you said was coming? Give her some tea and send
+her away. Do you hear, Verena? Give her tea, my darling, and--and toast
+if you like, and send her away. We can't have visitors here."
+
+"Patty!" said Verena.
+
+Patty's eyes were shining.
+
+"Pauline!"
+
+The two girls came forward as though they were little soldiers obeying
+the command of their captain.
+
+"Take Padre by the right arm, Pauline. Patty, take Padre by the left arm.
+Now then, Paddy, quick's the word. March!"
+
+Poor Mr. Dale was completely lifted from his chair by his two vigorous
+daughters, and then marched outside his study into the sunshine.
+
+"We are not going to be cross," said Verena, kissing him. "It is only
+your Renny."
+
+"And your Paulie," said the second girl.
+
+"And your Rose Briar," said the third.
+
+"And your Patty," said the fourth.
+
+"And your Lucy," "And your Josephine," "And your Helen," "And your
+Adelaide," said four more vigorous pairs of lips.
+
+"And we all want you to stand up," said Verena.
+
+"Good heavens! I did think I had come to the end of my worries. And what
+on earth does this mean? Penelope, my child, what a hideous bouquet you
+have in your hand! Come here and kiss father, my little one."
+
+Penelope trotted briskly forward.
+
+"Do you like my red frock, father?" she asked.
+
+"It is very nice indeed."
+
+"I thought it wor. And is my hair real tidy, father?"
+
+"It stands very upright, Penelope."
+
+"I thought it did. And you like my little blue stockings, father?"
+
+"Very neat, dear."
+
+"I thought they wor."
+
+"You look completely unlike yourself, Penelope. What is the matter?"
+
+"I want to be a true, kind lady," said the little girl. "I am gathering
+grasses for my aunty; so I are."
+
+She trotted away into the house.
+
+"What a pretty, neat, orderly little girl Penelope has become!" said Mr.
+Dale. "But---- You really must excuse me, my dear girls. You are most
+charming, all of you. Ah, my dears!--so fresh, so unsophisticated,
+so--yes, that is the word--so unworldly. But I must get back to my
+beloved Virgil. You don't know--you can never know--what a moment of
+triumph is mine. You must excuse me, darlings--Verena, you are nearly
+grown up; you will see to the others. Do what you can to make them
+happy--a little treat if necessary; I should not mind it."
+
+"Give us fourpence to buy a pound of golden syrup for tea, please,
+Padre," suddenly said Briar. "If there is a thing I love, it is golden
+syrup. A pound between us will give us quite a feast--won't it, Renny?"
+
+"Only we must save a little for the aunt," cried Patty.
+
+"I do hope one thing," said Pauline: "that, whatever her faults, she
+won't be greedy. There isn't room for any one to be greedy in this house.
+The law of this house is the law of self-denial; isn't it, Padre?"
+
+"I begin to perceive that it is, Pauline. But whom are you talking of?"
+
+"Now, Padre," said Verena, "if you don't wake and rouse yourself, and act
+like a decent Christian, you'll be just prodded--you'll be just shaken.
+We will do it. There are eight of us, and we'll make your life a burden."
+
+"Eh--eh!" said Mr. Dale. "Really, girls, you are enough to startle a man.
+And you say----"
+
+"I say, Paddy, that Miss Sophia Tredgold is on her way here. Each instant
+she is coming nearer. She is coming in the old pony cart, and the old
+pony is struggling with all his might to convey her here. She is coming
+with her luggage, intending to stay, and our object is to get her to go
+away again. Do you hear, Padre?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, I hear. I comprehend. It takes a great deal to bring a man
+back down the ages--down--down to this small, poor, parsimonious life; it
+takes a great deal. A man is not easily roused, nor brought back; but I
+am back now, darlings.--Excuse me, Briar; no more prodding.--Hands off,
+Pauline.--Hands off, Patty. Perhaps I had better tidy myself."
+
+"You certainly would look nicer, and more like the owner of The Dales, if
+you got into your other coat," said Briar.
+
+"Shall we all come up and help you, Padre?" called out the eight in a
+breath.
+
+"No, no, dears. I object to ladies hovering about my room. I'll run away
+now."
+
+"Yes, yes; and you'd better be quick, Padre, for I hear wheels."
+
+"I am going, loves, this moment."
+
+Mr. Dale turned and absolutely ran to the shelter of the house, for the
+wheels were getting near--rumbling, jumping, uncertain. Now the rumbling
+and the jumping and the uncertainty got into the avenue, and came nearer
+and nearer; and finally the tumble-down pony cart drew up at the house.
+The pony printed his uncertain feet awkwardly but firmly on the
+weed-grown sweep in front of the unpainted hall door, and Miss Tredgold
+gazed around her.
+
+Miss Tredgold was a very thin, tall woman of about forty-five years of
+age. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion. She wore a perfectly
+immaculate traveling dress of dark-gray tweed. It fitted her
+well-proportioned figure like a glove. She had on a small, very neat
+black hat, and a spotted veil surrounded her face. She stepped down from
+the pony cart and looked around her.
+
+"Ah!" she said, seeing Verena, "will you kindly mention to some of the
+ladies of the family that I have arrived?"
+
+"I think I need not mention it, because we all know," said Verena. "I am
+your niece Verena."
+
+"You!"
+
+Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her voice. Verena
+stepped back, and her pretty face grew first red and then pale. What she
+would have said next will never be known to history, for at that instant
+the very good child, Penelope, appeared out of the house.
+
+"Is you my Aunty Sophy?" she said. "How are you, Aunty Sophy? I am very
+pleased to see you."
+
+Miss Sophia stared for a moment at Penelope. Penelope was hideously
+attired, but she was at least clean. The other girls were anyhow. They
+were disheveled; they wore torn and unsightly skirts; their hair was
+arranged anyhow or not at all; on more than one face appeared traces of
+recent acquaintance with the earth in the shape of a tumble. One little
+girl with very black eyes had an ugly scratch across her left cheek;
+another girl had the gathers out of her frock, which streamed in the most
+hopeless fashion on the ground.
+
+"How do you do?" said Aunt Sophia. "Where is your father? Will you have
+the goodness, little girl, to acquaint your father with the fact that his
+sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold, has come?"
+
+"Please come into the house, Aunt Sophy, and I'll take you to father's
+study--so I will," exclaimed champion Penelope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.
+
+
+Penelope held up a chubby hand, which Miss Tredgold pretended not to see.
+
+"Go on in front, little girl," she said. "Don't paw me. I hate being
+pawed by children."
+
+Penelope's back became very square as she listened to these words, and
+the red which suffused her face went right round her neck. But she walked
+solemnly on in front without a word.
+
+"Aunties are unpleasant things," she said to herself; "but, all the same,
+I mean to fuss over this one."
+
+Here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her parent:
+
+"Paddy, here comes Aunt Sophia Tredgold."
+
+But she spoke to empty air--Mr. Dale was still busy over his toilet.
+
+"Whom are you addressing by that hideous name?" said Miss Sophia. "Do you
+mean to tell me you call your father Paddy?"
+
+"We all do," said Penelope.
+
+"Of course we do," said Verena, who had followed behind.
+
+"That is our name for the dear old boy," said Pauline, who stood just
+behind Verena, while all the other children stood behind Pauline.
+
+It was in this fashion that the entire party invaded Mr. Dale's sanctum.
+Miss Tredgold gazed around her, her face filled with a curious mixture of
+amazement and indignation.
+
+"I had an intuition that I ought to come here," she said aloud. "I did
+not want to come, but I obeyed what I now know was the direct call of
+duty. I shall stay here as long as I am wanted. My mission will be to
+bring order out of chaos--to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to
+submission--to try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into ladies."
+
+"Oh, oh! I say, aunty, that is hard on us!" burst from Josephine.
+
+"My dear, I don't know your name, but it is useless for you to make those
+ugly exclamations. Whatever your remarks, whatever your words, I shall
+take no notice. You may struggle as you will, but I am the stronger. Oh!
+here comes---- Is it possible? My dear Henry, what years it is since we
+met! Don't you remember me--your sister-in-law Sophia? I was but a little
+girl when you married my dear sister. It is quite affecting to meet you
+again. How do you do?"
+
+Miss Tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. Mr. Dale put both his
+hands behind his back.
+
+"Are you sorry to see me?" asked Miss Tredgold. "Oh, dear, this is
+terrible!"
+
+The next instant the horrified man found that Miss Tredgold had kissed
+him calmly and with vigor on each cheek. Even his own children were never
+permitted to kiss Mr. Dale. To tell the truth, he was the last sort of
+person anybody would care to kiss. His face resembled a piece of
+parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried up. There was an
+occasion in the past when Verena had taken his scholarly hand and raised
+it to her lips, but even that form of endearment he objected to.
+
+"I forgive you, dear," he said; "but please don't do it again. We can
+love each other without these marks of an obsolete and forgotten age.
+Kissing, my dear, is too silly to be endured in our day."
+
+That Miss Tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity which the
+miserable man was scarcely likely to get over as long as he lived.
+
+"And now, girls," said the good lady, turning round and facing her
+astonished nieces, "I have a conviction that your father and I would have
+a more comfortable conversation if you were not present. Leave the room,
+therefore, my dears. Go quietly and in an orderly fashion."
+
+"Perhaps, children, it would be best," said Mr. Dale.
+
+He felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made an effort not to
+show his feelings.
+
+"There is no other possible way out of it," he said to himself. "I must
+be very frank. I must tell her quite plainly that she cannot stay. It
+will be easier for me to be frank without the children than with them."
+
+So the girls left the room. Penelope, going last, turned a plump and
+bewildered face towards her aunt.
+
+But Miss Tredgold took no more notice of Penelope than she did of the
+others. When the last pair of feet had vanished down the passage, she
+went to the door and locked it.
+
+"What are you doing that for?" asked Mr. Dale.
+
+"My dear Henry, I locked the door because I wish to have a quiet word
+with you. I have come here--I will say it plainly--for the sole purpose
+of saving you."
+
+"Of saving me, Sophia! From what?"
+
+"From the grievous sin you are committing--the sin of absolutely and
+completely neglecting the ten daughters given to you by Providence. Do
+you do anything for them? Do you try in the least to help them? Are you
+in any sense of the word educating them? I scarcely know the children
+yet, but I must say frankly that I never came across more terribly
+neglected young people. Their clothes are in rags, they are by no means
+perfectly clean in their persons, and they look half-starved. Henry, you
+ought to be ashamed of yourself! I wonder my poor sister doesn't turn in
+her grave! When I think that Alice was their mother, and that you are
+bringing them up as you are now doing, I could give way to tears. But,
+Henry, tears are not what are required. Action is the necessary thing. I
+mean to act, and nothing will turn me from that resolution."
+
+"But, my dear Sophia, I have not met you for years. To be frank with you,
+I had almost forgotten your existence. I am a terribly busy man,
+Sophia--a scholar--at least, I hope so. I do not think the children are
+neglected; they are well, and no one is ever unkind to them. There is no
+doubt that we are poor. I am unable to have the house done up as poor
+Alice would have liked to see it; and I have let the greater part of the
+ground, so that we are not having dairy produce or farm produce at
+present. The meals, therefore, are plain."
+
+"And insufficient; I have no doubt of that," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"They are very plain," he answered. "Perhaps you like dainty food; most
+ladies of your age do. I must be as frank with you as you are with me.
+You won't like our table. Sometimes we do without meat for a week at a
+time."
+
+"I do not care if you never touch meat again," said Miss Sophia. "Thank
+goodness, with all my faults, I am not greedy."
+
+"What a pity!" murmured Mr. Dale.
+
+"What was that you said? Do you like greedy women?"
+
+"No, Sophia; but I want to put matters so straight before you that you
+will consider it your bounden duty to leave The Dales."
+
+"Where my duty calls me I stay, whatever the circumstances, and however
+great the inconveniences," remarked Miss Sophia.
+
+"Well, Sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress me
+considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am busy now over a most
+important matter. I have just discovered----"
+
+"A gold mine on your estate?"
+
+"No; something fifty times more valuable--a new rendering----"
+
+"Of what, may I ask?"
+
+"'The noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.' Bowen is quite
+wrong in his translation; I am about to prove it. I allude to Virgil's
+_AEneid_."
+
+"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss Tredgold, "is the man staring mad? Now, my
+dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. I can tell you plainly that
+it will be no treat to live with you. If it were not for my sister I
+would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to
+destruction; but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when
+I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for your children."
+
+"But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I am poor. I cannot
+afford a governess. Verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little
+about plain needlework. She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her
+work seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or the
+other."
+
+"Oh, you man--you man!" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"And the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of
+them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been
+removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and
+they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are
+healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The
+food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with
+it. They don't worry me much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am
+not well enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the
+comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear Sophia, if you
+would be kind enough to leave The Dales."
+
+"Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and only force will
+turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. I
+brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to
+meet me. As to the money question, it needn't trouble you, for I shall
+pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries, I am
+indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to eat their food like ladies,
+and I mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house
+shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the
+ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay here for at
+least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me,
+'Sophia, I can never thank you enough for what you have done,' I shall be
+surprised. Now I have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear
+Henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study your
+beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness' sake come
+to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman."
+
+"My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean that I--I have not
+put on an evening coat for years."
+
+"You probably have one at the back of nowhere," said Miss Tredgold in a
+contemptuous tone. "But, anyhow, put on the best you have got. Believe
+me, I have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. I
+have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another
+word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutshell, and you and your
+children must learn to submit to the arrival of Sophia Tredgold."
+
+At these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.
+
+As she walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many
+feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been
+listening at the keyhole.
+
+"I can't allow that sort of thing again," she said to herself. "But
+now--shall I take notice?"
+
+She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into her cheeks and her
+eyes looked bright.
+
+"For my sister's sake I will put up with a good deal," was her final
+comment; and then she went into the hall.
+
+There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall
+now stood the good child Penelope. She had brought in a quantity of fresh
+grasses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. Miss
+Tredgold took no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and
+looked out.
+
+"Might be made a pretty place," she said aloud.
+
+Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. Penelope echoed
+the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss Tredgold was arrested by the
+sound, and looked down.
+
+"Ah, little girl!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you'd like me to help you," said Penelope. "I wor
+waiting for you to come out of Pad's room."
+
+"Don't use that hideous word 'wor.' W-a-s, was. Can you spell?"
+
+"No; and I don't want to," said Penelope.
+
+"We'll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you take me to my
+room?"
+
+"May I hold of your hand?" said Penelope.
+
+"May you hold my hand, not _of_ my hand. Certainly not. You may go on in
+front of me. You have got clearly to understand---- But what did you say
+your name was?"
+
+"Penelope."
+
+"You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not pet children. I
+expect them to be good without sugar-plums."
+
+Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. She had heard of
+them, and at Christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had
+hitherto come into her life. She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.
+
+"If I are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or
+three?" she asked.
+
+Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.
+
+"We'll see," she said. "I never make rash promises. Oh! so this is my
+room."
+
+She looked around her.
+
+"No carpet," she said aloud; "no curtains; no pictures on the walls. A
+deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for
+dirt and wear. Hum! You do live plain at The Dales."
+
+"Oh, yes; don't us?" said Penelope. "And your room is much the handsomest
+of all the rooms. We call it very handsome. If you wor to see our
+rooms----"
+
+"Were to see----"
+
+"Yes, were to see," repeated Penelope, who found this constant correction
+very tiresome.
+
+"And may I ask," exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to
+the little girl's words, "what on earth is that in the blue mug?"
+
+She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug
+of very common delft filled with poor Penelope's grasses.
+
+"What horror is this?" she said. "Take it away at once, and throw those
+weeds out."
+
+At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt
+Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a
+bevy of sisters.
+
+"Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room,
+did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?"
+
+"Yes, did she?" came from Verena's lips; and Pauline's eager eyes, and
+the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.
+
+Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.
+
+"I thought I'd be the goodest of you all," she said. "I maded up my mind
+that I just would; but I doesn't like Aunt Sophia, and I think I'll be
+the naughtiest."
+
+"No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can't
+possibly stay long, for we can't afford it," said Verena.
+
+"She'll stay," answered Penelope. "She have made up her mind. She throwed
+away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did
+stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she
+said she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did so
+want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I'd get sugar-plums
+and perhaps pennies. And I thought she'd let me tell her when you was all
+bad. Oh, I hate her now! I don't think I care to be took out of the
+nursery if she's about."
+
+"You certainly are a caution, Penny," said Verena. "It is well that you
+have told us what your motives are. Believe me, there are worse places
+than that despised nursery of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort
+of dinner or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her
+head aches, and if----"
+
+"Oh, come along; let's go and find out," said Pauline. "I feel so
+desperate that I have the courage for anything."
+
+It is to be owned that the Dales did not keep an extensive establishment.
+Old John pottered about the gardens and did what little gardening he
+thought necessary. He also did odd jobs about the house. Besides John,
+there was Betty. Betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen.
+Betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered
+necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without. As a rule she did
+without. She said that cooking was bad for her--that it made her head and
+back ache. On the days when Betty's head or back ached there was never
+any dinner. The family did not greatly mind. They dined on these
+occasions on bread, either with butter or without. Betty managed to keep
+them without dinner certainly at the rate of once or twice a week. She
+always had an excellent excuse. Either the boiler was out of gear, or the
+range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or the butcher
+had failed to come. Sometimes the children managed to have jam with their
+bread-and-butter, and then they considered that they had a very fine meal
+indeed. It mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they
+only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough. This more
+constantly happened in the winter than in the summer, for in the summer
+there was always plenty of milk and always plenty of fruit and
+vegetables.
+
+When Betty heard that Miss Tredgold was coming to stay she immediately
+gave Verena notice. This was nothing at all extraordinary, for Betty gave
+notice whenever anything annoyed her. She never dreamed of acting up to
+her own words, so that nobody minded Betty's repeated notices. But on the
+morning of the day when Miss Tredgold was expected, Betty told nurse that
+she was about to give a real, earnest notice at last.
+
+"I am going," she said. "I go this day month. I march out of this house,
+and never come back--no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the
+hymeneal altar."
+
+Betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises. She was
+seldom so low in health as to condescend to a "hearl," and there had even
+been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire
+to her hand.
+
+"She must be really going," said Verena when nurse repeated Betty's
+speech. "She would not say that about the duke if she was not."
+
+"You leave her alone," said nurse. "But she's dreadful put out, Miss
+Renny; there's no doubt of that. I doubt if she'll cook any dinner for
+Miss Tredgold."
+
+Verena, Pauline, and Penelope now rushed round to the kitchen premises.
+They were nervous, but at the same time they were brave. They must see
+what Betty intended to do. They burst open the door. The kitchen was not
+too clean. It was a spacious apartment, which in the days when the old
+house belonged to rich people was well taken care of, and must have sent
+forth glorious fires--fires meant to cook noble joints. On the present
+occasion the fire was dead out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of
+ashes lying in a forlorn manner at its feet. Betty was sitting at the
+opposite side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious
+person on another. She was busily engaged devouring the last number of
+the _Family Paper_. She had come to a most rousing portion in her
+story--that part in which the duke marries the governess. Betty was, as
+she said, all in a twitter to see how matters would end; but just at this
+crucial moment the girls burst in.
+
+"Betty, do stop reading," said Verena. "She's come, Betty."
+
+"I know," cried Betty. "I'm not deaf, I suppose. John told me. He brought
+her, drat him! He says she's the sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. I'll
+have none of her. I won't alter my ways--no, not a hand's-turn--for the
+like of her, and I go this day month."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" said Verena.
+
+"I do, my dear; I do. I can't put up with the ways of them sort--never
+could. I like you well enough, young ladies, and your pa; and I'd stop
+with you willing--so I would, honey--but I can't abide the likes of her."
+
+"All the same, she's come, Betty, and we must have something for dinner.
+Have you anything in the house?"
+
+"Not a blessed handful."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" said Verena; "and I told you this morning, and so did nurse.
+We said we must have dinner to-night at seven o'clock. You should have
+got something for her."
+
+"But I ain't done it. The stove's out of order; we want the sweep. I have
+a splitting headache, and I'm just reading to keep my mind off the pain."
+
+"But what are we to do? We must get her something."
+
+"Can't she have tea and bread-and-butter? We've half-a-pound of cooking
+butter in the house."
+
+"Are there any eggs?"
+
+"No. I broke the last carrying it across the kitchen an hour ago. My
+hands were all of a tremble with the pain, and the egg slipped."
+
+"Betty, you are too dreadful! Won't you put that paper down and try to
+help us?"
+
+Betty looked at the three faces. In their shabby dresses, and with their
+pretty, anxious eyes, Verena having a frown between her charming brows,
+they made a picture that struck the cook's heart. With all her odd and
+peculiar ways, she was affectionate.
+
+"Are you fretting about it, Miss Renny?" she asked.
+
+As she spoke she put down her feet and pushed the tempting number of the
+_Family Paper_ from her.
+
+"There!" she said; "poor little Miss Dunstable may marry the Dook of
+Mauleverer-Wolverhampton just as soon as she pleases, but I won't have
+you put out, Miss Renny."
+
+"I did want something nice for dinner," said Verena.
+
+"Then I'll manage it. There ain't a better cook than I anywhere when I'm
+put on my mettle. Miss Penny, will you help me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Penelope.
+
+"Well, run into the garden and pick all the peas you can find. There's a
+nice little joint in the larder, and I'll roast it, and you shall have a
+beautiful dinner. Now off you go, dears. You shall have custard-pudding
+and cream and strawberry-jam afterwards."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" cried Penelope, with a little gasp. "Be sure you give us
+_plenty_ of strawberry-jam, and make a very large custard-pudding, for
+there's such a lot of us to eat the things, and I generally get the
+teeniest little bit."
+
+"You are a nursery child, and it's in the nursery you'll have your tea,"
+said Verena in a stern tone. "Go and pick the peas."
+
+"Not me," said Penelope.
+
+She sat down just where she was, in an obstinate heap, in the middle of
+the floor.
+
+"If I are not to eat those peas I don't pick 'em," she said. "I wor going
+to be kind, but I won't be kind if I'm to be turned into a nursery
+child."
+
+"Oh! do let her come to the dining-room just for to-night," pleaded
+Pauline.
+
+"Very well, then; just for once," said Verena.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LIFE OF MISRULE.
+
+
+Dinner went off better than the girls had expected. But to Miss Tredgold
+it was, and ever would be, the most awful meal she had eaten in the whole
+course of her existence. The table was devoid of all those things which
+she, as a refined lady, considered essential. The beautiful old silver
+spoons were dirty, and several of them bent almost out of recognition. A
+like fate had befallen the forks; the knives were rusty, the handles
+disgracefully dirty; and the tablecloth, of the finest damask, was almost
+gray in color, and adorned with several large holes. The use of
+serviettes had been long abolished from The Dales.
+
+The girls, in honor of the occasion, had put on their best frocks, and
+Verena looked fairly pretty in a skimpy white muslin made in an obsolete
+style. The other girls each presented a slightly worse appearance than
+their elder sister, for each had on a somewhat shabbier frock, a little
+more old-fashioned and more outgrown. As to Mr. Dale, it had been
+necessary to remind him at least three times of his sister-in-law's
+arrival; and finally Verena had herself to put him into his very old
+evening-coat, to brush him down afterwards, and to smooth his hair, and
+then lead him into the dining-room.
+
+Miss Tredgold, in contradistinction to the rest of the family, was
+dressed correctly. She wore a black lace dress slightly open at the neck,
+and with elbow sleeves. The children thought that she looked dazzlingly
+fashionable. Verena seemed to remember that she had seen figures very
+like Aunt Sophia's in the fashion books. Aunt Sophia's hair in particular
+absorbed the attention of four of her nieces. How had she managed to turn
+it into so many rolls and spirals and twists? How did she manage the wavy
+short hair on her forehead? It seemed to sit quite tight to her head, and
+looked as if even a gale of wind would not blow it out of place. Aunt
+Sophia's hands were thin and very white, and the fingers were
+half-covered with sparkling rings, which shone and glittered so much that
+Penelope dropped her choicest peas all over her frock as she gazed at
+them.
+
+John was requisitioned to wait at table, and John had no livery for the
+purpose. The family as a rule never required attendance at meals. On this
+occasion it was supposed to be essential, and as Betty refused
+point-blank to stir from the kitchen, John had to come to the fore.
+
+"No, no, Miss Renny," said Betty when poor Verena begged and implored of
+the good woman to put in an appearance. "No, you don't. No, you certain
+sure don't. Because you looked pretty and a bit coaxing I gave up Miss
+Dunstable and the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton two hours ago, but not
+another minute will I spare from them. It's in their select society that
+I spend my haristocratic evening."
+
+Verena knew that it would be useless to coax Betty any further. So John
+appeared with the potatoes in a large dish on a rusty tray, each potato
+having, as Betty expressed it, a stone inside. This she declared was the
+proper way to cook them. The peas presently followed the potatoes. They
+were yellow with age, for they ought to have been eaten at least a week
+ago. The lamb was terribly underdone, and the mint sauce was like no mint
+sauce that Miss Tredgold had ever dreamed of. The pudding which followed
+was a pudding that only Betty knew the recipe for, and that recipe was
+certainly not likely to be popular in fashionable circles. But the
+strawberry-jam was fairly good, and the cream was excellent; and when,
+finally, Miss Tredgold rose to the occasion and said that she would make
+some coffee, which she had brought down from town, in her own coffee-pot
+on her own etna, the girls became quite excited.
+
+The coffee was made, and shed a delicious aroma over the room. Mr. Dale
+was so far interested that he was seen to sniff twice, and was found to
+be observing the coffee as though he were a moth approaching a candle. He
+even forgot his Virgil in his desire to partake of the delicious
+stimulant. Miss Tredgold handed him a cup.
+
+"There," she said. "If you were ever young, and if there was ever a time
+when you cared to act as a gentleman, this will remind you of those
+occasions.--And now, children, I introduce you to 'Open sesame;' and I
+hope, my dear nieces, by means of these simple cups of coffee you will
+enter a different world from that which you have hitherto known."
+
+The girls all drank their coffee, and each pronounced it the nicest drink
+they had ever taken.
+
+Presently Miss Tredgold went into the garden. She invited Verena and
+Pauline to accompany her.
+
+"The rest of you can stay behind," she said. "You can talk about me to
+each other as much as you like. I give you leave to discuss me freely,
+knowing that, even if I did not do so, you would discuss me all the same.
+I am quite aware that you all hate me for the present, but I do not think
+this state of things will long continue. Come, Verena; come, Pauline. The
+night is lovely. We will discuss nature a little, and common sense a
+great deal."
+
+The two girls selected to walk with Miss Tredgold looked behind at the
+seven girls left in the dining-room, and the seven girls looked back at
+them with a mixture of curiosity and pity.
+
+"Never mind your sisters now," said Miss Tredgold. "We want to talk over
+many things. But before we enter into any discussion I wish to ask a
+question."
+
+"Yes," said Verena in her gentle voice.
+
+"Verena," said her aunt suddenly, "how old are you?"
+
+"Fifteen," said Verena.
+
+"Precisely. And on your next birthday you will be sixteen, and on the
+following seventeen, and on the next one again eighteen. You have,
+therefore, nearly three years in which to be transformed from a little
+savage into a lady. The question I now want to ask you is: Do you prefer
+to remain a savage all your days, uneducated, uncultured, your will
+uncontrolled, your aspirations for good undeveloped; or do you wish to
+become a beautiful and gracious lady, kind, sympathetic, learned, full of
+grace? Tell me, my dear."
+
+"How can I?" replied Verena. "I like my life here; we all suit each
+other, and we like The Dales just as it is. Yes, we all suit each other,
+and we don't mind being barbarians."
+
+Miss Tredgold sighed.
+
+"I perceive," she said, "that I shall have uphill work before me. For you
+of all the young people, Verena, are the easiest to deal with. I know
+that without your telling me. I know it by your face. You are naturally
+gentle, courteous, and kind. You are easy to manage. You are also the
+most important of all to be brought round to my views, for whatever you
+do the others will do. It is on you, therefore, that I mean to exercise
+my greatest influence and to expend my heaviest forces."
+
+"I don't quite understand you, Aunt Sophia. I know, of course, you mean
+kindly, but I would much rather----"
+
+"That I went away? That I left you in the disgraceful state in which I
+have found you?"
+
+"Well, I don't consider it disgraceful; and----"
+
+"Yes? You would rather I went?"
+
+Verena nodded. After a moment she spoke.
+
+"It seems unkind," she said--"and I don't wish to be unkind--but I
+_would_ rather you went."
+
+"And so would I, please, Aunt Sophia," said Pauline.
+
+Miss Tredgold looked straight before her. Her face became a little
+pinched, a little white round her lips.
+
+"Once," she said slowly, "I had a sister--a sister whom I loved. She was
+my half-sister, but I never thought of that. She was to me sister and
+mother in one. She brought me up from the time I was a little child. She
+was good to me, and she instilled into me certain principles. One of
+these principles can be expressed in the following words: God put us into
+the world to rise, not to sink. Another of her principles was that God
+put us into the world to be good, to be unselfish. Another one, again,
+was as follows: We must give account for our talents. Now, to allow the
+talent of beauty, for instance, to degenerate into what it is likely to
+do in your case, Verena, is distinctly wicked. To allow you to sink when
+you might rise is sinful. To allow you to be selfish when you might be
+unselfish is also wrong. Your talents, and the talents of Pauline, and
+the talents of your other sisters must be cultivated and brought to the
+fore. I want to tell you now, my dear girls, that for years I have longed
+to help you; that since your mother's death you have scarcely ever been
+out of my mind. But circumstances over which I had no control kept me
+away from you. At last I am free, and the children of my sister Alice are
+the ones I think most about. I have come here prepared for your
+rebellion, prepared for your dislike, and determined not to be
+discouraged by either the one or the other. I have come to The Dales,
+Verena and Pauline, and I mean to remain here for at least three months.
+If at the end of the three months you ask me to go, I will; although even
+then I will not give you up. But until three months have expired you can
+only turn me out by force. I don't think you will do that. It is best
+that we should understand each other clearly; is it not, Verena?"
+
+Verena's face was very white; her big brown eyes were full of tears.
+
+"I ought to be glad and to say 'Welcome.' But I am not glad, and I don't
+welcome you, Aunt Sophia. We like our own way; we don't mind being
+savages, and it is untrue that we are selfish. We are not. Each would
+give up anything, I think, for the other. But we like our poverty and our
+rough ways and our freedom, and we--we don't want you, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"Nevertheless you will have to put up with me," said Miss Tredgold. "And
+now, to start matters, please tell me exactly how you spend your day."
+
+"Our life is not yours, Aunt Sophia. It would not interest you to know
+how we spend our day."
+
+"To-morrow, Verena, when the life of rule succeeds the life of misrule, I
+should take umbrage at your remark, but to-night I take no umbrage. I but
+repeat my question."
+
+"And I will tell you," said Pauline in her brisk voice. "We get up just
+when we like. We have breakfast when we choose--sometimes in the garden
+on the grass, sometimes not at all. We walk where we please, and lose
+ourselves in the Forest, and gather wild strawberries and wild flowers,
+and watch the squirrels, and climb the beech-trees. When it is fine we
+spend the whole day out, just coming back for meals, and sometimes not
+even then, if Betty gives us a little milk and some bread. Sometimes we
+are lazy and lie on the grass all day. We do what we like always, and
+always just when we like. Don't we, Renny?"
+
+"Yes," said Verena. "We do what we like, and in our own way."
+
+"In future," said Miss Tredgold, "you will do things in my way. I hope
+you will not dislike my way; but whether you like or dislike it, you will
+have to submit."
+
+"But, Aunt Sophia," said Verena, "what authority have you over us? I am
+exceedingly sorry to seem rude, but I really want to know. Father, of
+course, has authority over us, but have you? Has anybody but father? That
+is what I want to know."
+
+"I thought you might ask something of that sort," said Miss Tredgold--"or,
+even if you did not ask it, you might think it--and I am prepared with my
+answer. I quite recognize that in the case of girls like you I have no
+authority, and I cannot act fairly by you until I have. Now, my dear
+girls, please understand that before I go to bed to-night I get that
+authority. I shall get it m writing, too, so that you can none of you
+gainsay it, or slip past it, or avoid it. When the authority comes, then
+will also come the happy life of rule, for the life of misrule can never
+be really happy--never for long. Believe me, I am right."
+
+Pauline pulled her hand away from Aunt Sophia's. She ran to the other
+side of Verena.
+
+"I don't like you, Aunt Sophia," she said, "and I don't want you to stay.
+Renny, you don't like her either, and you don't want her to stay. We
+don't believe all the things you are saying, Aunt Sophia. You can't look
+into our hearts, and although you are clever, you can't know all about
+us. Why shouldn't we be wild in our own fashion? We are very happy. To be
+happy is everything. We have only been unhappy since we knew you were
+coming. Please go away; please do."
+
+"You cannot influence me, Pauline. I love you too well to desert you. Now
+I am going into the house. You can discuss me then with your sister to
+your heart's content."
+
+Miss Tredgold went very slowly towards the old and dilapidated house.
+When she reached the hall door she turned and looked around her.
+
+"I certainly have tough work before me. How am I to manage? If I were not
+thinking so much of Alice, I should leave these impertinent, neglected,
+silly girls to their fate. But no--I seem to see my sister's eyes, to
+hear her voice. I can so well understand what she would really want me to
+do. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved sister. I am free,
+hampered by no ties. I will reform these wild young nieces. I will not be
+easily deterred."
+
+Miss Tredgold clasped her hands before her. The moon was rising in a
+silvery bow in the sky; the air was deliciously fresh and balmy.
+
+"The place is healthy, and the children are strong," she thought,
+"notwithstanding their bad food and their disreputable, worn-out clothes.
+They are healthy, fresh, good-looking girls. But this is summer-time, and
+in summer-time one puts up with discomforts for the sake of air like
+this. But what about winter? I have no doubt they have scarcely any
+fires, and the house must be damp. As the children grow older they will
+develop rheumatism and all kinds of troubles. Yes, my duty is plain. I
+must look after my nieces, both soul and body, for the future."
+
+As Miss Tredgold thought these last thoughts she re-entered the house.
+She walked through the desolate rooms. It was now twilight, but no one
+thought of lighting lamps, or drawing curtains, or shutting windows. Miss
+Tredgold stumbled as she walked. Presently she found that she had
+wandered in the neighborhood of the kitchen. She had no intention of
+bearding Betty in her den--she had no idea that there was a Betty--but as
+she was near the kitchen, and as under that doorway alone there streamed
+a light, she opened the door.
+
+"Is there any one inside?" she asked.
+
+A grunt in the far distance came by way of response. The fire was out in
+the stove, and as Miss Tredgold grew accustomed to the gloom she saw in
+the farthest corner something that resembled the stout form of a woman,
+whose legs rested on one chair and her body on another. A guttering dip
+candle was close to her side, and a paper book was held almost under her
+nose.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you," said Miss Tredgold, "but I have come for a
+light. Will you kindly inform me where I can get a candle?"
+
+"There ain't none in the house."
+
+The book was put down, and the angry face of Betty appeared to view.
+
+"Then I fear I must trouble you to resign the one you yourself are using.
+I must have a light to see my way to my bedroom."
+
+"There ain't no candles. We don't have 'em in summer. This one I bought
+with my own money, and I don't give it up to nobody, laidy or no laidy."
+
+"Am I addressing the cook?"
+
+"You are, ma'am. And I may as well say I am cook and housemaid and
+parlor-maid and kitchen-maid and scullery-maid all in one; and I does the
+laundry, too, whenever it's done at all. You may gather from my words,
+ma'am, that I have a deal to do, so I'll thank you to walk out of my
+kitchen; for if I am resting after my day of hard work, I have a right to
+rest, and my own candle shall light me, and my own book shall amuse me.
+So have the goodness to go, ma'am, and at once."
+
+"I will go," replied Miss Tredgold very quietly, "exactly when I please,
+and not a moment before. I wish to say now that I require breakfast to be
+on the table at nine o'clock, and there must be plenty of good food. Do
+you mean to say that you have not got food in the house? You can, I
+presume, send out for it. Here is a half-sovereign. Spend it in what is
+necessary in order to provide an abundant meal on the table to-morrow
+morning for the use of Mr. Dale, myself, and my nieces."
+
+What Betty would have said had there been no half-sovereign forthcoming
+history will never relate. But half-sovereigns were very few and very
+precious at The Dales. It was almost impossible to get any money out of
+Mr. Dale; he did not seem to know that there was such a thing as money.
+If it was put into his hand by any chance, he spent it on books. Betty's
+wages were terribly in arrears. She wanted her wages, but she was too
+generous, with all her faults, to press for them. But, all the same, the
+touch of the gold in her hand was distinctly soothing, and Miss Tredgold
+immediately rose in her estimation. A lady who produced at will golden
+half-sovereigns, and who was reckless enough to declare that one of these
+treasures might be spent on a single meal, was surely not a person to be
+sniffed at. Betty therefore stumbled to her feet.
+
+"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am; and it's badly we does want some
+things here. I'll get what I can, although the notice is short, and the
+dook's nuptials, so to speak, at the door."
+
+"What!" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"I beg your pardon again, ma'am, but my head aches and I'm a bit
+confused. I'm reading a most wonderful account of the wedding of the Dook
+of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton."
+
+"I never heard of him."
+
+"He's marrying a young girl quite in my own station of life--one that was
+riz from the cottage to the governess-ship, and from the governess-ship
+to the ducal chair. My head is full of Her Grace, ma'am, and you'll
+excuse me if I didn't rightly know to whom I had the honor of talking.
+I'll do what I can. And perhaps you'd like to borrow one of my dip
+candles for the present night."
+
+"I should very much," said Miss Tredgold. "And please understand, Betty--I
+think you said your name was Betty--please understand that if you are on
+my side I shall be on your side. I have come here meaning to stay, and in
+future there will be a complete change in this establishment. You will
+receive good wages, paid on the day they are due. There will be plenty of
+money and plenty of food in the house, and the cook who pleases me stays,
+and the cook who displeases me goes. You understand?"
+
+"Sakes!" muttered Betty, "it's nearly as exciting as the doocal
+romance.--Well, ma'am, I'm of your way of thinking; and here's your
+candle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE STUDY.
+
+
+Miss Tredgold was the sort of woman who never let the grass grow under
+her feet. She felt, therefore, altogether out of place at The Dales, for
+at The Dales there was time for everything. "Time enough" was the motto
+of the establishment: time enough for breakfast, time enough for dinner,
+time enough for supper, time enough for bed, time enough for getting up,
+time enough for mending torn garments; surely, above all things, time
+enough for learning. To judge by the manner in which the family at The
+Dales went on, life was to last for ever and a day. They never hurried;
+they put things off when it pleased them; they stopped in the middle of
+one pursuit and turned to something else when the fancy took them; they
+were unruffled by the worries of life; they were, on the whole, gay,
+daring, indifferent. There was no money--or very little--for the future
+of these girls; they were absolutely uneducated; they were all but
+unclothed, and their food was poor and often insufficient. Nevertheless
+they were fairly happy. "Let well alone" was also their motto. "Never may
+care" was another. As to the rush and toil and strain of modern life,
+they could not even comprehend it. The idea of not being able to put off
+an engagement for a week, a month, or a year seemed to them too
+extraordinary to be believed. They were too young, too healthy, too happy
+to need to kill time; for time presented itself to them with an agreeable
+face, and the hours were never too long.
+
+But although they were so indifferent to weighty matters, they had their
+own enthusiasms, and in their idle way they were busy always and forever.
+To have, therefore, a person like Aunt Sophia put suddenly into the
+middle of their gay and butterfly lives was something which was enough to
+madden the eight healthy girls who lived at The Dales. Aunt Sophia was,
+in their opinion, all crotchets, all nervousness, all fads. She had no
+tact whatsoever; at least, such was their first opinion of her. She put
+her foot down on this little crotchet, and pressed this passing desire
+out of sight. She brought new rules of life into their everyday
+existence, and, what is more, she insisted on being obeyed. With all
+their cleverness they were not half so clever as Aunt Sophia; they were
+no match for this good lady, who was still young at heart, who had been
+highly educated, who was full of enthusiasm, full of method, and full of
+determination. Aunt Sophia brought two very strong essentials with her to
+The Dales, and there was certainly little chance of the girls getting the
+victory over her. One thing which she brought was determination, joined
+to authority; the other thing was money. With these two weapons in her
+hand, what chance had the girls?
+
+It might have been supposed that Miss Tredgold had done enough on the
+first night of her arrival. She had to a great extent vanquished the
+cook; and she had, further, told Verena and Pauline what lay before them.
+Surely she might have been contented, and have taken her dip candle in
+its tin candlestick and retired to her own room. But that was not Aunt
+Sophia's way. She discovered a light stealing from under another door,
+and she made for that door.
+
+Now, no one entered Mr. Dale's room without knocking. None of the girls
+would have ventured to do so. But Aunt Sophia was made of sterner stuff.
+She did not knock. She opened the door and entered. The scholar was
+seated at the far end of the room. A large reading-lamp stood on the
+table. It spread a wide circle of light on the papers and books, and on
+his own silvery head and thin aquiline features. The rest of the room was
+in shadow. Miss Tredgold entered and stood a few feet away from Mr. Dale.
+Mr. Dale had already forgotten that such a person as Miss Sophia existed.
+It was his habit to work for a great many hours each night. It was during
+the hours of darkness that he most thoroughly absorbed himself in his
+darling occupation. His dinner had been better than usual, and that
+delicious coffee had stimulated his brain. He had not tasted coffee like
+that for years. His brain, therefore, being better nourished, was keener
+than usual to go on with his accustomed work. As Miss Sophia advanced to
+his side he uttered one or two sighs of rapture, for again a fresh
+rendering of a much-disputed passage occurred to him. Light was, in
+short, flooding the pages of his translation.
+
+"The whole classical world will bless me," murmured Mr. Dale. "I am doing
+a vast service."
+
+"I am sorry to interrupt you, Henry," said the sharp, incisive tones of
+his sister-in-law.
+
+At Miss Tredgold's words he dropped his pen. It made a blot on the page,
+which further irritated him; for, untidy as he was in most things, his
+classical work was exquisitely neat.
+
+"Do go away," he said. "I am busy. Go away at once."
+
+"I am sorry, Henry, but I must stay. You know me, don't you? Your
+sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold."
+
+"Go away, Sophia. I don't want to be rude, but I never see any one at
+this hour."
+
+"Henry, you are forced to see me. I shall go when I choose, not before."
+
+"Madam!"
+
+Mr. Dale sprang to his feet.
+
+"Madam!" he repeated, almost sputtering out his words, "you surely don't
+wish me to expel you. You don't intend to stand there all night. I can't
+have it. I don't allow people in my study. I am sorry to be discourteous
+to a lady, but I state a fact; you must go immediately. You don't realize
+what it is to have a brain like mine, nor to have undertaken such a
+herculean task. Ah! the beautiful thought which meant so much has
+vanished. Madam, you are responsible."
+
+"Stop!" interrupted Miss Tredgold. "I will go the moment you do what I
+want."
+
+"Will you? I'll do anything--anything that keeps you out of this room."
+
+"That is precisely what I require. I don't wish to come into this
+room--that is, for the present. By-and-by it must be cleaned, for I
+decline to live in a dirty house; but I give you a fortnight's grace."
+
+"And the rendering of the passage is beyond doubt, according to
+Clericus---- I beg your pardon; are you still speaking?"
+
+"Yes, Henry. I am annoying you, I know; and, all things considered, I am
+glad, for you need rousing. I intend to sit or stand in this room, close
+to you, until morning if necessary. Ah! here is a chair."
+
+As Miss Tredgold spoke she drew forward an unwieldy arm-chair, which was
+piled up with books and papers. These she was calmly about to remove,
+when a shriek from the anguished scholar stopped her.
+
+"Don't touch them," he exclaimed. "You destroy the work of months. If you
+must have a chair, take mine."
+
+Miss Tredgold did take it. She now found herself seated within a few
+yards of the scholar's desk. The bright light from the lamp fell on her
+face; it looked pale, calm, and determined. Mr. Dale was in shadow; the
+agony on his face was therefore not perceptible.
+
+"Take anything you want; only go, woman," he said.
+
+"Henry, you are a difficult person to deal with, and I am sorry to have
+to speak to you as I do. I am sorry to have to take, as it were,
+advantage of you; but I intend to stay in this house."
+
+"You are not wanted, Sophia."
+
+"I am not wished for, Henry; but as to being wanted, no woman was ever
+more wanted."
+
+"That you are not."
+
+"I say I am; and, what is more, I intend to remain. We need not discuss
+this point, for it is settled. I take up my sojourn in this house for
+three months."
+
+"Three months!" said Mr. Dale. "Oh, my word! And this is only June. From
+June to July, from July to August, from August to September! It is very
+cruel of you, Sophia. I did not think my poor wife's sister would torture
+me like this."
+
+"For the sake of your family I intend to stay, Henry. You will have to
+submit. I do not leave this room until you submit. What is more, you have
+to do something further. I want you to give me authority over your
+children. The moment I have it--I want it in writing, remember--I will
+leave you; and I will trouble you in the future as little as woman can
+trouble man. You will have better meals; but that you won't care about."
+
+"The coffee," murmured Mr. Dale.
+
+"Yes, you will have plenty of that delicious coffee. You will also have
+cleaner rooms."
+
+"This room is not to be touched; you understand?"
+
+"For the present we will let that matter lie in abeyance. Come, give me
+your authority in writing, and I leave the room; but if you don't, I stay
+in this chair--your chair, Henry Dale--all night if necessary."
+
+If ever there was a poor, bewildered man, it was Mr. Dale at that moment.
+He did not give many thoughts to anything on earth but his beloved
+studies; but, all the same, when he had time for a momentary reflection
+that he possessed girls, he felt that he quite liked them. In his own
+fashion he was fond of Verena; and once when Briar had a very bad cold he
+sat with her for a very few minutes, and recommended her to try snuff. He
+did not wish to make his children unhappy, and he thought that the advent
+of Miss Tredgold would have that effect on them. But, after all, a
+determined woman like her must be humored; and what were the children
+compared to his own most valuable work? In the days to come they would be
+proud to own him. He would be spoken of as the very great English scholar
+whose rendering of Virgil was the most perfect that had ever been put
+into English prose. Oh! it was impossible to hesitate another moment. The
+woman was in his chair, and his thoughts were leaving him.
+
+"Madam," he said, "you have taken me at a cruel disadvantage. I am
+seriously sorry for my poor children."
+
+"Never mind about that now, Henry. You are, I perceive, a wise man. You
+can rest assured that I will do what is best both for you and for them."
+
+"Very well, madam, I yield."
+
+"You give me absolute authority to do what I think best for your
+children?"
+
+"Ye--s."
+
+"To reorganize this household?"
+
+"Not this room."
+
+"With the exception of this room."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"You will uphold my authority when the girls come to you, as perhaps they
+will, and ask you to interfere?"
+
+"Oh, Sophia, you won't be hard on the poor children?"
+
+"I will be just to them. You will uphold my authority?"
+
+"Ye--s."
+
+"If I think it necessary to punish them, you won't condemn the
+punishment?"
+
+"Oh, please, Sophia, do go away! The night is passing quickly. I never
+think well by daylight."
+
+"Put it on paper, Henry. Or stay! that will take too long. Give me a
+sheet of paper; I will write what I require. I only want your signature."
+
+Poor Mr. Dale had to search among his papers for a blank sheet. Miss
+Sophia seized his special stylographic pen, pressed very hard on the nib,
+and wrote what she required. Mr. Dale felt certain he would find it quite
+spoilt when he came to use it again. But at last all her requirements
+were on paper, and Henry Dale wrote his signature at the end.
+
+"Thank you, Henry; you have acted wisely. You have your study now to
+yourself."
+
+Miss Tredgold bowed as she left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TOPSY-TURVYDOM.
+
+
+The fortnight that followed was not likely to be forgotten by the young
+Dales. It would live in the remembrance of each child old enough to
+notice. Even Penelope found the course of events interesting--sometimes
+irritating, it is true; sometimes also delightful; but at least always
+exciting. Miss Tredgold never did things by halves. She had got the
+absolute authority which she required from the master of the house, and
+having got it she refrained from annoying him, in any way whatsoever. His
+meals were served with punctuality, and were far more comfortable than
+they had ever been before. He was always presented with a cup of strong,
+fragrant, delicious coffee after his dinner. This coffee enabled him to
+pursue his translation with great clearness and accuracy. His study up to
+the present was left undisturbed. His papers were allowed to remain thick
+with dust; his chairs were allowed to be laden with books and papers; the
+carpet was allowed to remain full of holes; the windows were left exactly
+as the scholar liked them--namely, tightly screwed down so that not even
+the faintest breath of heaven's air could come in and disarrange the
+terrible disorder.
+
+But the rest of the house was truly turned topsy-turvy. It was necessary,
+Miss Tredgold assured the girls, to have topsy-turvydom before the reign
+of order could begin.
+
+At first the young Dales were very angry. For the whole of the first day
+Verena wept at intervals. Pauline sulked. Briar wept one minute and
+laughed the next. The other children followed in the footsteps of their
+elders. Penelope was now openly and defiantly a grown-up child. She
+belonged to the schoolroom, although no schoolroom as yet existed at The
+Dales. She defied nurse; she took her meals with her sisters, and pinched
+baby whenever she found her alone. Miss Tredgold, however, took no notice
+of the tears or smiles or groans or discontented looks. She had a great
+deal to do, and she performed her tasks with rectitude and skill and
+despatch. New furniture was ordered from Southampton. She drove to
+Lyndhurst Road with Verena in the shabby trap which had first brought her
+to The Dales. She went from there to Southampton and chose new furniture.
+Verena could not help opening her eyes in amazement. Such very pretty
+white bedsteads; such charming chests of drawers; such nice,
+clean-looking carpets!
+
+"Surely, Aunt Sophia," she said, "these things are not for us?"
+
+"They certainly are, my dear," replied her aunt; "for in future I hope
+you will live as a lady and a Christian, and no longer as a savage."
+
+The furniture arrived, and was put into the rooms. Pretty white curtains
+were placed at the windows; the paint was washed, and the paper rubbed
+down with bread.
+
+"Fresh decoration and repainting must wait until I get the children to
+London for the winter," thought Aunt Sophia.
+
+But notwithstanding the fact that paint and paper were almost
+non-existent by this time at The Dales, the house assumed quite a new
+air. As to Betty, she was in the most extraordinary way brought over
+absolutely to Miss Tredgold's part of the establishment. Miss Tredgold
+not only raised her wages on the spot, but paid her every farthing that
+was due in the past. She spoke to her a good deal about her duty, and of
+what she owed to the family, and of what she, Miss Tredgold, would do for
+her if she proved equal to the present emergency. Betty began to regard
+Miss Tredgold as a sort of marchioness in disguise. So interested was she
+in her, and so sure that one of the real "haristocrats" resided on the
+premises, that she ceased to read the _Family Paper_ except at long
+intervals. She served up quite good dinners, and by the end of the
+fortnight few people would have known The Dales. For not only was the
+house clean and sweet--the drawing-room quite a charming old room, with
+its long Gothic windows, its tracery of ivy outside, and its peep into
+the distant rose-garden; the hall bright with great pots of flowers
+standing about--but the girls themselves were no longer in rags. The
+furniture dealer's was not the only shop which Miss Tredgold had visited
+at Southampton. She had also gone to a linen draper's, and had bought
+many nice clothes for the young folks.
+
+The house being so much improved, and the girls being clothed afresh, a
+sufficient staff of servants arrived from a neighboring town. Betty was
+helped in the kitchen by a neat kitchen-maid; there were two housemaids
+and a parlor-maid; and John had a boy to help in the garden.
+
+"Now, Verena," said Miss Tredgold on the evening of the day when the new
+servants were pronounced a great success, "what do you think of
+everything?"
+
+"You have made the place quite pretty, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"And you like it?"
+
+"I think you mean to be very kind."
+
+"My dear Verena, do talk sense. Don't tell me that you don't feel more
+comfortable in that pale-gray, nicely fitting dress, with the blush-rose
+in your belt, and that exceedingly pretty white hat on your head, than
+you did when you rushed up to welcome me, little savage that you were, a
+fortnight ago."
+
+"I was so happy as a savage!"
+
+"And you are not happy now?"
+
+"I think you are kind, Aunt Sophia, and perhaps--I shall get accustomed
+to it."
+
+Her aunt whisked round with some impatience.
+
+"I hope so," she said; "for, whether you like it or not, you will have to
+put up with it. I fully intend to be kind, but I also mean to be very
+firm. I have now got the home in which you live into decent order, and
+you yourselves are respectably clothed. But I have not yet tackled the
+most important part of my duties, my dear Verena."
+
+"Oh, please, Aunt Sophia, what else is necessary?"
+
+Miss Tredgold threw up her hands.
+
+"A great, great deal more," she cried. "I have not yet touched your
+minds; and I fear, from the way you speak, that I have scarcely touched
+your hearts. Well, your bodies at least are attended to, and now come
+your minds. Lastly, I hope to reach the most important of all--your
+hearts. Verena, I must probe your ignorance in order to stimulate you to
+learn. You, my dear, will be grown up in three years, so that you in
+particular have a vast lot to do."
+
+"But I hate learning, and I shouldn't like to be a learned woman," said
+Verena. "Mother knew a lot of things, but she wasn't learned like
+father."
+
+"Good gracious, child! I don't want you to be like your father. To tell
+the truth, a bookworm such as he is is one of the most irritating persons
+in existence. But there! What am I saying? I oughtn't to speak against
+him in your presence. And your poor mother loved him, oh, so much! Now
+then, dear, to return to yourself and your sisters. I presume that you
+would like to be a useful and valuable member of society--a woman who has
+been trained to do her best, and to exercise the highest influence over
+all those with whom she comes in contact. Influence, which springs from
+character, my dear Verena, is the highest power that any one can get.
+Now, an ignorant person has little or no influence; therefore, to be kind
+and sympathetic and useful in the future, you must know many things. You
+have not a minute to lose. I appeal to you for your mother's sake; for my
+dear, dear sister would have liked her eldest child to be--ah,
+Verena!--so good and so true!"
+
+"You touch me, Aunt Sophy," said Verena, "when you talk of mother. You
+touch me more than words can say. Yes, I will try to be good; but you
+must bear with me if I don't take the yoke too kindly at first."
+
+"Poor child! I will try to make it light for you. Now what is the matter,
+Penelope?"
+
+"Please, please, Aunt Sophy," said that young person, rushing up at the
+moment.
+
+"Hold yourself erect, my dear; don't run quite so fast. There! you have
+got a rent already in your new frock. Now what do you want?"
+
+"May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?"
+
+"What are you now?"
+
+"Nursey says I'm nursery. But I don't want to be nursery; I want to stay
+always with my own good Aunty Sophy. That is what I want. May I be a
+schoolroom child?"
+
+"In the first place, you are not to call me 'aunty.' I am Aunt Sophia to
+you. I dislike abbreviations."
+
+"What's them?"
+
+"Say, 'What are they?'"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"I will tell you another time. How old are you, Penelope?"
+
+"I wor seven my last birthday, one month agone."
+
+"Your grammar is disgraceful, child. Please understand that the
+schoolroom has its penalties."
+
+"What's them?"
+
+"Again I shall have to correct you. 'What are they?' is the sentence you
+ought to use. But now, my dear, I don't approve of little girls learning
+much when they are only seven years old; but if you wish to be a
+schoolroom girl you will have to take your place in the schoolroom, and
+you will have to learn to submit. You will have to be under more
+discipline than you are now with nurse."
+
+"All the same, I'll be with my own aunt," said Penelope, raising her bold
+black eyes and fixing them on Miss Sophia's face.
+
+But Miss Tredgold was not the sort of person to be influenced by soft
+words. "Deeds, not words," was her motto.
+
+"You have said enough, Penelope," she said. "Take your choice; you may be
+a schoolroom child for a month if you like."
+
+"I wouldn't if I were you, Pen," said Josephine.
+
+"But I will," said Penelope.
+
+In her heart of hearts she was terrified at the thought of the
+schoolroom, but even more did she fear the knowledge that nurse would
+laugh at her if she returned to the nursery.
+
+"I will stay," she said. "I am a schoolroom child;" and she pirouetted
+round and round Aunt Sophia.
+
+"But, please, Aunt Sophia," said Verena, "who is going to teach us?"
+
+"I intend to have that honor," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+If there were no outward groans among her assembled nieces at these
+words, there were certainly spirit groans, for the girls did not look
+forward to lessons with Aunt Sophia.
+
+"You are all displeased," she said; "and I am scarcely surprised. The
+fact is, I have not got any efficient teacher to come here just yet. The
+person I should wish for is not easy to find. I myself know a great deal
+more than you do, and I have my own ideas with regard to instruction. I
+may as well tell you at once that I am a very severe teacher, and
+somewhat cranky, too. A girl who does not know her lessons is apt to find
+herself seated at my left side. Now, my right side is sunshiny and
+pleasant; but my left side faces due northeast. I think that will explain
+everything to you. We will meet in the schoolroom to-morrow at nine
+o'clock sharp. Now I must go."
+
+When Miss Tredgold had vanished the girls looked at each other.
+
+"Her northeast side!" said Pauline. "It makes me shudder even to think of
+it."
+
+But notwithstanding these remarks the girls did feel a certain amount of
+interest at the thought of the new life that lay before them. Everything
+had changed from that sunny, languorous, _dolce far niente_ time a
+fortnight back. Now the girls felt keen and brisk, and they knew well
+that each moment in the future would be spent in active employment.
+
+The next day, sharp at nine o'clock, the young people who were to form
+Miss Tredgold's school entered the new schoolroom. It was suitably and
+prettily furnished, and had a charming appearance. Large maps were hung
+on the walls; there was a long line of bookshelves filled partly with
+story books, partly with history books, and partly with ordinary lesson
+books. The windows were draped with white muslin, and stood wide open. As
+the girls took their seats at the baize-covered table they could see out
+into the garden. A moment after they had arrived in the schoolroom Miss
+Tredgold made her appearance.
+
+"We will begin with prayers," she said.
+
+She read a portion from the Bible, made a few remarks, and then they all
+knelt as she repeated the Lord's prayer.
+
+"Now, my dears," said their new governess as they rose from their knees,
+"lessons will begin. I hope we shall proceed happily and quietly. It will
+be uphill work at first; but if we each help the other, uphill work will
+prove to have its own pleasures. It's a long pull, and a strong pull, and
+a pull all together that masters difficulties. If we are all united we
+can accomplish anything; but if there is mutiny in the camp, then things
+may be difficult. I warn you all, however, that under any circumstances I
+mean to win the victory. It will be much easier, therefore, to submit at
+first. There will be no use in sulkiness, in laziness, in inattention.
+Make a brave effort now, all of you, and you will never regret this day.
+Now, Verena, you and I will have some conversation together. The rest of
+you children will read this page in the History of England, and tell me
+afterwards what you can remember about it."
+
+Here Miss Tredgold placed a primer before each child, and she and Verena
+retired into the bay-window. They came out again at the end of ten
+minutes. Verena's cheeks were crimson, and Miss Tredgold decidedly wore a
+little of her northeast air. Pauline, on the whole, had a more successful
+interview with her new governess than her sister. She was smarter and
+brighter than Verena in many ways. But before the morning was over Miss
+Tredgold announced that all her pupils were shamefully ignorant.
+
+"I know more about you now than I did," she said. "You will all have to
+work hard. Verena, you cannot even read properly. As to your writing, it
+is straggling, uneven, and faulty in spelling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+NANCY KING.
+
+
+The rest of the day passed in a subdued state. The girls hardly knew
+themselves. They felt as though tiny and invisible chains were
+surrounding them. These chains pulled them whenever they moved. They made
+their presence felt when they spoke, when they sat down, and when they
+rose up. They were with them at dinner; they were with them whenever Miss
+Tredgold put in an appearance. Perhaps they were silken chains, but, all
+the same, they were intensely annoying. Verena was the most patient of
+the nine. She said to her sisters:
+
+"We have never had any discipline. I was reading the other day in one of
+mother's books that discipline is good. It is the same thing as when you
+prune the fruit trees. Don't you remember the time when John got a very
+good gardener from Southampton to come and look over our trees? The
+gardener said, 'These trees have all run to wood; you must prune them.'
+And he showed John how, and we watched him. Don't you remember, girls?"
+
+"Oh, don't I!" said Pauline. "And he cut away a lot of the little apples,
+and hundreds of tiny pears, and a lot of lovely branches; and I began to
+cry, and I told him he was a horrid, horrid man, and that I hated him."
+
+"And what did he answer?"
+
+"Oh, he got ruder than ever! He said, 'If I was your pa I'd do a little
+pruning on you.' Oh, wasn't I angry!"
+
+Verena laughed.
+
+"But think a little more," she said. "Don't you remember the following
+year how splendid the pears were? And we had such heaps of apples; and
+the gooseberries and raspberries were equally fine. We didn't hate the
+man when we were eating our delicious fruit."
+
+Pauline made a slight grimace.
+
+"Look here, Renny," she said suddenly; "for goodness' sake don't begin to
+point morals. It's bad enough to have an old aunt here without your
+turning into a mentor. We all know what you want to say, but please don't
+say it. Haven't we been scolded and directed and ordered about all day
+long? We don't want you to do it, too."
+
+"Very well, I won't," said Verena.
+
+"Hullo!" suddenly cried Briar; "if this isn't Nancy King! Oh, welcome,
+Nancy--welcome! We are glad to see you."
+
+Nancy King was a spirited and bright-looking girl who lived about a mile
+away. Her father had a large farm which was known as The Hollies. He had
+held this land for many years, and was supposed to be in flourishing
+circumstances. Nancy was his only child. She had been sent to a
+fashionable school at Brighton, and considered herself quite a young
+lady. She came whenever she liked to The Dales, and the girls often met
+her in the Forest, and enjoyed her society vastly. Now in the most
+fashionable London attire, Nancy sailed across the lawn, calling out as
+she did so:
+
+"Hullo, you nine! You look like the Muses. What's up now? I have heard
+most wonderful, astounding whispers."
+
+"Oh, Nancy, we're all so glad to see you!" said Briar. She left her seat,
+ran up to the girl, and took her hand. "Come and sit here--here in the
+midst of our circle. We have such a lot to say to you!"
+
+"And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how grand we are!"
+
+Nancy's twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval at Verena's plain
+but very neat gray dress, and at the equally neat costumes of the other
+girls. Then finally she gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an
+ugly dress of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black
+and defiant as her own.
+
+"May I ask," said Nancy slowly, "what has this nursery baby to do in the
+midst of the grown-ups?"
+
+"I'm not nursery," said Penelope, her face growing crimson; "I'm
+schoolroom. Don't tell me I'm nursery, because I'm not. We're all
+schoolroom, and we're having a right good time."
+
+"Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don't look like it. You look,
+the whole nine of you, awfully changed, and as prim as prim can be.
+'Prunes and prisms' wouldn't melt in your mouths. You're not half, nor
+quarter, as nice as you were when I saw you last. I've just come home for
+good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by. And oh!
+my boy cousins and my two greatest chums at school are staying with me
+now at The Hollies. The girls' names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh,
+they're fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls. You are
+frightfully stand-off and prim."
+
+"Sit close to me, Nancy," said Verena. "We're not a bit changed to you,"
+she added.
+
+"Well, that's all right, honey, for I'm not changed to you. Even if I am
+a very rich girl, I'm the sort to always cling to my old friends; and
+although you are as poor as church mice, you are quite a good sort. I
+have always said so--always. I've been talking a lot about you to Amelia
+and Rebecca, and they'd give their eyes to see you. I thought you might
+ask us all over."
+
+"Oh! I daren't, Nancy," said Verena. "We are not our own mistresses now."
+
+"Well, that's exactly what I heard," said Nancy. "Oh, how hot it is! Pen,
+for goodness' sake run and fetch me a cabbage-leaf to fan my face."
+
+Penelope ran off willingly enough. Nancy turned to the others.
+
+"I sent her off on purpose," she said. "If we can't come to you, you must
+come to us. We three girls at The Hollies, and my two boy cousins, Tom
+and Jack, have the most daring, delightful scheme to propose. We want to
+have a midnight picnic."
+
+"Midnight picnic!" cried Verena. "But we can't possibly come, Nancy."
+
+"My good girl, why not? You know I talked about it last year. We want to
+have one on a very grand scale; and there are a few friends at
+Southampton that I would ask to join us. You won't have any expense
+whatever. I'll stump up for the whole. Father gives me so much money that
+I have at the present moment over five pounds in the savings-bank. We
+will light fires in a clearing not far from here, and we will have tea
+and supper afterwards; and we shall dance--dance by the light of the
+moon--and I will bring my guitar to make music. Can you imagine anything
+in all the world more fascinating?"
+
+"Oh, Nancy, it does sound too lovely!" said Briar. "I'd just give the
+world to go."
+
+"Well, then, you shall come."
+
+"But Aunt Sophy would not hear of it," said Verena.
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Briar; "we must go. It would be such a jolly treat!"
+
+Nancy favored the eight girls with a sharp glance.
+
+"I have heard of that dreadful old body," she said. "Father told me. He
+said you'd be frumped up like anything, and all the gay life taken out of
+you. I came over on purpose. I pity you from the very bottom of my
+heart."
+
+"But, Nancy, you can't think how things are changed," said Pauline. "All
+our time is occupied. Lessons began to-day. They are going to take hours
+and hours."
+
+"But these are holiday times," said Nancy. "All the world has a holiday
+in the middle of the summer."
+
+"That's true enough," said Verena; "but then we had holidays for over a
+year, and Aunt Sophia says we must begin at once. She is quite right, I'm
+sure; although of course we scarcely like it. And anyhow, Nancy, she
+won't allow us to go to a midnight picnic; there's no use thinking about
+it."
+
+"But suppose you don't ask her. Of course, if she's an old maid she'll
+refuse. Old maids are the queerest, dumpiest things on the earth. I'm
+really thankful I'm not bothered with any of them. Oh! here comes Pen.
+It's nonsense to have a child like that out of the nursery. We'd best not
+say anything before her. Verena and Briar, will you walk down to the gate
+with me? I thought perhaps we might have the picnic in a week. It could
+be easily managed; you know it could."
+
+"Oh, we must go!" said Pauline.
+
+"I'm going," said Josephine.
+
+But Verena was silent.
+
+"Here's your cabbage-leaf. How red your face looks!" said Penelope.
+
+Nancy turned and gazed at her. She was a bold-looking girl, and by no
+means pretty. She snatched the leaf angrily from Penelope's hand, saying:
+
+"Oh, my dear, go away! How you do worry, jumping and dancing about! And
+what a stupid, good-for-nothing leaf you've brought! Fetch me one that's
+not completely riddled with caterpillar holes."
+
+Penelope's black eyes flashed fire, and her face flushed.
+
+"If I could, I would just," she said.
+
+"If you could you would what?" said Nancy.
+
+"I know--I know! And I'll do it, too."
+
+A provoking smile visited the lips of the child. She danced backwards and
+forwards in an ecstasy of glee.
+
+"I can punish you all fine," said Penelope; "and I'll do it, too."
+
+She vanished out of sight. Now, it must be admitted that Penelope was not
+a nice child. She had her good points, for few children are without them;
+but in addition to being thoroughly untrained, to never having exercised
+self-control, she had by nature certain peculiarities which the other
+children had not. It had been from her earliest days her earnest desire
+to curry favor with those in authority, and yet to act quite as naughtily
+as any one else when she thought no one was looking. Even when quite a
+tiny child Penelope was wont to sit as still as a mouse in nurse's
+presence. If nurse said, "Miss Penelope, you are not to move or you will
+wake baby," then nurse knew that Penelope would not stir. But if this
+same child happened to be left with baby, so strong would be her jealousy
+that she would give the infant a sharp pinch and set it howling, and then
+run from the room.
+
+These peculiarities continued with her growth. Nurse was fond of her
+because she was quiet and useful in the nursery, fairly tidy in her
+habits, and fairly helpful. But even nurse was wont to say, "You never
+can get at Miss Penelope. You can never see through what is brewing in
+her mind."
+
+Now, when Aunt Sophia appeared on the scene, Penelope instantly
+determined to carry out the darling wish of her heart. This was no less
+than to be removed from the dullness of the nursery to the fascinating
+life that she supposed the elder children led. To accomplish this she
+thought it would be only necessary to make a great fuss about Aunt
+Sophia, to attend to her fads, and to give her numerous little
+attentions. In short, to show that she, Penelope, cared very much for her
+new aunt. But Aunt Sophia did not care for Penelope's fusses, and
+disliked her small attentions. Nevertheless, the small girl persevered,
+and in the end she did win a triumph, for she was promoted to the
+schoolroom, with its superior privileges and--alas! alas!--also its
+undoubted drawbacks. She, who hated lessons, must now try to read; she
+must also try to write, and must make valiant efforts to spell. Above and
+beyond all these things, she had to do one yet harder--she had to sit
+mute as a mouse for a couple of hours daily, with her hands neatly folded
+in her lap; and by-and-by she had to struggle with her clumsy little
+fingers to make hideous noises on the cracked old piano. These things
+were not agreeable to the wild child, and so uncomfortable and restrained
+had she felt during the first morning's lessons that she almost resolved
+to humble her pride and return to the nursery. But the thought of her
+sisters' withering, sarcastic remarks, and of nurse's bitterly cold
+reception, and nurse's words, "I told you so," being repeated for ever in
+her ears, was too much for Penelope, and she determined to give a further
+trial to the schoolroom life. Now it occurred to her that a moment of
+triumph was before her. In the old days she had secretly adored Nancy
+King, for Nancy had given her more than one lollypop; but when Nancy
+asked what the nursery child was doing with the schoolroom folk, and
+showed that she did not appreciate Penelope's society, the little girl's
+heart became full of anger.
+
+"I'll tell about her. I'll get her into trouble. I'll get them all into
+trouble," she thought.
+
+She ran into the shrubbery, and stood there thinking for a time. She was
+a queer-looking little figure as she stood thus in her short holland
+overall, her stout bare legs, brown as berries, slightly apart, her head
+thrown back, her hair awry, a smudge on her cheek, her black eyes
+twinkling.
+
+"I will do it," she said to herself. "Aunt Sophy shall find out that I am
+the good one of the family."
+
+Penelope ran wildly across the shrubbery, invaded the kitchen-garden,
+invaded the yard, and presently invaded the house. She found Miss Sophia
+sitting by her writing-table. Miss Sophia had a headache; teaching was
+not her vocation. She had worked harder that day than ever in her life
+before, and she had a great many letters to write.
+
+It was therefore a very busy and a slightly cross person who turned round
+and faced Penelope.
+
+"Don't slam the door, Penelope," she said; "and don't run into the room
+in that breathless sort of way."
+
+"Well, I thought you ought for to know. I done it 'cos of you."
+
+"'I did it because of you,' you should say."
+
+"I did it because of you. I am very fond of you, aunt."
+
+"I hope so; and I trust you will prove your affection by your deeds."
+
+"Bovver deeds!" remarked Penelope.
+
+"What is that you said, my dear?"
+
+"I say, bovver deeds!"
+
+"I confess I do not understand. Run away, now, Penelope; I am busy."
+
+"But you ought for to know. Nancy King has come."
+
+"Who is Nancy King?"
+
+"A girl. She's squatting up close to Renny on the lawn, and her arm is
+twisted round Pauline's waist. She's big, and dressed awful grand. She
+has gold bangles on her arms, and tinkling gold things round her neck,
+and she's here, and I thought course you ought for to know. I thought so
+'cos I love you. Aren't you pleased? Aren't I the sort of little girl you
+could perhaps give a lollypop to?"
+
+"No, you are not, Penelope. I do not wish you to tell tales of your
+sisters. Go away, my dear; go away."
+
+Penelope, in some wonder, and with a sense of disgust, not only with
+Nancy King and Miss Tredgold, but also with herself, left the room.
+
+"I won't tell her any more," she thought. "She never seems to like what I
+do for her. She'd be pretty lonesome if it wasn't for me; but she don't
+seem to care for anybody. I'll just rush away to nursey this very minute
+and tell her how I love being a schoolroom girl. I'll tell her I dote on
+my lessons, and that I never for the big, big, wide world would be a
+nursery child again."
+
+"Queer little child, Penelope," thought Miss Tredgold when her small
+niece had left her.
+
+She sat with her pen suspended, lost in thought.
+
+"Very queer child," she soliloquized; "not the least like the others. I
+can't say that I specially care for her. At present I am not in love with
+any of my nieces; but of all of them, Penelope is the child I like the
+least. She tells tales; she tries to curry favor with me. Is she
+truthful? Is she sincere? I have a terrible fear within me that occasions
+may arise when Penelope would prove deceitful. There! what am I saying? A
+motherless child--my own niece--surely I ought to love her. Yes, I do
+love her. I will try to love them all. What did she say about a girl
+sitting on the lawn with my girls? It is nice to talk of the Dales as my
+girls; it gives me a sort of family feeling, just as though I were not an
+old maid. I wonder what friends my girls have made for themselves round
+here. Nancy King. I don't know any people of the name of King who live
+about here. If Henry were any one else he would probably be able to tell
+me. I will go and see the girl for myself."
+
+Miss Tredgold left the room. She had a very stately walk. The girls
+always spoke of her movements as "sailing." Miss Tredgold now sailed
+across the lawn, and in the same dignified fashion came up to the
+secluded nook where the girls, with Nancy King in their midst, were
+enjoying themselves. They were all talking eagerly. Nancy King was seated
+almost in the center of the group; the other girls were bending towards
+her. As Miss Tredgold appeared in view Josephine was exclaiming in her
+high-pitched, girlish voice:
+
+"Oh, I say, Nancy! What screaming fun!"
+
+When Josephine spoke Lucy clapped her hands, Helen laughed, Verena looked
+puzzled, and Pauline's expression seemed to say she longed for something
+very badly indeed.
+
+"My dears, what are you all doing?" suddenly cried Aunt Sophia.
+
+She had come up quietly, and they had none of them heard her. It was just
+as if a pistol had gone off in their ears. The whole nine jumped to their
+feet. Nancy's red face became redder. She pushed her gaily trimmed hat
+forward over her heated brows. She had an instinctive feeling that she
+had never before seen any one so dignified and magnificent as Miss Sophia
+Tredgold. She knew that this was the case, although Miss Sophia's dress
+was almost dowdy, and the little brown slipper which peeped out from
+under the folds of her gray dress was decidedly the worse for wear. Nancy
+felt at the same time the greatest admiration for Miss Tredgold, the
+greatest dislike to her, and the greatest terror of her.
+
+"Aunt Sophia," said Verena, who could be a lady if she chose, "may I
+introduce our special friend----"
+
+"And crony," interrupted Nancy.
+
+"Our special friend, Nancy King," repeated Verena. "We have known her all
+our lives, Aunt Sophia."
+
+"How do you do, Miss King?" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She favored "the young person," as she termed Miss King, with a very
+distant bow.
+
+"Girls," she said, turning to the others, "are you aware that preparation
+hour has arrived? Will you all go quietly indoors?--Miss King, my nieces
+are beginning their studies in earnest, and I do not allow the hour of
+preparation to be interfered with by any one."
+
+"I know all about that," said Nancy in a glib voice. "I was at a
+first-rate school myself for years. Weren't we kept strict, just! My
+word! we couldn't call our noses our own. The only language was
+_parlez-vous_. But it was a select school--very; and now that I have
+left, I like to feel that I am accomplished. None of you girls can beat
+me on the piano. I know nearly all the girls' songs in _San Toy_ and the
+_Belle of New York_. Father loves to hear me when I sing 'Rhoda Pagoda.'
+Perhaps, Miss Tredgold, you'd like to hear me play on the pianoforte. I
+dote on dance music; don't you, Miss Tredgold? Dance music is so lively;
+it warms the cockles of the heart--don't it, Miss Tredgold?"
+
+"I don't dance, so it is impossible for me to answer," said Miss
+Tredgold. "I am sorry, Miss King, to disturb a pleasant meeting, but my
+girls are under discipline, and the hour for preparation has arrived."
+
+Nancy shrugged her capacious shoulders.
+
+"I suppose that means _conge_ for poor Nancy King," she said. "Very
+sorry, I'm sure. Good-day, madam.--Good-bye, Renny. I'll look you up
+another day.--Good-bye to all. I'm off to have a bit of fun with my boy
+cousins."
+
+Nancy swung round and left the group. She walked awkwardly, switching her
+shoulders and swaying from side to side, a dirty train trailing after
+her.
+
+"May I ask who your friend really is?" said Miss Tredgold when she had
+watched the departure of this most undesirable acquaintance.
+
+"She is Nancy King, Aunt Sophia. We have known her all our lives," said
+Verena.
+
+"My dear Verena, I have heard that statement before. Nevertheless, the
+fact that you have known that young person since you were little children
+does not reply to my question. Who is she? Where does she come from? Who
+is her father? I don't remember to have heard of any gentlefolks of the
+name of King residing in this part of the New Forest."
+
+"She is not gentlefolk," said Pauline.
+
+Pauline came a step nearer as she spoke. Her eyes were bright, and there
+was a red spot on each cheek.
+
+"But although she is not born a lady, she is our friend," she continued.
+"She is the daughter of Farmer King, who keeps a very jolly house; and
+they have plenty of money. We have often and often been at The Hollies."
+
+"Oh! we get delicious apples there," interposed Adelaide; "the juiciest
+you ever tasted--the cherry-and-brandy sort."
+
+"I have never heard of that special apple, and I dislike its name," said
+Miss Sophia.--"Now come into the house, all of you."
+
+She did not question them further. She walked on in front.
+
+"I can't stand too much of this," whispered Briar to Verena.
+
+But Verena said "Hush!" and clasped Briar's little hand as it lay on her
+arm.
+
+They entered the house and proceeded to the pleasant schoolroom.
+
+"It is now four o'clock," said Miss Tredgold. "At five tea is served. As
+the evening is so fine, I have ordered it to be laid under the cedar-tree
+on the lawn. For the next hour I expect close attention to lessons. I
+shall not stay in the room, but you, Verena, are monitress during my
+absence. Please understand that I expect honor. Honor requires that you
+should study, and that you should be silent. Here are your books. Prepare
+the lessons I shall require you to know to-morrow morning. Those girls
+who have not made due preparation will enter into Punishment Land."
+
+"What in the world is that?" burst from the lips of the irrepressible
+Briar.
+
+"Don't ask me," answered Miss Tredgold. "I hope you may never have a
+personal acquaintance with that gloomy country. Now farewell. For an hour
+fix your attention on your tasks; and adieu."
+
+Never before had the Dale girls found themselves in such a quandary. For
+a whole long hour they were prohibited by a code of honor from speaking.
+They were all just bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery
+torrent, but they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as
+monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some things that even
+untrained girls, provided they are ladies, understand by intuition. The
+Dales were ladies by birth. Their home had belonged to their father's
+family for generations. There was a time in the past when to be a Dale of
+The Dales meant to be rich, honored, and respected. But, alas! the Dales,
+like many other old families, had gone under. Money had failed; purses
+had become empty; lands had been sold; the house had dwindled down to its
+present shabby dimensions; and if Miss Tredgold had not appeared on the
+scene, there would have been little chance of Mr. Dale's ten daughters
+ever taking the position to which their birth entitled them. But there
+are some things which an ancient race confers. _Noblesse oblige_, for one
+thing. These girls were naughty, rebellious, and angry; their hearts were
+very sore; their silken chains seemed at this moment to assume the
+strength of iron fetters; but during the hour that was before them they
+would not disobey Miss Tredgold. Accordingly their dreary books were
+opened. Oh, how ugly and dull they looked!
+
+"What does it matter whether a girl knows how to spell, and what happened
+long, long ago in the history-books?" thought Briar.
+
+"Aunt Sophia was downright horrid about poor Nancy," was Pauline's angry
+thought. "Oh! must I really work out these odious sums, when I am
+thinking all the time of poor Nancy?"
+
+"I shall never keep my head if this sort of thing goes on for long,"
+thought Verena as she bent over her page of English history. "Oh, dear!
+that midnight picnic, and Nancy's face, and the dancing in the glades of
+the Forest. It would have been fun. If there is one thing more than
+another that I love, it is dancing. I think I could dance for ever."
+
+Verena could not keep her pretty little feet still. They moved restlessly
+under her chair. Pauline saw the movement, and a wave of sympathy flashed
+between the sisters. Pauline's eyes spoke volumes as they encountered the
+soft brown ones of pretty Verena.
+
+But an hour--even the longest--is quickly over. Five o'clock struck, and
+quick to the minute each girl sprang to her feet. Books were put away,
+and they all streamed out into the open air. Now they could talk as much
+as they liked. How their tongues wagged! They flew at each other in their
+delight and embraced violently. Never before, too, had they been so
+hungry for tea; and certainly never before had they seen such a
+delightful and tempting meal as that which was now laid for them on the
+lawn. The new parlor-maid had brought it out and placed it on various
+little tables. A silver teapot reposed on a silver tray; the cups and
+saucers were of fine china; the teaspoons were old, thin, and bright as a
+looking-glass. The table-linen was also snowy white; but what the girls
+far more appreciated were the piles of fruit, the quantities of cakes,
+the stacks of sandwiches, and the great plates of bread-and-butter that
+waited for them on the festive board.
+
+"Well!" said Briar. "Did you ever? It looks just like a party, or a
+birthday treat, or something of that sort. I will say there are some nice
+things about Aunt Sophia. This is certainly better than squatting on the
+ground with a basket of gooseberries and a hunch of bread."
+
+"I liked the gooseberries," said Pauline, "but, as you say, Briar, this
+is nice. Ah! here comes the aunt."
+
+Miss Tredgold sailed into view. She took her seat opposite the hissing
+urn and began to pour out cups of tea.
+
+"For a week," she said, "I take this place. At the end of that time
+Verena occupies my throne."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't!" said Verena.
+
+"Why in the world not, Renny? You aren't quite a goose."
+
+"Don't use those expressions, Pauline; they are distinctly vulgar," said
+Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Bother!" said Pauline.
+
+She frowned, and the thought of the gooseberries and the hard crusts that
+used to constitute tea on many days when there was no Aunt Sophia came
+back to her with a sense of longing and appreciation of the golden past.
+
+Nevertheless the girls were hungry, and the tea was excellent; and when
+Miss Tredgold had seen that each plate was piled with good things, and
+that every girl had her cup of tea made exactly as she liked it, she
+began to speak.
+
+"You know little or nothing of the world, my dear girls, so during tea I
+intend to give you some pleasant information. I attended a tea-party last
+year in a house not far from London. You would like to hear all about it,
+would you not?"
+
+"If you are sure it is not lessons," said Briar.
+
+"It is not lessons in the ordinary acception of the word. Now listen.
+This garden to which I went led down to the Thames. It was the property
+of a very great friend of mine, and she had invited what I might call a
+select company. Now will you all listen, and I will tell you how things
+were done?"
+
+Miss Tredgold then proceeded to tell her story. No one could tell a story
+better. She made her narrative quite absorbing. For these girls, who had
+never known anything of life, she drew so vivid and fascinating a picture
+that they almost wished to be present at such a scene as she described.
+She spoke of the girls of the London world in their pretty dresses, and
+the matrons in their richer garments; of the men who moved about with
+polite deference. She spoke of the summer air, the beautiful appearance
+of the river, the charming punts and boats which disported themselves on
+the bosom of the waters.
+
+"It must have been pretty; but rather stiff, wasn't it?" said Verena.
+
+"To you, my dear, it would have been stiff, for you are not yet
+accustomed to self-restraint, but to those who belong to that world it
+was nothing short of enchantment."
+
+"But you were in fetters," said Pauline; "and I should hate fetters
+however jolly they looked."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, you know you are putting them on us."
+
+"Hush, Paulie!" said Verena.
+
+"You are, Aunt Sophy; and you can't be angry with me if I speak. I can't
+imagine any one getting accustomed to fetters; it is quite beyond me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and looked with her downright face full at
+Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Never mind," said that lady after a pause. "I can't expect you to
+understand everything all at once; but my description of a real bit of
+the world can do you no harm. The world has its good points; you will
+find that out presently. Perhaps you may not like it, but some people do.
+In your case there is no saying. To-morrow I will tell you another story,
+but it shall be of the graver and sadder side of life. That story will
+also introduce the nobler side of life. But now the time has come for me
+to ask you a question, and I expect an answer. The time has come for me
+to ask a very straight question.--Verena, you are the eldest; I shall
+speak to you."
+
+"Yes?" said Verena.
+
+She felt herself coloring. She said afterwards she knew exactly what was
+coming. Pauline must have known also, for she pinched Verena's arm.
+
+"Yes?" repeated the young girl.
+
+"You are surprised at the story I have just related to you," continued
+Miss Tredgold. "You think that the courtly grace, the sweet refinement,
+the elegant manners, the words that speak of due knowledge of life and
+men and women, represent a state of fetterdom; but you must also have
+felt their charm."
+
+"To a certain extent," said Verena slowly, "what you have said excited
+me."
+
+"You feel it possible that, under certain circumstances, you, too, could
+belong to such a group?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Verena.
+
+"There is not a doubt of it, my dear. A few years' training, a little of
+that discipline which you call fetters, pretty manners, and suitable
+dress would make you quite the sort of girl who would appear amongst my
+cultivated friends in the garden by the River Thames. But now for my
+question: Could your friend, Nancy King, ever figure in such an
+assembly?"
+
+"It would not perhaps be her world," said Verena.
+
+"You have answered me. Now I am going to say something that may annoy
+you; nevertheless I must say it. Your acquaintanceship with that girl as
+a friend must cease, and absolutely. She is not your equal. You are not
+to know her as a friend. If you meet her, there is no reason why you
+should not be civil, but civility and friendship are different things. If
+the time comes when she is in need or in trouble, I should be deeply
+sorry to think you would not help her, but as a friend she is to cease to
+exist for you. This is my firm command to all of you girls. There are to
+be no two voices on the subject. You may not agree with me now, and you
+may think me hard, but I insist on having my own way. You cease to know
+Nancy King as a friend. I shall myself write to that young person and
+forbid her to visit here. I will try not to hurt her; but there are
+certain distinctions of class which I for one must insist upon
+preserving. She is not a lady, she was not born a lady, and she never can
+be a lady; therefore, my dear nieces, you are not to know her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
+
+
+The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of routine had
+fatigued them; although, of course, it would soon cease to do so.
+Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold's startling announcement with
+regard to Nancy King, they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine
+o'clock struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons neat,
+their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes beaming with
+intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very best in a clean brown holland
+frock, and she went quite creditably through her alphabet, and did not
+squiggle her pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous day.
+
+Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the girls, told them
+she was much pleased with their performances, and said further that, if
+only they would meet her half-way by being attentive and intelligent and
+earnest in their work, she on her part would do all in her power to make
+lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way which would be sure to
+arouse their interest, and she would vary the work with play, and give
+them as gay a time as the bright weather and their own happy hearts would
+permit.
+
+The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper one to another
+that Aunt Sophia was developing more and more good points as days went
+on.
+
+On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a beautiful new
+piano was to arrive from Broadwood's, and Aunt Sophia announced that she
+meant to play on it for the benefit of the entire household that evening.
+
+"For, my dears," said that good lady, "I have forgotten neither my
+playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned songs to-night, and
+I quite hope that I may lure your father from his retirement. There was a
+time when he was musical--very musical."
+
+"The dad musical!" cried Briar. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?"
+
+"It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother and he and I
+spent happy times together, he played his violin better than any other
+amateur that I happen to know."
+
+"There is an old violin in one of the attics," said Verena. "We have
+never touched it. It is in a case all covered with dust."
+
+"His Stradivarius," murmured Miss Tredgold. "Oh dear! How are the mighty
+fallen! My dears, you had better say no more to me about that or I shall
+lose my temper."
+
+The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold's eyes grew full of a
+certain mistiness and her cheeks were very pink with color. The next
+moment she looked full at her nieces.
+
+"When your mother died she took a great deal away with her," she said.
+"What would you have done, poor children! if I had not been able to come
+to the rescue? It does seem almost impossible that your father, my
+brother-in-law, has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius."
+
+"Well, aren't you glad you comed?" said Penelope, marching up and
+standing before the good lady. "Don't you like to feel you are so useful,
+the grand piano coming, and all the rest? Then you has us under your
+thumb. Don't you like that?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Penny. You are talking in a very naughty way."
+
+"I aren't. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey said last night,
+'Well, well, drat it all! They are under her thumb by this time.' I asked
+nursey what it meant, and she said, 'Miss Penny, little girls should be
+seen, and not heard.' Nursey always says that when I ask her questions
+that I want special to know. But when I comed down this morning I asked
+Betty what being under your thumb meant, and she said, 'Oh, lor', Miss
+Penny! You had better look out, miss. It means what you don't like,
+miss.' Then she said, Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of
+having little girls under their thumbs. So I 'spect you like it; and I
+hope you won't squeeze us flat afore you have done."
+
+Miss Tredgold had turned very red.
+
+"How old are you, Pen?" she said when the loquacious child became silent.
+
+Penelope tossed her head. "You knows of my age quite well."
+
+"Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent nurse--'Little
+girls should be seen, and not heard.' I will add to that remark by saying
+that little girls are sometimes impertinent. I shall not say anything
+more to-day; but another time, if you address me as you have just done, I
+shall be obliged to punish you."
+
+"And if I don't dress you," said Penelope--"if I'm awful good--will you
+give me sugar-plums?"
+
+"That is a treat in the very far distance," said Miss Tredgold.--"But
+now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better."
+
+They did all enjoy it; after their hard work--for lessons were hard to
+them--freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully occupied,
+leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the
+wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep
+and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry
+appetites.
+
+The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no
+longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appetites to enjoy tea.
+And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came
+slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at
+the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and
+John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big
+drawing-room.
+
+Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.
+
+"I will play to you to-night when it is dusk," she said to the girls.
+
+After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely
+eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He
+took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt
+Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve
+the joint which was set before him.
+
+"Wake up, Henry," said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; "the children are
+hungry, and so am I."
+
+Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make
+frantic dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned
+that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then
+she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table
+where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont to progress
+very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to
+her aunt.
+
+"Now, Aunt Sophy," she said, "the gloaming has come, and music is waiting
+to make us all happy in the drawing-room."
+
+"I will play for you, my dears," said Aunt Sophia.
+
+She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:
+
+"You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has
+got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love
+music."
+
+"Indeed, I do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Dale.
+
+He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at
+Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight just by the open door.
+
+"You remind me, Sophia----" said Mr. Dale.
+
+He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.
+
+"I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never
+listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children;
+she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the
+present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the
+original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast
+reputation. Music! I hate music. Don't disturb me, any of you."
+
+When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His
+lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself
+trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion
+by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen.
+Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies;
+the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be
+impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his
+children, to the home in which he lived.
+
+"I could have sworn," he muttered to himself, "that Alice had come back.
+As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart.
+She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved--the only woman I
+could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women
+yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not
+stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to
+forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed."
+
+The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could
+shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the
+scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door
+which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet
+masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that
+seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear,
+Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He
+lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on
+the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his
+ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be
+detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there
+was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.
+
+"I might have known that Alice----" he began; but then he remembered that
+Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her,
+or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole
+along the passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like
+lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his
+left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might
+never have existed.
+
+Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the
+door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the passage. In
+the old days this passage was always dark; no one ever thought of
+lighting the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the house
+wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of
+comfort.
+
+Suddenly a voice began to sing:
+
+             "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."
+
+The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"I am coming, Alice," he said aloud. "Yes, I am coming. Don't call me
+with such insistence. I come, I tell you; I come."
+
+He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall; he burst into the
+drawing-room. His eyes were full of excitement. He strode across the room
+and sank into a chair close to the singer.
+
+Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.
+
+"Ah, Henry!" she said; "so you are there. I hoped that this would draw
+you. Now I am going to sing again."
+
+"A song of the past," he said in a husky voice.
+
+"Will this do?" she said, and began "Annie Laurie."
+
+Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet. "Annie Laurie"
+melted into "Home, Sweet Home"; "Home, Sweet Home" into "Ye Banks and
+Braes o' Bonny Doon"; "Ye Banks and Braes" wandered into the delicious
+notes of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano, and then turned
+and faced her audience.
+
+"No more to-night," she said. "By-and-by you girls shall all play on this
+piano. You shall also sing, for I have not the slightest doubt that most
+of you have got voices. You ought to be musical, for music belongs to
+both sides of your house. There was once a time when your father played
+the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By the way,
+Henry, is that violin still in existence?"
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Dale; "I never touch it now. I have not touched it
+for years. I would not touch it for the world."
+
+"You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no more music
+to-night. Those who are tired had better go to bed."
+
+The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold then went up to Mr.
+Dale.
+
+"Go back to your study and your Virgil," she said. "Don't waste your
+precious time."
+
+He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him, but he took her at
+her word and returned to his study.
+
+The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment. Miss
+Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary in regard to it. She only
+played as a special treat. She would by no means give them the great
+pleasure of her singing and playing every night.
+
+"When you have all had a good day I will sing and play to you," she said
+to the girls; "but when you neglect your work, or are idle and careless,
+or cross and sulky, I don't intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was
+brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I
+mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to
+the lax way in which young people are now reared."
+
+For a time Miss Tredgold's plans went well. Then there came a day of
+rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly rebel against Aunt Sophia.
+There came a morning when Pauline absolutely refused to learn her
+lessons. She was a stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very
+dark in complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a handsome
+woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a somewhat sallow face,
+heavy black brows, and eyes that could scowl when anything annoyed her.
+She was the next eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her
+birthday would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays were
+considered auspicious events. There was always some sort of present, even
+though it was worth very little in itself, given by each member of the
+family to the possessor of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this
+happy person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with great pomp,
+and invariably made the same speech:
+
+"God bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns of the day. And
+now for goodness' sake don't detain me any longer."
+
+A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as a sovereign
+would be to girls in happier circumstances. It was eked out to its
+furthest dimensions, and was as a rule spent on good things to eat. Now,
+under Miss Tredgold's reign, Pauline's birthday would be a much more
+important event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar, Patty,
+Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline knew quite well that
+she was talked about. She knew when, the girls retired into corners that
+she was the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most
+agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a
+corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager
+whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if
+they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the
+fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that
+on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts
+came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great
+deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy
+time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been
+fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.
+
+There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had
+got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly
+excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.
+
+"After all," thought Pauline, "Aunt Sophia has done something for us. How
+horrid it would be to go back to the old shilling birthdays now!"
+
+As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and
+talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first,
+and their words reached Pauline's ears.
+
+"I know she'd rather have pink than blue," said Patty's voice.
+
+"Well, mine will be trimmed with blue," was Josephine's answer.
+
+Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and
+disappeared down a shady walk.
+
+"Something with pink and something with blue," thought Pauline. "The
+excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they're talking about my
+birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don't know how
+I shall exist for a whole week."
+
+At that moment Miss Tredgold's sharp voice fell on her ears:
+
+"You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of
+punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom."
+
+To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful
+reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she
+expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one
+of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she
+lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on
+her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late
+when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished
+morning prayers.
+
+"You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline," she said. "There was no
+reason for this inattention. I shall be obliged to punish you. You cannot
+have your usual hour of recreation before dinner. You will have to write
+out the first page of Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_; and you must do
+it without making any mistake either in spelling or punctuation. On this
+occasion you can copy from the book. Now, no words, my dear--no words.
+Sit down immediately to your work."
+
+Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger. Was she, an
+important person who was soon to be queen of a birthday, one about whom
+her sisters talked and whispered and made presents for, to be treated in
+this scant and ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it.
+Accordingly she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to listen
+when she should, played atrociously on the piano, could not manage her
+sums, and, in short, got more and more each moment into Miss Tredgold's
+black books.
+
+When recreation hour arrived she felt tired and headachy. The other girls
+now went out into the pleasant sunshine. Pauline looked after them with
+longing. They would sit under the overhanging trees; they would eat fruit
+and talk nonsense and laugh. Doubtless they would talk about her and the
+birthday so near at hand. At noon the schoolroom was hot, too, for the
+sun beat hard upon the windows, and Pauline felt more stifled and more
+headachy and sulky than ever.
+
+"Oh! please," she said, as Miss Tredgold was leaving the room, "I can't
+do this horrid writing to-day. Please forgive me. Do let me go out."
+
+"No, Pauline; you must take your punishment. You were late this morning;
+you disobeyed my rules. Take the punishment which I am obliged to give
+you as a lady should, and make no more excuses."
+
+The door was shut upon the angry girl. She sat for a time absolutely
+still, pressing her hand to her aching brow; then she strolled across the
+schoolroom, fetched some paper, and sat down to her unwelcome task. She
+wrote very badly, and when the hour was over she had not half copied the
+task assigned to her. This bad beginning went on to a worse end. Pauline
+declined to learn any lessons in preparation hour, and accordingly next
+morning she was absolutely unprepared for her tasks.
+
+Miss Tredgold was now thoroughly roused.
+
+"I must make an example," she said to herself. "I shall have no influence
+over these girls if I let them think I am all softness and yielding. The
+fact is, I have shown them the south side of my character too long; a
+little touch of the northeast will do them no harm."
+
+Accordingly she called the obstinate and sulky Pauline before her.
+
+"I am very much displeased with you. You have done wrong, and you must be
+punished. I have told you and your sisters that there is such a place as
+Punishment Land. You enter it now, and live there until after breakfast
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"But what do you mean?" said Pauline.
+
+"I mean exactly what I say. You have been for the last twenty-four hours
+extremely naughty. You will therefore be punished for the next
+twenty-four hours. You are a very naughty girl. Naughty girls must be
+punished, and you, Pauline, are now under punishment. You enter
+Punishment Land immediately."
+
+"But where is it? What is it? I don't understand."
+
+"You will soon. Girls, I forbid you to speak to your sister while she is
+under punishment. Pauline, your meals will be sent to you in this room.
+You will be expected to work up your neglected tasks and learn them
+thoroughly. You must neither play with nor speak to your sisters. You
+will have no indulgence of any sort. When you walk, I wish you to keep in
+the north walk, just beyond the vegetable garden. Finally, you will go to
+bed at seven o'clock. Now leave the room. I am in earnest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PUNISHMENT LAND.
+
+
+Pauline did leave the room. She passed her sisters, who stared at her in
+horrified amazement. She knew that their eyes were fixed upon her, but
+she was doubtful if they pitied her or not. Just at that moment, however,
+she did not care what their feelings were. She had a momentary sense of
+pleasure on getting into the soft air. A gentle breeze fanned her hot
+cheeks. She took her old sailor hat from a peg and ran fast into a
+distant shrubbery. Miss Tredgold had said that she might take exercise in
+the north walk. If there was a dreary, ugly part of the grounds, it might
+be summed up in the north walk. The old garden wall was on one side of
+it, and a tattered, ugly box-hedge on the other. Nothing was to be seen
+as you walked between the hedge and the wall but the ground beneath your
+feet and the sky above your head. There was no distant view of any sort.
+In addition to this disadvantage, it was in winter an intensely cold
+place, and in summer, notwithstanding its name, an intensely hot place.
+No, Pauline would not go there. She would disobey. She would walk where
+she liked; she would also talk to whom she liked.
+
+She stood for a time leaning against a tree, her face scarlet with
+emotion, her sailor hat flung on the ground. Presently she saw Penelope
+coming towards her. She felt quite glad of this, for Penelope might
+always be bribed. Pauline made up her mind to disobey thoroughly; she
+would walk where she pleased; she would do what she liked; she would talk
+to any one to whom she wished to talk. What was Penelope doing? She was
+bending down and peering on the ground. Beyond doubt she was looking for
+something.
+
+"What is it, Pen?" called out her sister.
+
+Penelope had not seen Pauline until now. She stood upright with a start,
+gazed tranquilly at the girl in disgrace, and then, without uttering a
+word, resumed her occupation of searching diligently on the ground.
+Pauline's face put on its darkest scowl. Her heart gave a thump of wild
+indignation. She went up to Penelope and shook her by the arm. Penelope,
+still without speaking, managed to extricate herself. She moved a few
+feet away. She then again looked full at Pauline, and, to the amazement
+of the elder girl, her bold black eyes filled with tears. She took one
+dirty, chubby hand and blew a kiss to Pauline.
+
+Pauline felt suddenly deeply touched. She very nearly wept herself.
+
+"Oh, dear Penny," she said, "how good you are! I didn't know you'd feel
+for me. I can bear things better if I know you feel for me. You needn't
+obey her, need you? See, I've got three-ha'pence in my pocket. I'll give
+you the money and you can buy lollypops. I will really if only you will
+say a few words to me now."
+
+"I daren't," burst from Penelope's lips. "You have no right to tempt me.
+I can't; I daren't. I am looking now for Aunt Sophy's thimble. She was
+working here yesterday and she dropped it, she doesn't know where. She's
+awful fond of it. She'll give me a penny if I find it. Don't ask me any
+more. I've done very wrong to speak to you."
+
+"So you have," said Pauline, who felt as angry as ever. "You have broken
+Aunt Sophia's word--not your own, for you never said you wouldn't speak
+to me. But go, if you are so honorable. Only please understand that I
+hate every one of you, and I'm never going to obey Aunt Sophia."
+
+Penelope only shook her little person, and presently wandered away into a
+more distant part of the shrubbery. She went on searching and searching.
+Pauline could see her bobbing her little fat person up and down.
+
+"Even Penny," she thought, "is incorruptible. Well, I don't care. I won't
+put up with this unjust punishment."
+
+The dinner-gong sounded, and Pauline, notwithstanding her state of
+disgrace, discovered that she was hungry.
+
+"Why should I eat?" she said to herself. "I won't eat. Then perhaps I'll
+die, and she'll be sorry. She'll be had up for manslaughter; she'll have
+starved a girl to death. No, I won't eat a single thing. And even if I
+don't die I shall be awfully ill, and she'll be in misery. Oh dear! why
+did mother die and leave us? And why did dreadful Aunt Sophy come? Mother
+was never cross; she was never hard. Oh mother! Oh mother!"
+
+Pauline was now so miserable that she flung herself on the ground and
+burst into passionate weeping. Her tears relieved the tension of her
+heart, and she felt slightly better. Presently she raised her head, and
+taking out her handkerchief, prepared to mop her eyes. As she did so she
+was attracted by something that glittered not far off. She stretched out
+her hand and drew Miss Tredgold's thimble from where it had rolled under
+a tuft of dock-leaves. A sudden burst of pleasure escaped her lips as she
+glanced at the thimble. She had not seen it before. It certainly was the
+most beautiful thimble she had ever looked at. She put it on the tip of
+her second finger and turned it round and round. The thimble itself was
+made of solid gold; its base was formed of one beautifully cut sapphire,
+and round the margin of the top of the thimble was a row of turquoises.
+The gold was curiously and wonderfully chased, and the sapphire, which
+formed the entire base of the thimble, shone in a way that dazzled
+Pauline. She was much interested; she forgot that she was hungry, and
+that she had entered into Punishment Land. It seemed to her that in her
+possession of the thimble she had found the means of punishing Aunt
+Sophia. This knowledge soothed her inexpressibly. She slipped the lovely
+thimble into her pocket, and again a keen pang of downright healthy
+hunger seized her. She knew that food would be awaiting her in the
+schoolroom. Should she eat it, or should she go through the wicket-gate
+and lose herself in the surrounding Forest?
+
+Just at this moment a girl, who whistled as she walked, approached the
+wicket-gate, opened it, and came in. She was dressed in smart summer
+clothes; her hat was of a fashionable make, and a heavy fringe lay low on
+her forehead. Pauline looked at her, and her heart gave a thump of
+pleasure. Now, indeed, she could bear her punishment, and her revenge on
+Miss Tredgold lay even at the door. For Nancy King, the girl whom she was
+not allowed to speak to, had entered the grounds.
+
+"Hullo, Paulie!" called out that young lady. "There you are! Well, I must
+say you do look doleful. What's the matter now? Is the dear aristocrat
+more aristocratic than ever?"
+
+"Oh, don't, Nancy! I ought not to speak to you at all."
+
+"So I've been told by the sweet soul herself," responded Nancy. "She
+wrote me a letter which would have put another girl in such a rage that
+she would never have touched any one of you again with a pair of tongs.
+But that's not Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that
+person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I came to-day to try
+to find one of you dear girls. I have found you. What is the matter with
+you, Paulie? You do look bad."
+
+"I'm very unhappy," said Pauline. "Oh Nancy! we sort of promised that we
+wouldn't have anything more to do with you."
+
+"But you can't keep your promise, can you, darling? So don't say any more
+about it. Anyhow, promise or not, I'm going to kiss you now."
+
+Nancy flung her arms tightly round Pauline's neck and printed several
+loud, resounding kisses on each cheek; then she seated herself under an
+oak tree, and motioned to Pauline to do likewise.
+
+Pauline hesitated just for a moment; then scruples were forgotten, and
+she sat on the ground close to Nancy's side.
+
+"Tell me all about it," said Nancy. "Wipe your eyes and talk. Don't be
+frightened; it's only poor old Nancy, the girl you have known since you
+were that high. And I'm rich, Paulie pet, and although we're only
+farmer-folk, we live in a much finer house than The Dales. And I'm going
+to have a pony soon--a pony of my very own--and my habit is being made
+for me at Southampton. I intend to follow the hounds next winter. Think
+of that, little Paulie. You'll see me as I ride past. I'm supposed to
+have a very good figure, and I shall look ripping in my habit. Well, but
+that's not to the point, is it? You are in trouble, you poor little dear,
+and your old Nancy must try and make matters better for you. I love you,
+little Paulie. I'm fond of you all, but you are my special favorite. You
+were always considered something like me--dark and dour when you liked,
+but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie? Tell your own
+Nancy."
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Nancy," replied Pauline. "And I think," she
+continued, "that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt Sophia to say that we are
+not to know you."
+
+"It's snobbish and mean and unlady-like," retorted Nancy; "but her saying
+it doesn't make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have
+to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I'm going to put up
+with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she's fine and mistaken. I'm not,
+and that's flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn't mind telling her so
+to her face."
+
+"But, on the whole, she has been kind to us," said Pauline, who had some
+sense of justice in her composition, angry as she felt at the moment.
+
+"Has she?" said Nancy. "Then let me tell you she has not a very nice way
+of showing it. Now, Paulie, no more beating about the bush. What's up?
+Your eyes are red; you have a great smear of ink on your forehead; and
+your hands--my word! for so grand a young lady your hands aren't up to
+much, my dear."
+
+"I have got into trouble," said Pauline. "I didn't do my lessons properly
+yesterday; I couldn't--I had a headache, and everything went wrong. So
+this morning I could not say any of them when Aunt Sophia called me up,
+and she put me into Punishment Land. You know, don't you, that I am soon
+to have a birthday?"
+
+"Oh, don't I?" interrupted Nancy. "Didn't a little bird whisper it to me,
+and didn't that same little bird tell me exactly what somebody would like
+somebody else to give her? And didn't that somebody else put her hand
+into her pocket and send---- Oh, we won't say any more, but she did send
+for something for somebody's birthday. Oh, yes, I know. You needn't tell
+me about that birthday, Pauline Dale."
+
+"You are good," said Pauline, completely touched. She wondered what
+possible thing Nancy could have purchased for her. She had a wild desire
+to know what it was. She determined then and there, in her foolish little
+heart, that nothing would induce her to quarrel with Nancy.
+
+"It is something that you like, and something that will spite her," said
+the audacious Nancy. "I thought it all out, and I made up my mind to kill
+two birds with one stone. Now to go on with the pretty little story. We
+didn't please aunty, and we got into trouble. Proceed, Paulie pet."
+
+"I didn't learn my lessons. I was cross, as I said, and headachy, and
+Aunt Sophia said I was to be made an example of, and so she sent me to
+Punishment Land for twenty-four hours."
+
+"Oh, my dear! It sounds awful. What is it?"
+
+"Why, none of my sisters are to speak to me, and I am only to walk in the
+north walk."
+
+"Is this the north walk?" asked Nancy, with a merry twinkle in her black
+eyes.
+
+"Of course it isn't. She may say what she likes, but I'm not going to
+obey her. But the others won't speak to me. I can't make them. And I am
+to take my meals by myself in the schoolroom, and I am to go to bed at
+seven o'clock."
+
+Pauline told her sad narrative in a most lugubrious manner, and she felt
+almost offended at the conclusion when Nancy burst into a roar of
+laughter.
+
+"It's very unkind of you to laugh when I'm so unhappy," said Pauline.
+
+"My dear, how can I help it? It is so ridiculous to treat a girl who is
+practically almost grown up in such a baby fashion. Then I'd like to know
+what authority she has over you."
+
+"That's the worst of it, Nancy. Father has given her authority, and she
+has it in writing. She's awfully clever, and she came round poor father,
+and he had to do what she wanted because he couldn't help himself."
+
+"Jolly mean, I call it," said Nancy. "My dear, you are pretty mad, I
+suppose."
+
+"Wouldn't you be if your father treated you like that?"
+
+"My old dad! He knows better. I've had my swing since I was younger than
+you, Paulie. Of course, at school I had to obey just a little. I wasn't
+allowed to break all the rules, but I did smuggle in a good many
+relaxations. The thing is, you can do what you like at school if only you
+are not found out. Well, I was too clever to be found out. And now I am
+grown up, eighteen last birthday, and I have taken a fancy to cling to my
+old friends, even if they have a snobby, ridiculous old aunt to be rude
+to me. My dear, what nonsense she did write!--all about your being of
+such a good family, and that I wasn't in your station. I shall keep that
+letter. I wouldn't lose it for twenty shillings. What have you to boast
+of after all is said and done? A tumble-down house; horrid, shabby,
+old-fashioned, old-maidy clothes; and never a decent meal to be had."
+
+"But it isn't like that now," said Pauline, finding herself getting very
+red and angry.
+
+"Well, so much the better for you. And did I make the little mousy-pousy
+angry? I won't, then, any more, for Nancy loves little mousy-pousy, and
+would like to do what she could for her. You love me back, don't you,
+mousy?"
+
+"Yes, Nancy, I do love you, and I think it's a horrid shame that we're
+not allowed to be with you. But, all the same, I'd rather you didn't call
+me mousy."
+
+"Oh dear, how dignified we are! I shall begin to believe in the ancient
+family if this sort of thing continues. But now, my dear, the moment has
+come to help you. The hour has arrived when your own Nancy, vulgar as she
+is, can lend you a helping hand. Listen."
+
+"What?" said Pauline.
+
+"Jump up, Paulie; take my hand, and you and I together will walk out
+through that wicket-gate, and go back through the dear old Forest to The
+Hollies, and spend the day at my home. There are my boy cousins from
+London, and my two friends, Rebecca and Amelia Perkins--jolly girls, I
+can tell you. We shall have larks. What do you say, Paulie? A fine fright
+she'll be in when she misses you. Serve her right, though."
+
+"But I daren't come with you," said Pauline. "I'd love it more than
+anything in the world; but I daren't. You mustn't ask me. You mustn't try
+to tempt me, Nancy, for I daren't go."
+
+"I didn't know you were so nervous."
+
+"I am nervous about a thing like that. Wild as I have been, and untrained
+all my life, I do not think I am out-and-out wicked. It would be wicked
+to go away without leave. I'd be too wretched. Oh, I daren't think of
+it!"
+
+Nancy pursed up her lips while Pauline was speaking; then she gave vent
+to a low, almost incredulous whistle. Finally she sprang to her feet.
+
+"I am not the one to try and make you forget your scruples," she said.
+"Suppose you do this. Suppose you come at seven o'clock to-night. Then
+you will be safe. You may be wicked, but at least you will be safe.
+She'll never look for you, nor think of you again, when once you have
+gone up to bed. You have a room to yourself, have you not?"
+
+Pauline nodded.
+
+"I thought so. You will go to your room, lock the door, and she will
+think it is all right. The others won't care to disturb you. If they do
+they'll find the door locked."
+
+"But I am forbidden to lock my room door."
+
+"They will call to you, but you will not answer. They may be angry, but I
+don't suppose your sisters will tell on you, and they will only suppose you
+are sound asleep. Meanwhile you will be having a jolly good time; for I can
+tell you we are going to have sport to-night at The Hollies--fireworks,
+games, plans for the future, etc., etc. You can share my nice bed, and go
+back quite early in the morning. I have a lot to talk over with you. I want
+to arrange about our midnight picnic."
+
+"But, Nancy, we can't have a midnight picnic."
+
+"Can't we? I don't see that at all. I tell you what--we will have it; and
+we'll have it on your birthday. Your birthday is in a week. That will be
+just splendid. The moon will be at the full, and you must all of you
+come. Do you suppose I'm going to be balked of my fun by a stupid old
+woman? Ah! you little know me. My boy cousins, Jack and Tom, and my
+friends, Becky and Amy, have made all arrangements. We are going to have
+a time! Of course, if you are not there, you don't suppose our fun will
+be stopped! You'll hear us laughing in the glades. You won't like that,
+will you? But we needn't say any more until seven o'clock to-night."
+
+"I don't think I'm coming."
+
+"But you are, Paulie. No one will know, and you must have a bit of fun.
+Perhaps I'll show you the present I'm going to give you on your birthday;
+there's no saying what I may do; only you must come."
+
+Nancy had been standing all this time. Pauline had been reclining on the
+ground. Now she also rose to her feet.
+
+"You excite me," she said. "I long to go, and yet I am afraid; it would
+be so awfully wicked."
+
+"It would be wicked if she was your mother, but she's not. And she has no
+right to have any control over you. She just got round your silly old
+father----"
+
+"I won't have dad called silly!"
+
+"Well, your learned and abstracted father. It all comes to much the same.
+Now think the matter over. You needn't decide just this minute. I shall
+come to the wicket-gate at half-past seven, and if you like to meet me,
+why, you can; but if you are still too good, and your conscience is too
+troublesome, and your scruples too keen, you need not come. I shall quite
+understand. In that case, perhaps, I'd best not give you that lovely,
+lovely present that I saved up so much money to buy."
+
+Pauline clasped her hands and stepped away from Nancy. As she did so the
+breeze caught her full gray skirt and caused it to blow against Nancy.
+Nancy stretched out her hand and caught hold of Pauline's pocket.
+
+"What is this hard thing?" she cried. "Have you got a nut in your
+pocket?"
+
+"No," said Pauline, instantly smiling and dimpling. "Oh, Nancy, such
+fun!"
+
+She dived into her pocket and produced Miss Tredgold's thimble.
+
+"Oh, I say!" cried Nancy. "What a beauty! Who in the world gave you this
+treasure, Paulie?"
+
+"It isn't mine at all; it belongs to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"You sly little thing! You took it from her?"
+
+"No, I didn't. I'm not a thief. I saw it in the grass a few minutes ago
+and picked it up. It had rolled just under that dock-leaf. Isn't it
+sweet? I shall give it back to her after she has forgiven me to-morrow."
+
+"What a charming, return-good-for-evil character you have suddenly
+become, Pauline!"
+
+As Nancy spoke she poised the thimble on her second finger. Her fingers
+were small, white, and tapering. The thimble exactly fitted the narrow
+tip on which it rested.
+
+"I never saw anything so lovely," she cried. "Never mind, Paulie, about
+to-morrow. Lend it to me. I'd give my eyes to show it to Becky."
+
+"But why should I lend it to you? I must return it to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"You surely won't give it back to her to-day."
+
+"No, but to-morrow."
+
+"Let to-morrow take care of itself. I want to show this thimble to Becky
+and Amy. I have a reason. You won't refuse one who is so truly kind to
+you, will you, little Paulie? And I tell you what: I know you are
+starving, and you hate to go into the house for your food. I will bring
+you a basketful of apples, chocolates, and a peach or two. We have lovely
+peaches ripe in our garden now, although we are such common folk."
+
+Pauline felt thirsty. Her hunger, too, was getting worse. She would have
+given a good deal to have been able to refuse the horrid meals which
+would be served to her in the schoolroom. Perhaps she could manage
+without any other food if she had enough fruit.
+
+"I should like some very much," she said. "Aunt Sophia has, as she calls
+it, preserved the orchard. We are not allowed to go into it."
+
+"Mean cat!" cried Nancy.
+
+"So will you really send me a basket of fruit?"
+
+"I will send Tom with it the instant I get home. He runs like the wind.
+You may expect to find it waiting for you in half-an-hour."
+
+"Thank you. And you will take great care of the thimble, won't you?"
+
+"Of course I will, child. It is a beauty."
+
+Without more ado Nancy slipped the thimble into her pocket, and then
+nodding to Pauline, and telling her that she would wait for her at the
+wicket-gate at half-past seven, she left her.
+
+Nancy swung her body as she walked, and Pauline stood and watched her.
+She thought that Nancy looked very grown-up and very stylish. To look
+stylish seemed better than to look pretty in the eyes of the
+inexperienced little girl. She could not help having a great admiration
+for her friend.
+
+"She is very brave, and so generous; and she knows such a lot of the
+world!" thought poor Pauline. "It is a shame not to be allowed to see her
+whenever one likes. And it would be just heavenly to go to her to-night,
+instead of spending hungry hours awake in my horrid bedroom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+The other girls were miserable; but Miss Tredgold had already exercised
+such a very strong influence over them that they did not dare to disobey
+her orders. Much as they longed to do so, none of them ventured near poor
+Pauline. In the course of the afternoon Miss Tredgold called Verena
+aside.
+
+"I know well, my dear, what you are thinking," she said. "You believe
+that I am terribly hard on your sister."
+
+Verena's eyes sought the ground.
+
+"Yes, I quite know what you think," repeated Miss Tredgold. "But, Verena,
+you are wrong. At least, if I am hard, it is for her good."
+
+"But can it do any one good to be downright cruel to her?" said Verena.
+
+"I am not cruel, but I have given her a more severe punishment than she
+has ever received before in her life. We all, the best of us, need
+discipline. The first time we experience it when it comes from the hand
+of God we murmur and struggle and rebel. But there comes a time when we
+neither murmur nor struggle nor rebel. When that time arrives the
+discipline has done its perfect work, and God removes it. My dear Verena,
+I am a woman old enough to be your mother. You must trust me, and believe
+that I am treating Pauline in the manner I am to-day out of the
+experience of life that God has given me. We are so made, my dear, that
+we none of us are any good until our wills are broken to the will of our
+Divine Master."
+
+"But this is not God's will, is it?" said Verena. "It is your will."
+
+"Consider for a moment, my child. It is, I believe, both God's will and
+mine. Don't you want Pauline to be a cultivated woman? Don't you want her
+character to be balanced? Don't you want her to be educated? There is a
+great deal that is good in her. She has plenty of natural talent. Her
+character, too, is strong and sturdy. But at present she is like a flower
+run to weed. In such a case what would the gardener do?"
+
+"I suppose he would prune the flower."
+
+"If it was a hopeless weed he would cast it out of his garden; but if it
+really was a flower that had degenerated into a weed, he would take it up
+and put it to some pain, and plant it again in fresh soil. The poor
+little plant might say it was badly treated when it was taken from its
+surroundings and its old life. This is very much the case with Pauline.
+Now, I do not wish her to associate with Nancy King. I do not wish her to
+be idle or inattentive. I want her to be energetic, full of purpose,
+resolved to do her best, and to take advantage of those opportunities
+which have come to you all, my dear, when I, your mother's sister, took
+up my abode at The Dales. Sometime, dear, it is quite possible that,
+owing to what will be begun in Pauline's character to-day, people will
+stop and admire the lovely flower. They will know that the gardener who
+put it to some pain and trouble was wise and right. Now, my dear girl,
+you will remember my little lecture. Pauline needs discipline. For that
+matter, you all need discipline. At first such treatment is hard, but in
+the end it is salutary."
+
+"Thank you, Aunt Sophy," said Verena. "But perhaps," she added, "you will
+try and remember, too, that kindness goes a long way. Pauline is perhaps
+the most affectionate of us all. In some ways she has the deepest
+feelings. But she can be awfully sulky, and only kindness can move her."
+
+"I quite understand, my dear; and when the time comes kindness will not
+be wanting. Now go away and amuse yourself with your sisters."
+
+Verena went away. She wondered as she did so where Pauline was hiding
+herself. The others had all settled down to their various amusements and
+occupations. They were sorry for Pauline, but the pleasant time they were
+enjoying in the middle of this lovely summer's day was not to be
+despised, even if their sister was under punishment. But Verena herself
+could not rest. She went into the schoolroom. On a tray stood poor
+Pauline's neglected dinner. Verena lifted the cover from the plate, and
+felt as though she must cry.
+
+"Pauline is taking it hardly," thought the elder girl.
+
+Tea-time came, and Pauline's tea was also sent to the schoolroom. At
+preparation hour, when the rest of the girls went into the room,
+Pauline's tea remained just where it had been placed an hour before.
+Verena could scarcely bear herself. There must be something terribly
+wrong with her sister. They had often been hungry in the old days, but in
+the case of a hearty, healthy girl, to do without any food from
+breakfast-time when there was plenty to eat was something to regard with
+uneasiness.
+
+Presently, however, to her relief, Pauline came in. She looked rough and
+untidy in appearance. She slipped into the nearest chair in a sulky,
+ungainly fashion, and taking up a battered spelling-book, she held it
+upside down.
+
+Verena gave her a quick glance and looked away. Pauline would not meet
+Verena's anxious gaze. She kept on looking down. Occasionally her lips
+moved. There was a red stain on her cheek. Penelope with one of her
+sharpest glances perceived this.
+
+"It is caused by fruit," thought the youngest of the schoolroom children.
+"I wonder who has given Pauline fruit. Did she climb the garden wall or
+get over the gate into the orchard?"
+
+Nobody else noticed this stain. Miss Tredgold came in presently, but she
+took no more notice of Pauline than if that young lady did not exist.
+
+The hour of preparation was over. It was now six o'clock. In an hour
+Pauline was expected to go to bed. Now, Pauline and Verena had bedrooms
+to themselves. These were attic rooms at the top of the house. They had
+sloping roofs, and would have been much too hot in summer but for the
+presence of a big beech tree, which grew to within a few feet of the
+windows. More than once the girls in their emancipated days, as they now
+considered them, used to climb down the beech tree from their attic
+windows, and on a few occasions had even managed to climb up the same
+way. They loved their rooms, having slept in them during the greater part
+of their lives.
+
+Pauline, as she now went in the direction of the north walk, thought with
+a sense of satisfaction of the bedroom she had to herself.
+
+"It will make things easier," she thought. "They will all be on the lawn
+doing their needlework, and Aunt Sophia will be reading to them. I will
+go past them quite quietly to my room, and then----"
+
+These thoughts made Pauline comparatively happy. Once or twice she
+smiled, and a vindictive, ugly expression visited her small face.
+
+"She little knows," thought the girl. "Oh, she little knows! She thinks
+that she is so clever--so terribly clever; but, after all, she has not
+the least idea of the right way to treat me. No, she has not the least
+idea. And perhaps by-and-by she will be sorry for what she has done."
+
+Seven o'clock was heard to strike in the house. Pauline, retracing her
+steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss Tredgold. Miss Tredgold
+slightly raised her voice as the culprit appeared. She read aloud with
+more determination than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was
+hemming and watched Pauline.
+
+"I a'most wish I wor her," thought the ex-nursery child. "Anything is
+better than this horrid sewing. How it pricks my fingers! That reminds
+me; I wonder where Aunt Sophy's thimble has got to. I did look hard for
+it. I wish I could find it. I do want that penny so much! It was a beauty
+thimble, too, and she loves it. I don't want to give it back to her 'cos
+she loves it, but I should like my penny."
+
+Pauline had now nearly disappeared from view.
+
+"Paulie is up to a lark," thought Penelope, who was the sharpest of all
+the children, and read motives as though she was reading an open book.
+"She doesn't walk as though she was tur'ble unhappy. I wonder what she's
+up to. And that red stain on her cheek was fruit; course it was fruit.
+How did she get it? I wish I knew. I'll try and find out."
+
+Pauline had now reached her bedroom. There she hastily put on her best
+clothes. They were very simple, but, under Miss Tredgold's regime, fairly
+nice. She was soon attired in a neat white frock; and an old yellow sash
+of doubtful cleanliness and a bunch of frowsy red poppies were folded in
+a piece of tissue paper. Pauline then slipped on her sailor hat. She had
+a great love for the old sash; and as to the poppies, she thought them
+far more beautiful than any real flowers that ever grew. She meant to tie
+the yellow sash round her waist when she reached the shrubbery, and to
+pin the poppies into her hat. The fact that Miss Tredgold had forbidden
+her to wear this sash, and had herself removed the poppies from her
+Sunday hat, gave her now a sense of satisfaction.
+
+"Young ladies don't wear things of that sort," Miss Tredgold had said.
+
+"A young lady shall wear things of this sort to-night," thought Pauline.
+
+Having finished her toilet, she locked her door from the outside and put
+the key into her pocket; but before she left the room she drew down the
+dark-green blind. She then slipped downstairs and went out through the
+back way. She had to go through the yard, but no one saw her except
+Betty, who, as she afterwards remarked, did observe the flutter of a
+white dress with the tail of her eye. But Betty at that moment was
+immersed in a fresh installment of the wonderful adventures of the Duke
+of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton and his bride, and what did it matter to her
+if the young ladies chose to run out in their best frocks?
+
+Pauline reached the shrubbery without further adventure. There she put on
+her extra finery. Her yellow sash was tied in a large bow, and her
+poppies nodded over her forehead.
+
+It was a very excited dark-eyed girl who presently met Nancy King on the
+other side of the wicket-gate.
+
+"Here I am," said Pauline. "I expect I shall never have any luck again
+all my life; but I want to spite her at any cost, so here I am."
+
+"Delicious!" said Nancy. "Isn't it good to spite the old cat? Now then,
+let's be off, or we may be caught. But I say, how fine we are!"
+
+"You always admired this bunch of poppies, didn't you, Nancy? Do you
+remember? Before you went to that grand school at Brighton you used to
+envy me my poppies. I found them among mother's old things, and Verena
+gave them to me. I love them like anything. Don't you like them very
+much, placed so in front of my hat?"
+
+"Didn't I say, 'How fine we are'?"
+
+"Yes; but somehow your tone----"
+
+"My dear Paulie, you are getting much too learned for my taste. Now come
+along. Take my hand. Let us run. Let me tell you, you look charming. The
+girls will admire you wonderfully. Amy and Becky are keen to make your
+acquaintance. You can call them by their Christian names; they're not at
+all stiff. Surname, Perkins. Nice girls--brought up at my school--father
+in the pork line; jolly girls--very. And, of course, you met Jack and Tom
+last year. They're out fishing at present. They'll bring in beautiful
+trout for supper. Why, you poor little thing, you must be starved."
+
+"Ravenous. You know I had only your fruit to-day."
+
+"You shall have a downright jolly meal, and afterwards we'll have
+fireworks; and then by-and-by you will share my bed. Amy and Becky will
+be in the same room. They think there's a ghost at the other side of the
+passage, so they came along to my chamber. But you won't mind."
+
+"I won't mind anything after my lonely day. You are quite sure that I'll
+get back in time in the morning, Nancy?"
+
+"Trust me for that. Haven't you got the key of your room?"
+
+"Yes; it's in my pocket. I left the window on the latch, and I can climb
+up the beech tree quite well. Oh! that reminds me, Nancy; you must let me
+have that thimble before I return to The Dales."
+
+"To be sure I will, dear. But you needn't think of returning yet, for you
+have not even arrived. Your fun is only beginning. Oh! you have done a
+splendid, spirited thing running off in this fashion. I only hope she'll
+go to your room and tap and tap, and knock and knock, and shout and
+shout, and get, oh, so frightened! and have the door burst open; and then
+she'll see for herself that the bird has flown. Won't she be in a tantrum
+and a fright! Horrid old thing! She'll think that you have run off
+forever. Serve her right. Oh! I almost wish she would do it--that I do."
+
+"But I don't," said Pauline. "If she did such a thing it would almost
+kill me. It's all very well for you to talk in that fashion; you haven't
+got to live with her; but I have, and I couldn't stand her anger and her
+contempt. I'd be put into Punishment Land for a year. And as one day has
+very nearly killed me, what would a year of it do? If there is any fear
+of what you wish for, I'd best go back at once."
+
+"What! and lose the trout, and the game pie, and the steak and onions,
+and the fried potatoes, and the apple turnovers, and the plum puffs, to
+say nothing of the most delicious lollypops you have ever tasted in your
+life? And afterwards fireworks; for Jack and Tom have bought a lot of
+Catherine-wheels and rockets to let off in your honor. And then a cosy,
+warm hug in my bed, with Amy and Becky telling ghost stories in the bed
+opposite. You don't mean to tell me you'd rather have your lonely room
+and starvation than a program of that sort?"
+
+"No, no. Of course I'll go on with you. I've done it now, so I'll stick
+to it. Oh, I'm madly hungry! I hope you'll have supper the moment we get
+in."
+
+"Supper will be delayed as short a time as possible. It rather depends
+upon the boys and when they bring the trout home. But here is a queen
+cake. I stuffed it into my pocket for you. Eat it as we go along."
+
+So Pauline ate it and felt better. Her courage returned. She no longer
+thought of going back. Had she done so, she knew well that she would not
+sleep. People never slept well if they were hungry.
+
+"No," she said to herself; "I will go on with it now. I'll just trust to
+my good luck, and I'll enjoy the time with Nancy. For, after all, she's
+twice as kind as Aunt Sophia. Why should I make myself miserable on
+account of a woman who is not my mother?"
+
+The Hollies was a very snug, old-fashioned sort of farm. It had been in
+the King family for generations, and Mr. Josiah King was a very fine
+specimen of the British farmer. He was a big man with a red face, bushy
+whiskers, grizzled hair, and a loud laugh. The expression of his broad,
+square face was somewhat fierce, and the servants at the farm were afraid
+to anger him. He was a just enough master, however, and was always served
+well by his people. To only one person was he completely mild and gentle,
+and that person, it is needless to say, was his daughter Nancy. Nancy was
+his only child. Her mother was dead, and from her earliest days she had
+been able to twist her father round her little finger. He sent her to a
+smart boarding school, and no money was spared in order to give her
+pleasure. It was the dream of Farmer King, and Nancy's dearest ambition
+also, that she should be turned into a lady. But, alas and alack! Miss
+Nancy could not overcome the stout yeoman blood in her veins. She was no
+aristocrat, and nothing could make her one. She was just a hearty,
+healthy happy-minded English girl; vulgar in voice and loud in speech,
+but fairly well-intentioned at heart. She was the sort of farmer's
+daughter who would marry a farmer, and look after the dairy, and rear
+stalwart sons and hearty girls in her turn. Nature never intended her for
+a fine lady; but silly Nancy had learnt a great deal more at school than
+how to talk a little French very badly and how to recite a poem with
+false action and sentiment. She had learnt to esteem the world for the
+world's own sake, and had become a little ashamed of the farmer and the
+farmer's ways; and, finally, when she returned from school she insisted
+on the best parlor being turned into a sort of drawing-room, on her
+friends being regaled with late dinners, and on herself being provided
+with servants, so that she need not touch household work. She was
+playing, therefore, the game of being a lady, and was failing as she
+played it. She knew that she was failing, and this knowledge made her
+feel very cross. She tried hard to stifle it, and clung more than ever to
+her acquaintanceship with the Dale girls.
+
+In her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she would very much like to milk
+the cows, and superintend the dairy, and churn the butter. In her heart
+of hearts she would have adored getting up early in the morning and
+searching for the warm, pink eggs, and riding barebacked over the farm
+with her father, consulting him on the tilling of the land and the best
+way to make the old place profitable; for one day it would be her own,
+and she would be, for her class in life, a rich girl. Just at present,
+however, she was passing through a phase, and not a very pleasant one.
+She thought herself quite good enough to go into any society; and fine
+dress, loud-voiced friends, and the hollow, empty nothings which she and
+her acquaintances called conversation seemed the best things possible
+that could come into life. She was, therefore, not at all in the mood to
+give up her friendship with the Dale girls.
+
+Now, there never was a girl less likely to please Miss Tredgold than this
+vulgarly dressed, loud-voiced, and unlady-like girl. Nancy was desired to
+abstain from visiting at The Dales, and the Dale girls were told that
+they were not to talk to Nancy. Nancy's rapture, therefore, when she was
+able to bring Pauline to The Hollies could scarcely be suppressed.
+
+Amy and Becky Perkins were standing in the old porch when the two girls
+appeared. Nancy called out to her friends, and they ran to meet her.
+
+"This is Paulie," said Nancy; "in other words, Pauline Dale--Pauline
+Dale, the aristocrat. We ought to be proud to know her, girls. Pauline,
+let me introduce my special friend, Becky Perkins. She's in pork, but
+that don't matter. And my other special friend, Amy Perkins; also in
+pork, but at your service. Girls, you didn't happen to notice if supper
+was being put on the table, did you?"
+
+"I should think we did," said Becky. "I smelt fish. The boys brought in a
+lot of trout. I'm as hungry as hungry can be."
+
+"Let's run upstairs first," said Nancy, turning to Pauline. "You'd like
+to take off your hat and wash your hands, wouldn't you, my fine friend of
+aristocratic circles?"
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Nancy," said Pauline, flushing
+angrily, while the two Perkins girls looked at her with admiration.
+
+"Well, then, I won't," said Nancy; "but I'm always one for my joke. I
+meant no harm. And you know you are aristocratic, Paulie, and nothing
+will ever take it out of you. And I'm terribly afraid that nothing will
+take the other thing out of me. I only talk to you like this because I'm
+so jealous. So now come along and let's be friends."
+
+The two girls scampered up the old oak stairs. They ran down an uneven
+passage, and reached a door of black oak, which was opened with an
+old-fashioned latch. At the other side of the door they found themselves
+in a long and very low room, with a black oak floor and black oak walls.
+The floor of the room was extremely uneven, being up in one part and down
+in another, and the whole appearance of the room, although fascinating,
+was decidedly patchy. In an alcove at one end stood a four-post bedstead,
+with a gaudily colored quilt flung over it; and in the alcove at the
+other end was another four-post bedstead, also boasting of a colored
+quilt. There were two washstands in the room, and one dressing-table. The
+whole place was scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean, for the white
+dimity curtains rivalled the snow in winter, and the deal washstands and
+the deal dressing-table were as white as the scrubbing of honest hands
+could make them. The whole room smelt of a curious mixture of turpentine,
+soap, and fresh flowers.
+
+"I had the lavender sheets put on the bed for you and me," said Nancy.
+"They are of the finest linen. My mother spun them herself, and she put
+them in lavender years and years ago. I am heartily glad to welcome you,
+little Paulie. This is the very first time you have ever slept under our
+humble roof. So kiss me, dear."
+
+"How snug and sweet it all is!" said Pauline. "I am glad that I came."
+
+"This is better than lying down hungry in your own little room," said
+Nancy.
+
+"Oh, much better!"
+
+Pauline skipped about. Her high spirits had returned; she was charmed
+with the room in which she was to repose. Through the lattice window the
+sweetest summer air was entering, and roses peeped all round the frame,
+and their sweet scent added to the charm of the old-fashioned chamber.
+
+"I hope you won't mind having supper in the kitchen," said Nancy. "I know
+it's what a Dale is not expected to submit to; but, nevertheless, in Rome
+we do as the Romans do--don't we?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Nancy. As if I cared.
+Whether I am a lady or not, I am never too fine for my company; and it
+was when Aunt Sophia wanted us to give you up that I really got mad with
+her."
+
+"You are a darling and a duck, and I love you like anything," said Nancy.
+"Now come downstairs. We are all hungry, and the boys are mad to be at
+the fireworks."
+
+"I have never seen fireworks in my life," said Pauline.
+
+"You poor little innocent! What a lot the world has to show you! Now
+then, come along."
+
+Pauline, deprived of her hideous hat, looked pretty and refined in her
+white dress. She made a contrast to the showy Nancy and the Perkins
+girls. The boys, Jack and Tom Watson, looked at her with admiration, and
+Jack put a seat for Pauline between himself and his brother.
+
+The farmer nodded to her, and said in his bluff voice:
+
+"Glad to welcome you under my humble roof, Miss Pauline Dale. 'Eartily
+welcome you be. Now then, young folks, fall to."
+
+The meal proceeded to the accompaniment of loud jokes, gay laughter, and
+hearty talking. The farmer's voice topped the others. Each remark called
+forth fresh shouts of laughter; and when a number of dogs rushed in in
+the middle of supper, the din almost rose to an uproar.
+
+Pauline enjoyed it all very much. She laughed with the others; her cheeks
+grew rosy. Nancy piled her plate with every available dainty. Soon her
+hunger left her, and she believed that she was intensely happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE BURNT ARM.
+
+
+After supper the excitement waxed fast and furious. The boys, aided by
+the farmer and one of his men, proceeded to send off the fireworks. This
+was done on a little plateau of smoothly cut lawn just in front of the
+best sitting-room windows. The girls pressed their faces against the
+glass, and for a time were satisfied with this way of looking at the fun.
+But soon Nancy could bear it no longer.
+
+"It is stupid to be mewed up in the close air," she said. "Let's go out."
+
+No sooner had she given utterance to the words than all four girls were
+helping the boys to let off the squibs, Catherine-wheels, rockets, and
+other fireworks. Pauline now became nearly mad with delight. Her shouts
+were the loudest of any. When the rockets went high into the air and
+burst into a thousand stars, she did not believe that the world itself
+could contain a more lovely sight. But presently her happiness came to a
+rude conclusion, for a bit of burning squib struck her arm, causing her
+fine muslin dress to catch fire, and the little girl's arm was somewhat
+severely hurt. She put out the fire at once, and determined to hide the
+fact that she was rather badly burnt.
+
+By-and-by they all returned to the house. Nancy sat down to the piano and
+began to sing some of her most rollicking songs. Then she played dance
+music, and the boys and girls danced with all their might. Pauline,
+however, had never learned to dance. She stood silent, watching the
+others. Her high spirits had gone down to zero. She now began to wish
+that she had never come. She wondered if she could possibly get home
+again without being discovered. At last Nancy noticed her grave looks.
+
+"You are tired, Paulie," she said; "and for that matter, so are we. I
+say, it's full time for bed. Good-night, boys. Put out the lamps when you
+are tired of amusing yourselves. Dad has shut up the house already. Come,
+Paulie; come, Amy; come, Becky."
+
+The four girls ran upstairs, but as they were going down the passage
+which led to their pretty bedroom, Pauline's pain was so great that she
+stumbled against Becky and nearly fell.
+
+"What is it?" said Becky. "Are you faint?"
+
+She put her arm around the little girl and helped her into the bedroom.
+
+"Whatever can be wrong?" she said. "You seemed so lively out in the open
+air."
+
+"Oh, you do look bad, Paulie!" said Nancy. "It is that terrible fasting
+you went through to-day. My dear girls, what do you think? This poor
+little aristocrat, far and away too good to talk to the likes of
+us"--here Nancy put her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh
+at the prostrate Pauline--"far too grand, girls--fact, I assure you--was
+kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water
+at supper. All these things are owing to an aunt--one of the tip-top of
+the nobility. This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor
+internal arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the poor child into
+a place she calls Punishment Land, and kept her without food."
+
+"That isn't true," said Pauline. "I could have had plenty to eat if I had
+liked."
+
+"That means that if you were destitute of one little spark of spirit
+you'd have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold
+plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? Hungry again?"
+
+"No; it is my arm. Please don't touch it."
+
+"Do look!" cried Amy Perkins. "Oh, Nancy, she has got an awful burn!
+There's quite a hole through the sleeve of her dress. Oh, do see this
+great blister!"
+
+"It was a bit of one of the squibs," said Pauline. "It lit right on my
+arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don't suppose it's much hurt, only
+I feel a little faint."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Nancy. "What is to be done now? I don't know a thing
+about burns, or about any sort of illness. Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps
+she can tell us something."
+
+"Let's put on a bandage," said one of the other girls. "Then when you lie
+down in bed, Pauline, you will drop asleep and be all right in the
+morning."
+
+Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep into bed. Her arm
+was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless it felt slightly more
+comfortable. Presently she dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that
+doze she awoke soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her
+side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming from the
+other end of the long room, and to observe also that there was not a
+chink of light anywhere; and, finally, to be all too terribly conscious
+of a great burning pain in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor
+Pauline's slumbering conscience.
+
+"Why did I come?" she said to herself. "I am a wretched, most miserable
+girl. And how am I ever to get back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree
+with this bad arm. Oh, how it does hurt me! I feel so sick and faint I
+scarcely care what happens."
+
+Pauline stretched out her uninjured arm and touched Nancy.
+
+"What is it?" said Nancy. "Oh, dear! I'd forgotten. It's you, Paulie. How
+is your arm, my little dear? Any better?"
+
+"It hurts me very badly indeed; but never mind about that now. How am I
+to get home?"
+
+"I'll manage that. Betty, our dairymaid, is to throw gravel up at the
+window at four o'clock. You shall have a cup of tea before you start, and
+I will walk with you as far as the wicket-gate."
+
+"Oh, thank you! But how am I to get into my room when I do arrive at The
+Dales? I don't believe I shall be able to use this arm at all."
+
+"Of course you will," said Nancy. "You will be miles better when cook has
+looked to it. I know she's grand about burns, and has a famous ointment
+she uses for the purpose. Only, for goodness' sake, Paulie, don't let
+that burn in the sleeve of your dress be seen; that would lead to
+consequences, and I don't want my midnight picnic to be spoilt."
+
+"I don't seem to care about that or anything else any more."
+
+"What nonsense! You don't suppose I should like this little escapade of
+yours and mine to be known. You must take care. Why, you know, there's
+father. He's very crotchety over some things. He likes all of you, but
+over and over again he has said:
+
+"'I'm as proud of being an honest farmer as I should be to be a lord. My
+grandfather paid his way, and my father paid his way, and I am paying my
+way. There's no nonsense about me, and I shall leave you, Nancy, a tidy
+fortune. You like those young ladies at The Dales, and you shall have
+them come here if they wish to come, but not otherwise. I won't have them
+here thinking themselves too grand to talk to us. Let them keep to their
+own station, say I. I don't want them.'
+
+"Now you see, Paulie, what that means. If father found out that your aunt
+had written to me and desired me to have nothing further to do with you,
+I believe he'd pack me out of the country to-morrow. I don't want to
+leave my home; why should I? So, you see, for my sake you must keep it
+the closest of close secrets."
+
+"You should have thought of that before you tempted me to come," said
+Pauline.
+
+"That is just like you. You come here and enjoy yourself, and have a
+great hearty meal, and when you are likely to get into a scrape you throw
+the blame on me."
+
+"You can understand that I am very miserable, Nancy."
+
+"Yes; and I'm as sorry as I can be about that burn; but if you'll be
+brave and plucky now, I'll help you all I can. We'll get up as soon as
+ever the day dawns, and cook shall put your arm straight."
+
+As Nancy uttered the last words her voice dwindled to a whisper, and a
+minute later she was again sound asleep. But Pauline could not sleep. Her
+pain was too great. The summer light stole in by degrees, and by-and-by
+the sharp noise made by a shower of gravel was heard on the window.
+
+Pauline sprang into a sitting posture, and Nancy rubbed her eyes.
+
+"I'm dead with sleep," she said. "I could almost wish I hadn't brought
+you. Not but that I'm fond of you, as I think I've proved. We haven't yet
+made all our arrangements about the midnight picnic, but I have the most
+daring scheme in my head. You are every single one of you--bar Penelope,
+whom I can't bear--to come to that picnic. I'll make my final plans
+to-day, and I'll walk in the Forest to-morrow at six o'clock, just
+outside your wicket-gate. You will meet me, won't you?"
+
+"But---- Oh! by the way, Nancy, please give me back that beautiful
+thimble. I'm so glad I remembered it! It belongs to Aunt Sophia."
+
+"I can't," said Nancy, coloring, "I lent it to Becky, and I don't know
+where she has put it. I'll bring it with me to-morrow, so don't fuss. Now
+jump up, Paulie; we have no time to lose."
+
+Accordingly Pauline got up, dressed herself--very awkwardly, it is
+true--and went downstairs, leaning on Nancy's sympathetic arm. Nancy
+consulted the cook, who was good-natured and red-faced.
+
+"You have got a bad burn, miss," she said when she had examined Pauline's
+arm; "but I have got a famous plaster that heals up burns like anything.
+I'll make your arm quite comfortable in a twinkling, miss."
+
+This she proceeded to do, and before the treatment had been applied for
+half an hour a good deal of Pauline's acute pain had vanished.
+
+"I feel better," she said, turning to Nancy. "I feel stronger and
+braver."
+
+"You will feel still braver when you have had your cup of tea. And here's
+a nice hunch of cake. Put it into your pocket if you can't eat it now. We
+had best be going; the farm people may be about, and there's no
+saying--it's wonderful how secrets get into the air."
+
+Pauline looked startled. She again took Nancy's hand, and they left the
+house together.
+
+Now, it so happened that the the morning was by no means as fine as those
+lovely mornings that had preceded it. There was quite a cold wind
+blowing, and the sky was laden with clouds.
+
+"We'll have rain to-day," said Nancy; "rain, and perhaps thunder. I feel
+thunder in the air, and I never was mistaken yet. We must be quick, or
+we'll both be drenched to the skin."
+
+Accordingly the two walked quickly through the Forest path. But before
+they reached the wicket-gate the first mutterings of thunder were
+audible, and heavy drops of rain were falling.
+
+"I must leave you now, Paulie," said Nancy, "for if I go any farther I'll
+be drenched to the skin. Climb up your tree, get into your bedroom, and
+go to bed. If you can manage to send that white dress over to me, I will
+put on a patch that even your aunt will not see. Put on another dress, of
+course, this morning, and say nothing about the burn. Good-bye, and good
+luck! I'll be over about six o'clock to-morrow evening to talk over our
+midnight picnic."
+
+"And the thimble," said Pauline. "You won't forget the thimble."
+
+"Not I. Good gracious, what a flash! You had best get home at once; and I
+must run for my life or I may be struck down under all these trees."
+
+Pauline stood still for a minute, watching Nancy as she disappeared from
+view; then slowly and sadly she went up to the house.
+
+She was too tired and depressed to mind very much that the rain was
+falling in showers, soaking her thin white muslin dress, and chilling her
+already tired and exhausted little frame. The rattle of the thunder, the
+bright flash of the lightning, and the heavy fall of the tempest could
+not reach the graver trouble which filled her heart. The way of
+transgressors had proved itself very hard for poor Pauline. She disliked
+the discomfort and misery she was enduring; but even now she was scarcely
+sorry that she had defied and disobeyed Aunt Sophia.
+
+After a great deal of difficulty, and with some injury to her already
+injured arm, she managed to climb the beech-tree and so reach the gabled
+roof just under her attic window. She pushed the window wide open and got
+inside. How dear and sweet and fresh the little chamber appeared! How
+innocent and good was that little white bed, with its sheets still
+smoothly folded down! It took Pauline scarcely a minute to get into her
+night-dress, sweep her offending white dress into a neighboring cupboard,
+unlock the door, and put her head on her pillow. Oh, there was no place
+like home! It was better to be hungry at home, it was better to be in
+punishment at home, than to go away to however grand a place and however
+luxuriant a feast.
+
+"And Nancy's home isn't grand," thought Pauline. "And the food was rough.
+Aunt Sophia would even call it coarse. But, oh, I was hungry! And if I
+hadn't been so naughty I'd have been very happy. All the same," she
+continued, thinking aloud, as was her fashion. "I won't go to that
+midnight picnic; and Renny must not go either. Of course, I can't tell
+Aunt Sophia what I did last night. I promised Nancy I wouldn't tell, and
+it wouldn't be fair; but see if I do anything wrong again! I'll work like
+a Briton at my lessons to-day. Oh, how badly my arm hurts! And what an
+awful noise the storm is making! The thunder rattles as though it would
+come through the roof. My arm does ache! Oh, what lightning! I think I'll
+put my head under the sheet."
+
+Pauline did so, and notwithstanding the tempest, she had scarcely got
+down into the real warmth of her bed before sleep visited her.
+
+When she awoke the storm was over, the sun was shining, and Verena was
+standing at the foot of her bed.
+
+"Do get up, Paulie," she said. "How soundly you have slept! And your face
+is so flushed! And, oh, aren't you just starving? We only discovered last
+night that you hadn't touched any of your food."
+
+"I'm all right," said Pauline.
+
+"You will try to be good to-day, won't you, Paulie? You don't know how
+miserable I was without you, for you are my own special most darling
+chum. You will try, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I will try, of course," said Pauline. "Truly--truly, I will try."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHANGED LIVES.
+
+
+After the mental storm of the day before, Pauline would never forget the
+peace of the day that followed. For Miss Tredgold, having punished, and
+the hours of punishment being over, said nothing further to signify her
+displeasure. She received Pauline kindly when she appeared in the
+schoolroom. She took her hand and drew the little girl toward her. It was
+with a great effort that the poor girl could suppress the shriek that
+nearly rose to her lips as the unconscious Miss Tredgold touched her
+burnt arm.
+
+"We will forget about yesterday, Pauline," said her aunt. "We will go
+back to work this morning just as though there never had been any
+yesterday. Do you understand?"
+
+"I think so," said Pauline.
+
+"Do you happen to know your lessons?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't."
+
+"Well, my dear, as this is practically your first transgression, I am the
+last person to be over-hard. You can listen to your sisters this morning.
+At preparation to-day you will doubtless do your best. Now go to your
+seat."
+
+Pauline sat between Briar and Adelaide. Adelaide nestled up close to her,
+and Briar took the first opportunity to whisper:
+
+"I am so glad you are back again, dear old Pauline! We had a horrid time
+without you yesterday."
+
+"They none of them know what I did," thought Pauline; "and, of course, I
+meant to tell them. Not Aunt Sophia, but the girls. Yes, I meant to
+confide in the girls; but the atmosphere of peace is so nice that I do
+not care to disturb it. I will put off saying anything for the present.
+It certainly is delightful to feel good again."
+
+Lessons went on tranquilly. The girls had a time of delightful rest
+afterwards in the garden, and immediately after early dinner there came a
+surprise. Miss Tredgold said:
+
+"My dear girls, there are several things you ought to learn besides mere
+book knowledge. I propose that you should be young country ladies whom no
+one will be ashamed to know. You must learn to dance properly, and to
+skate properly if there ever is any skating here. If not, we will go
+abroad for the purpose. But while you are in the Forest I intend you to
+have riding lessons and also driving lessons. A wagonette will be here at
+two o'clock, and we will all go for a long and delightful drive through
+the Forest. I am going to some stables about six or seven miles away,
+where I hear I can purchase some good horses and also some Forest ponies.
+Don't look so excited, dears. I should be ashamed of any nieces of mine
+brought up in the New Forest of England who did not know how to manage
+horses."
+
+"Oh, she really is a darling!" said Verena. "I never did for a single
+moment suppose that we should have had the chance of learning to drive."
+
+"And to ride," said Pauline.
+
+She began to skip about the lawn. Her spirits, naturally very high,
+returned.
+
+"I feel quite happy again," she said.
+
+"Why, of course you are happy," said Verena; "but you must never get into
+Punishment Land again as long as you live, Paulie, for I wouldn't go
+through another day like yesterday for anything."
+
+The wagonette arrived all in good time. It drew up at the front door, and
+Mr. Dale, attracted by the sound of wheels, rose from his accustomed seat
+in his musty, fusty study, and looked out of the window. The window was
+so dusty and dirty that he could not see anything plainly; but, true to
+his determination, he would not open it. A breeze might come in and
+disturb some of his papers. He was busy with an enthralling portion of
+his work just then; nevertheless, the smart wagonette and nicely
+harnessed horses, and the gay sound of young voices, attracted him.
+
+"I could almost believe myself back in the days when I courted my dearly
+beloved Alice," he whispered to himself. "I do sincerely trust that
+visitors are not beginning to arrive at The Dales; that would be the
+final straw."
+
+The carriage, however, did not stop long at the front door. It was
+presently seen bowling away down the avenue. Mr. Dale, who still stood
+and watched it, observed that it was quite packed with bright-looking
+young girls. Blue ribbons streamed on the breeze, and the girls laughed
+gaily.
+
+"I am glad those visitors are going," thought the good man, who did not
+in the least recognize his own family. "A noisy, vulgar crowd they
+seemed. I hope my own girls will never become like that. Thank goodness
+they did not stay long! Sophia is a person of discernment; she knows that
+I can't possibly receive incidental visitors at The Dales."
+
+He returned to his work and soon was lost to all external things.
+
+Meanwhile the girls had a lovely and exciting drive. Aunt Sophia was in
+her most agreeable mood. The children themselves were quite unaccustomed
+to carriage exercise. It was a wonderful luxury to lean back on the
+softly cushioned seats and dash swiftly under the noble beech-trees and
+the giant oaks of the primeval forest. By-and-by they drove up to some
+white gates. Verena was desired to get out and open them. The carriage
+passed through. She remounted into her seat, and a few minutes later they
+all found themselves in a great cobble-stoned yard surrounded by stables
+and coach-houses. The melodious cry of a pack of fox-hounds filled the
+air. The girls were almost beside themselves with excitement. Presently a
+red-faced man appeared, and he and Miss Tredgold had a long and
+mysterious talk together. She got out of the wagonette and went with the
+man into the stables. Soon out of the stables there issued, led by two
+grooms, as perfect a pair of Forest ponies as were ever seen. They were
+well groomed and in excellent order, and when they arched their necks and
+pawed the ground with their feet, Pauline uttered an irrepressible shout.
+
+"Those ponies are coming to The Dale in a fortnight," said Miss Tredgold.
+"Their names are Peas-blossom and Lavender."
+
+"I believe I'll die if much more of this goes on," gasped Briar. "I'm too
+happy. I can't stand anything further."
+
+"Hush, Briar!" said Verena, almost giving her sister a shake in her
+excitement, and yet at the same time trying to appear calm.
+
+"Now, my dear children, we will go home," said their aunt. "The wagonette
+will come any day that I send for it, and Mr. Judson informs me he hopes
+by-and-by to have a pair of carriage horses that I may think it worth
+while to purchase."
+
+"Aren't these good enough?" asked Verena, as they drove back to The
+Dales.
+
+"They are very fair horses, but I don't care to buy them. Judson knows
+just the sort I want. I am pleased with the ponies, however. They will
+give you all a great deal of amusement. To-morrow we must go to
+Southampton and order your habits."
+
+"I wonder I _ever_ thought her cross and nasty and disagreeable," thought
+Pauline. "I wonder I ever could hate her. I hope she'll let me ride
+Peas-blossom. I liked his bright eyes so much. I never rode anything in
+my life, but I feel I could ride barebacked on Peas-blossom. I love him
+already. Oh, dear! I don't hate Aunt Sophia now. On the contrary, I feel
+rather bad when I look at her. If she ever knows what I did yesterday,
+will she forgive me? I suppose I ought to tell her; but I can't. It would
+get poor Nancy into trouble. Besides--I may as well be frank with
+myself--I should not have the courage."
+
+As soon as the girls got home Penelope ran up to Pauline.
+
+"You stayed for a long time in the shrubbery yesterday, didn't you,
+Pauline?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Pauline.
+
+"You didn't by any chance find Aunt Sophy's thimble?"
+
+"I! Why should I?"
+
+Pauline felt herself turning red. Penelope fixed her exceedingly sharp
+eyes on her sister's face.
+
+"You did find it; you know you did. Where is it? Give it to me. I want my
+penny. Think of all the fun you are going to have. She doesn't mean me to
+ride, 'cos I asked her. I must have my penny. Give me the thimble at
+once, Paulie."
+
+"I haven't got it. Don't talk nonsense, child. Let me go. Oh! you have
+hurt me."
+
+Pauline could not suppress a short scream, and the next minute she felt
+herself turning very faint and sick, for Penelope had laid her
+exceedingly hard little hand on Pauline's burnt arm.
+
+"What is it, Paulie? I know you are not well," said Verena, running up.
+
+"It is 'cos of her bad conscience," said Penelope, turning away with a
+snort of indignation.
+
+"Really," said Verena, as Pauline leaned against her and tried hard to
+repress the shivers of pain that ran through her frame, "Penelope gets
+worse and worse. Only that I hate telling tales out of school, I should
+ask Aunt Sophia to send her back to the nursery for at least another
+year. But what is it, Paulie dear? You look quite ill."
+
+"I feel rather bad. I have hurt my arm. You must not ask me how, Renny.
+You must trust me. Oh dear! I must tell you what has happened, for you
+will have to help me. Oh, Renny, I am in such pain!"
+
+Poor Pauline burst into a torrent of tears. Where was her happiness of an
+hour ago? Where were her rapturous thoughts of riding Peas-blossom
+through the Forest? Her arm hurt her terribly; she knew that Penelope was
+quite capable of making mischief, she was terrified about the thimble.
+Altogether her brief interval of sunshine was completely blotted out.
+
+Verena, for her years, was a wonderfully wise girl. She had since her
+mother's death been more or less a little mother to the younger children.
+It is true, she had looked after them in a somewhat rough-and-ready
+style; but nevertheless she was a sympathetic and affectionate girl, and
+they all clung to her. Now it seemed only natural that Pauline should
+lean on her and confide her troubles to her. Accordingly Verena led her
+sister to a rustic seat and said:
+
+"Sit down near me and tell me everything."
+
+"It is this," said Pauline. "I have burned my arm badly, and Aunt Sophia
+must not know."
+
+"You have burnt your arm? How?"
+
+"I would rather not tell."
+
+"But why should you conceal it, Paulie?"
+
+"I'd rather conceal it; please don't ask me. All I want you to do is to
+ask me no questions, but to help me to get my arm well; the pain is
+almost past bearing. But, Renny, whatever happens, Aunt Sophia must not
+know."
+
+"You are fearfully mysterious," said Verena, who looked much alarmed.
+"You used not to be like this, Paulie. You were always very open, and you
+and I shared every thought Well, come into the house. Of course, whatever
+happens, I will help you; but I think you ought to tell me the whole
+truth."
+
+"I can't, so there! If you are to be a real, real sister to me, you will
+help me without asking questions."
+
+The girls entered the house and ran up to Pauline's bedroom. There the
+injured arm was exposed to view, and Verena was shocked to see the extent
+of the burn.
+
+"You ought to see a doctor. This is very wrong," she said.
+
+She made Pauline lie down, and dressed her arm as well as she could.
+Verena was quite a skilful little nurse in her own way, and as Pauline
+had some of the wonderful ointment which the Kings' cook had given her,
+and as Verena knew very nicely how to spread it on a piece of rag, the
+arm soon became more comfortable.
+
+Just before dinner Miss Tredgold called all the girls round her.
+
+"I have something to say," she remarked. "I want you all to go upstairs
+now; don't wait until five minutes before dinner. You will each find
+lying on your bed, ready for wearing, a suitable dinner-blouse. Put it on
+and come downstairs. You will wear dinner-dress every night in future, in
+order to accustom you to the manners of good society. Now go upstairs,
+tidy yourselves, and come down looking as nice as you can."
+
+The girls were all very much excited at the thought of the dinner-blouses.
+They found them, as Aunt Sophia had said, each ready to put on, on their
+little beds. Verena's was palest blue, trimmed daintily with a lot of
+fluffy lace. The sleeves were elbow-sleeves, and had ruffles round them.
+The blouse in itself was quite a girlish one, and suited its fair wearer
+to perfection. Pauline's blouse was cream-color; it also had
+elbow-sleeves, and was very slightly open at the neck.
+
+"Do be quick, Paulie," called out Briar. "I have got a sweet, darling,
+angel of a pink blouse. Get into yours, and I'll get into mine. Oh, what
+tremendous fun this is!"
+
+Briar ran whooping and singing down the corridor. She was met by nurse
+with baby in her arms.
+
+"Now, Miss Rose, what's up?" said the good woman. "You do look happy, to
+be sure. You don't seem to miss the old days much."
+
+"Of course I don't, nursey. I'm twice as happy as I used to be."
+
+"Twice as happy with all them lessons to learn?"
+
+"Yes; twice as happy, and twice as good. She doesn't scold us when we're
+good. In fact, she's just uncommonly nice. And to-night she says she'll
+play and sing to us; and it's so delicious to listen to her! Dad comes
+out of his study just as if she drew him by magic. And I like to learn
+things. I won't be a horrid pig of an ignorant girl any more. You will
+have to respect me in the future, nursey. And there's a darling little
+blouse lying on my bed--pink, like the leaf of a rose. I am to wear it
+to-night. I expect Aunt Sophia chose it because I'm like a rose myself. I
+shall look nice, shan't I, nursey?"
+
+"That's all very well," said nurse. "And for my part I don't object to
+civilized ways, and bringing you up like young ladies; but as to Miss
+Pen, she's just past bearing. New ways don't suit her--no, that they
+don't. She ain't come in yet--not a bit of her. Oh! there she is,
+marching down the corridor as if all the world belonged to her. What have
+you done to yourself, Miss Pen? A nice mess you are in!"
+
+"I thought I'd collect some fresh eggs for your tea, nursey," said the
+incorrigible child; "and I had three or four in my pinafore when I
+dropped them. I am a bit messy, I know; but you don't mind, do you,
+nursey?"
+
+"Indeed, then, I do. Just go straight to the nursery and get washed."
+
+Penelope glanced at Briar with a wry face, and ran away singing out in a
+shrill voice:
+
+                     "Cross patch, draw the latch,
+                     Sit by the fire and spin."
+
+She disappeared like a flash, and nurse followed her, murmuring angrily.
+
+Briar ran into her bedroom. This room she shared with Patty and Adelaide.
+They also were wildly delighted with their beautiful blouses, and had not
+begun to dress when Briar appeared.
+
+"I say, isn't it all jolly?" said Briar. "Oh, Patty, what a duck yours
+is!--white. And Adelaide's is white, too. But don't you love mine? I must
+be a very pretty girl to cause Aunt Sophia to choose such a lovely shade
+of rose. I wonder if I am really a pretty girl. Do stand out of the way;
+I want to stare at myself in the glass."
+
+Briar ran to the dressing-table. There she pushed the glass into such an
+angle that she could gaze contentedly at her features. She saw a small,
+rather round face, cheeks a little flushed, eyes very dark and bright,
+quantities of bright brown curling hair, dark pencilled eyebrows, a
+little nose, and a small pink mouth.
+
+"You are a charming girl, Briar Dale," she said, "worthy of a rose-pink
+blouse. Patty, don't you just love yourself awfully?"
+
+"I don't know," said Patty. "I suppose every one does."
+
+"The Bible says it is very wrong to love yourself," said Adelaide. "You
+ought to love other people and hate yourself."
+
+"Well, I am made the contrary," said Briar. "I hate other people and love
+myself. Who wouldn't love a darling little face like mine? Oh, I am just
+a duck! Help me into my new blouse, Patty."
+
+The three girls, each with the help of the other, managed to array
+themselves even to Briar's satisfaction. She was the neatest and also the
+vainest of the Dales. When she reached the outside corridor she met
+Verena, looking sweet, gentle, and charming in her pale-blue blouse. They
+all ran down to the drawing-room, where Miss Tredgold was waiting to
+receive them. She wore the old black lace dress, which suited her faded
+charms to perfection. She was standing by the open French window, and
+turned as her nieces came in. The girls expected her to make some remark
+with regard to their appearance, but the only thing she said was to ask
+them to observe the exquisite sunset.
+
+Presently Pauline appeared. She looked pale. There were black shadows
+under her eyes, and she was wearing a dirty white shirt decidedly the
+worse for wear. The other girls looked at her in astonishment. Verena
+gave her a quick glance of pain. Verena understood; the others were
+simply amazed. Miss Tredgold flashed one glance at her, and did not look
+again in her direction.
+
+Dinner was announced in quite the orthodox fashion, and the young people
+went into the dining-room. Mr. Dale was present. He was wearing quite a
+decent evening suit. He had not the faintest idea that he was not still
+in the old suit that had lain by unused and neglected for so many long
+years. He had not the most remote conception that Miss Tredgold had taken
+that suit and sent it to a tailor in London and desired him to make by
+its measurements a new suit according to the existing vogue. Mr. Dale put
+on the new suit when it came, and imagined that it was the old one. But,
+scholar as he was, he was learning to appreciate the excellent meals Miss
+Tredgold provided for him. On this occasion he was so human as to find
+fault with a certain entree.
+
+"This curry is not hot enough," he said. "I like spicy things; don't you,
+Sophia?"
+
+Miss Tredgold thought this an enormous sign of mental improvement. She
+had already spoken to cook on the subject of Mr. Dale's tastes.
+
+"Why, drat him!" was Betty's somewhat indignant answer. "In the old days
+he didn't know sprats from salmon, nor butter from lard. Whatever have
+you done to him, ma'am?"
+
+"I am bringing him back to humanity," was Miss Tredgold's quiet answer.
+
+Betty raised her eyebrows. She looked at Miss Tredgold and said to
+herself:
+
+"So quiet in her ways, so gentle, and for all so determined! Looks as
+though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; yet you daren't so much as
+neglect the smallest little sauce for the poorest little _entree_ or
+you'd catch it hot. She's a real haristocrat. It's a pleasure to have
+dealings with her. Yes, it's a downright pleasure. When I'm not thinking
+of my favorite 'ero of fiction, the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton, I
+feel that I'm doing the next best thing when I'm receiving the orders of
+her ladyship."
+
+Another of cook's ideas was that Miss Tredgold was a person of title, who
+chose for the present to disguise the fact. She certainly had a
+marvellous power over the erratic Betty, and was turning her into a
+first-rate cook.
+
+"Are you going to give us some of that exquisite music to-night, Sophia?"
+asked Mr. Dale when he had finished his dinner. He looked languidly at
+his sister-in-law.
+
+"On one condition I will," she said. "The condition is this: you are to
+accompany my piano on the violin."
+
+Mr. Dale's face became pale. He did not speak for a minute; then he rose
+and went nimbly on tiptoe out of the room.
+
+There was silence for a short time. The girls and their aunt had migrated
+into the drawing-room. The drawing-room looked sweetly pretty with its
+open windows, its softly shaded lamps, its piano wide open, and the
+graceful figures of the girls flitting about. Even Pauline's ugly blouse
+was forgotten. There was a sense of mystery in the air. Presently in the
+distance came the sound of a fiddle. It was the sound of a fiddle being
+tuned. The notes were discordant; but soon rich, sweeping melodies were
+heard. They came nearer and nearer, and Mr. Dale, still playing his
+fiddle, entered the room. He entered with a sort of dancing measure,
+playing an old minuet as he did so.
+
+Miss Tredgold stepped straight to the piano and without any music, played
+an accompaniment.
+
+"I have won," she thought. "I shall send him away for change of air; then
+the study must be cleaned. I shall be able to breathe then."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NANCY SHOWS HER HAND.
+
+
+It was not until after breakfast on the following morning that Miss
+Tredgold said anything to Pauline about the ugly shirt she had chosen to
+wear on the previous evening.
+
+"My dear," she said then, very gently, "I did not remark on your dress
+last night; but for the future remember that when I say a thing is to be
+done, it is to be done. I had a pretty, suitable blouse put into your
+room for you to appear in last night. Why did you wear that ugly torn
+shirt?"
+
+"I couldn't help myself," said Pauline.
+
+"That is no reason."
+
+Pauline was silent. She looked on the ground. Miss Tredgold also was
+silent for a minute; then she said decisively:
+
+"You will wear the new blouse to-night. Remember, I expect to be obeyed.
+I will say nothing more now about your forgetting my orders last evening.
+Do better in the future and all will be well."
+
+It was with great difficulty that Pauline could keep the tears from her
+eyes. What was to become of her. She did not dare expose her burnt arm;
+she could not possibly wear a blouse with sleeves that reached only to
+the elbow without showing the great burn she had received. If Miss
+Tredgold found out, might she not also find out more? What was she to do?
+
+"What am I to do, Verena?" she said on the afternoon of that same day.
+
+"What do you mean, Paulie? Your arm is better, is it not?"
+
+"Yes; it doesn't hurt quite so much. But how can I wear the new blouse
+to-night?"
+
+"Would it not be wiser," said Verena, "if you were to tell Aunt Sophy
+that you have burnt your arm? It is silly to make a mystery of it."
+
+"But she will make me tell her how I did it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I daren't tell her that. I daren't even tell you."
+
+"What am I to think, Paulie?"
+
+"Anything you like. You are my own sister, and you must not betray me.
+But she must never know. Can't you think of something to get me out of
+this? Oh, dear! what is to be done?"
+
+Verena shook her head.
+
+"I don't know what is to be done," she said, "if you haven't the courage
+to speak the truth. You have probably got into some scrape."
+
+"Oh! I----"
+
+"I am sure you have, Paulie; and the sooner you tell the better. The
+longer you conceal whatever it is, the worse matters will grow."
+
+Pauline's face grew crimson.
+
+"I am exceedingly sorry I told you," she said. "You are not half, nor
+quarter, as nice a sister as you used to be. Don't keep me. I am going
+into the shrubbery to help Penelope to look for Aunt Sophy's thimble."
+
+Verena said nothing further, and Pauline went into the shrubbery.
+
+"I seem to be getting worse," she said to herself. "Of course, I don't
+really want to help Penelope. How should I, when I know where the thimble
+is? There she is, hunting, hunting, as usual. What a queer, unpleasant
+child she is growing!"
+
+Penelope saw Pauline, and ran up to her.
+
+"You might tell me everything to-day," said the child. "Where did you put
+it?"
+
+"I have come to help you to look for it, Pen."
+
+"Don't be silly," was Penelope's answer.
+
+She instantly stood bolt upright.
+
+"There's no use in my fussing any longer," she said. "I've gone round and
+round here, and picked up leaves, and looked under all the weeds. There
+isn't a corner I've left unpoked into. Where's the good of troubling when
+you have it? You know you have it."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind. There! I will tell you the simple truth. I
+have not got the thimble. You may believe me as much as you like."
+
+"Then I'll believe just as much as nothing at all. If you haven't got the
+thimble, you know where it is. I'll give you until this time to-morrow to
+let me have it, and if you don't I'll go straight to Aunt Sophy."
+
+"Now, Pen, you are talking nonsense. You have no proof whatever that I
+have touched the thimble; and what will Aunt Sophia say to a little child
+who trumps up stories about her elder sister?"
+
+"Perhaps she'll be very glad," said Penelope. "I have often thought that
+with such a lot of you grown-up girls, and all of you so very rampagious
+and not a bit inclined to obey or do your lessons nicely, poor Aunt
+Sophy, what is really a dear old duck of a thing, wants some one like me
+to spy round corners and find out what goes on ahind her back. Don't you
+think so? Don't you think her'll love me if I tell her always what goes
+on ahind of her back?"
+
+"If she's a bit decent she'll hate you," said Pauline. "Oh, Pen, how were
+you made? What a queer, queer sort of child you are! You haven't ideas
+like the rest of us."
+
+"Maybe 'cos I'm nicer," said Penelope, not at all impressed by Pauline's
+contempt. "Maybe I shouldn't like to be made same as all you others are.
+There is something wrong about Aunt Sophy's thimble, and if I don't get
+it soon I'll be 'bliged to tell her."
+
+Penelope's eyes looked like needles. She walked away. Pauline gazed after
+her; then she went into the house.
+
+"That thimble is really a very trifling matter," she said to herself,
+"but even that at the present moment annoys me. Nancy has promised to
+bring it back to me this evening, and I will just put it somewhere where
+Pen is sure to find it. Then she'll be in raptures; she'll have her
+penny, and that matter will be set at rest. Oh, dear! it is almost time
+to go and meet Nancy. She must not keep me long, for now that that horrid
+dressing for dinner has begun, it takes quite half an hour to get
+properly tidy. But what am I to do? How can I wear that blouse?"
+
+Pauline waited her chance, and slipped out at the wicket-gate without
+even Penelope's sharp eyes watching her. She found Nancy pacing up and
+down at the other side. Nancy was decidedly cross.
+
+"Why did you keep me waiting?" she said. "It is five minutes past six,
+and I have barely another five minutes to stay with you, and there's a
+lot to talk over."
+
+"I'm in great luck to be able to come at all, Nancy. I didn't think I
+could ever slip away from the others. As to the midnight picnic, we must
+give it up. It is quite impossible for me to come. And I know the others
+won't; they're all getting so fond of Aunt Sophy. What do you think? She
+has given us ponies, and we're to have carriage-horses presently; and we
+are obliged to dress for dinner every evening."
+
+"Oh, you are turning aristocratic, and I hate you," said Nancy, with a
+toss of the head.
+
+She looked intensely jealous and annoyed. She herself was to ride soon,
+and her habit was already being made. She had hoped against hope that
+Miss Tredgold would be impressed by seeing her gallop past in an elegant
+habit on a smart horse.
+
+"Oh, Nancy!" said Pauline, "don't let us talk about ponies and things of
+that sort now; I am in great, great trouble."
+
+"I must say I'm rather glad," said Nancy. "You know, Paulie, you are in
+some ways perfectly horrid. I did a great deal for you the other night,
+and this is all the thanks I get. You won't come to the midnight picnic,
+forsooth! And you won't have anything more to do with me, forsooth!
+You'll ride past me, I suppose, and cut me dead."
+
+"I shall never do anything unkind, for I really do love you, Nancy. I
+have always loved you, but I can't get into fresh scrapes. They're not
+worth while."
+
+"You didn't talk like that when you were mad and starving the other day."
+
+"No, I didn't; but I do now. I have been miserable ever since I came
+back; and, oh, my arm has pained me so badly! You can imagine what I felt
+last evening when we were desired to wear pretty new blouses with
+elbow-sleeves; such sweet little dears as they all were. Mine was
+cream-color--just what suits me best--but of course I couldn't appear in
+it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"With my burnt arm! How could I, Nancy?"
+
+Nancy burst out into a roar of laughter.
+
+"What a lark!" she cried. "Well, and what did the poor little Miss Misery
+do?"
+
+"I had to put on an old dirty shirt, the only one I could find. Aunt
+Sophia gave me no end of a lecture this morning. She says I am to wear my
+new blouse to-night or she'll know the reason why. Of course, I can't
+wear it."
+
+"Then you can't have any dinner?"
+
+"I am absolutely beside myself to know what to do," said Pauline.
+"Sometimes I think I'll go to bed and pretend I have got a headache. Oh,
+dear, what a bad girl I am turning into!"
+
+Nancy laughed again.
+
+"It is sometimes very tiresome to develop a conscience," she said. "You
+were a much nicer girl before that grand aunt of yours arrived to turn
+things topsy-turvy. As to the midnight picnic, you must come. I have made
+a bet on the subject. Jack and Tom say you won't come--that you will be
+afraid. 'Pauline Dale afraid! That's all you know about her,' says I. I
+have assured them that you will come whatever happens, and they have said
+you won't. So the end of it is that Tom, Jack, and I have made a bet
+about it. It is ten shillings' worth either way. If you come, I get three
+beautiful pairs of gloves. If you don't come, I give the boys ten
+shillings. Now you see how important it is. Why, Paulie, of course you
+will come! We are going to have a right-down jolly time, for father is so
+tickled with the notion that he is coming, too; and he says he will give
+us a real good lark. And we are going to Friar's Oak, eight miles away;
+and we are to take hampers full of dainties. And Fiddler Joe will come
+with us to play for us; and there's a beautiful green-sward just under
+the beech-trees by Friar's Oak, and there we'll dance by the full light
+of the moon. Oh, you must come! I told father you were coming, and he was
+awfully pleased--as pleased as Punch--and he said:
+
+"'That's right, my girl; that's right, Nancy. If the Dales stick to me
+through thick and thin, I'll stick to them.'
+
+"You know, Pauline, you have always been at our fun before; so, aunt or
+no aunt, you can't fail us now."
+
+"I'd like to go beyond anything," said Pauline, who felt intensely
+tempted by this description. "It is so horrible to be pulled up short.
+But I know I can't, so there's no use thinking about it."
+
+"You needn't answer me now. I'll come back again. This is Friday night.
+I'll come back on Monday night. The picnic is arranged for Wednesday
+night. Listen, Paulie; you will have to change your mind, for if you
+don't--well!"
+
+"If I don't?"
+
+"I can make it very hot for you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'll come and have a talk with your aunt. There!"
+
+"Oh, Nancy. What about?"
+
+"Such an interesting story, darling! All about our fun that night when
+you burnt your arm--all about our gaiety, and the fireworks, and your
+stealing away as you did, and your stealing back as you did. Oh! I shall
+have a jolly story to tell; and I will tell it, too. She'll turn me away,
+and tell me she'll never see me any more; but what of that? She's done
+that already. I will have my fun; you will have your punishment. That's
+fair enough, isn't it? You don't desert Nancy King for nothing, remember
+that, Pauline, so you had better say at once that you will come. Now, my
+love, I think that is about all."
+
+Nancy's face was very red. She was feeling thoroughly angry. Pauline's
+manner annoyed her past description. She really imagined herself to be
+extremely kind and good-natured to Pauline, and could not endure the
+little girl taking her present high stand.
+
+"I must be going now," she said.
+
+She gave Pauline a nod which was scarcely friendly, but was, at the same
+time, very determined, and was about to run home, when Pauline called
+her.
+
+"Don't go for a minute, Nancy. There's something else. Have you brought
+me back Aunt Sophia's thimble?"
+
+"No, I have not. I have a story to tell you about that, and I was just
+forgetting it. I do hope and trust you won't really mind."
+
+"Oh, what is it? You know I am quite likely to get into a scrape about
+that horrid thimble as well as everything else. What is the story? The
+thimble isn't yours. You surely haven't lost it!"
+
+"Nothing of the kind. You look as though you thought I had stolen it.
+Mean as I am, I am not quite so bad as that. Now let me tell you. Becky,
+poor old girl! saw it. She's always mad about finery of any sort, and her
+people are rich as rich. I had the thimble in my pocket, and she was
+snuggling up close to me in her nice, engaging little fashion, and she
+felt the thimble hard against my side, much as I felt it when it was in
+your pocket. In she slipped her little bit of a white hand and drew it
+out. I never saw any one so delighted over a toy of the sort in all my
+life. It fitted her little finger just to a nicety.
+
+"'Why,' she exclaimed, 'I never, never saw a thimble like this before;
+did you, Nancy?'
+
+"'Guess not,' I answered. 'It's a cunning one, isn't it?'
+
+"She kept turning it round and round, and looking at it, and pressing it
+up to her cheek, and trying to see her own reflection in that wonderful
+sapphire at the bottom of the thimble. Then what do you think happened? I
+own it was a little sharp of her, but of course you can't be so
+unfriendly as to mind. She took the precious little toy and put it into a
+dear, most precious little box, and covered it over with soft, soft
+cotton-wool, and placed a sweet little lid on the top. Dear me, Pauline!
+you needn't open your eyes any wider. And when she had secured the little
+box, she wrapped it in brown paper, and twined it, and sealed it, and
+addressed it to her sister Josephine in London."
+
+"Then she stole it," said Pauline.
+
+"Not a bit of it. What a narrow-minded girl you are! Just hear my story
+out. Becky sent the thimble to Josephine to their house in Bayswater,
+with directions that Josephine was to take it to their jeweller, Paxton,
+and ask him to make another in all particulars precise ditto the same.
+You understand? Precise ditto the same--sapphire, gold, turquoise, and
+all. And this beautiful thimble is to be worn on the dear little middle
+finger of Becky's dear little white hand. When it is faithfully copied
+you will have the original thimble back, my love, but not before. Now,
+then, ta-ta for the present."
+
+Nancy ran off before Pauline had time to reply. She felt stunned. What
+did everything mean? How queer of Nancy to have suddenly turned into a
+perfectly awful girl--a sort of fiend--a girl who had another girl
+completely in her power; who could, and would if she liked, make that
+other girl wretched; who could and would ruin that other girl's life.
+There was a time when the midnight picnic seemed the most delightful
+thing on earth; but it scarcely appeared delightful now to poor Pauline,
+whose head ached, whose arm ached, and whose whole body ached. What was
+she to do?
+
+When she re-entered the shrubbery, her unhappy feelings were by no means
+lightened to see that Penelope was waiting for her. Penelope stood a
+little way off, her feet firmly planted a little apart, her straw hat
+pushed back from her sunburned face, her hands dropped straight to her
+sides.
+
+"I didn't eavesdrop," she said. "I could have easy. There was a
+blackberry briar, and I could have stole under it and not minded the
+scratches, and I could have heard every single word; but I didn't, 'cos
+I'm not mean. But I saw you talking to Nancy, what kind Aunt Sophy says
+you're not to talk to. Perhaps, seeing you has done what is awful wrong,
+you'll give me a penny instead of Aunt Sophy; then I needn't tell her
+that you were talking to Nancy when you oughtn't, and that I think you
+have got the thimble. Will you give me a penny or will you not?"
+
+Pauline put her hand into her pocket.
+
+"You are a most detestable child," she said.
+
+"Think so if you like," said Penelope. "Oh, here's my penny!"
+
+She snatched at the penny which was reposing on Pauline's palm.
+
+"Now I'll go straight off and get John to bring me in some cookies," she
+exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+PAULINE CONFESSES.
+
+
+Pauline was in such a strait that she made up her mind to tell a lie. She
+had never, so far as she could remember, told an actual and premeditated
+lie before. Now matters were so difficult, and there seemed such a
+certainty of there being no other way out, that she resolved to brave the
+consequences and add to her former sin by a desperate, downright black
+lie. Accordingly, just before dinner she ran into Verena's room.
+
+"Renny," she said, "I have made up my mind."
+
+"What about?" asked Verena. "Why, Pauline, you do look bad. Your face is
+as white as a sheet."
+
+"I shall have to explain," continued Pauline. "I am going to tell how I
+got the burn on my arm."
+
+Verena gave a great sigh of relief.
+
+"I am glad," she cried. "It is far better to tell."
+
+"So I think," said Pauline in an airy fashion. "Give me a kiss, Verena; I
+must dress for dinner, and I haven't a moment to lose."
+
+"You will wear your pretty blouse?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Pauline dashed out of the room, banging the door noisily after her.
+
+"I wonder what she means," thought Verena. "She is certainly getting
+rather queer. I am afraid she has a terrible secret on her mind. I am
+glad she means to confess, poor darling! I seem to have less influence
+over her than I used to have, and yet I love no one like Paulie. She is
+all the world to me. I love her far better than the others."
+
+Meanwhile Pauline, with great difficulty, put on her pretty evening-blouse.
+How she hated those elbow-sleeves! How she wished the little soft chiffon
+frills were longer! At another time she would have been delighted with her
+own reflection in the glass, for a cream-colored silk blouse suited her.
+She would have liked to see how well she looked in this new and fashionable
+little garment. She would have been pleased, too, with the size and
+brilliancy of her black eyes. She would have admired that flush which so
+seldom visited her sallow cheeks; she would even have gazed with
+approbation at her pearly-white teeth. Oh, yes, she would have liked
+herself. Now she felt that she hated herself. She turned from the glass
+with a heavy sigh.
+
+Having finished her toilet, she wrapped a soft muslin handkerchief round
+her wounded arm and ran downstairs. Her aunt was already in the
+drawing-room, but to Pauline's relief no one else was present. The little
+girl ran up to her aunt, dropped a curtsy, and looked somewhat
+impertinently into her face.
+
+"Here I am," she said; "and how do I look?"
+
+"You have put on your blouse, Pauline. It suits you. Turn round and let
+me see how it fits at the back. Oh! quite nicely. I told Miss Judson to
+make the blouses in a simple fashion, so that they could be washed again
+and again. But what is the matter, my dear? Your face is very white.
+And--why, my dear Pauline, what is wrong with your arm?"
+
+"I have something to confess, Aunt Sophy. I hope you won't be terribly
+angry."
+
+"Something to confess, my dear child? Well, I am glad you have the
+courage to confess when you do wrong. There is nothing like owning up
+one's faults, Pauline. There is nothing else that really strengthens the
+soul. Well, I am listening, dear. Now, what is it?"
+
+Pauline slowly unfastened the handkerchief which she had bound round her
+arm, and showed the great burn to Miss Tredgold.
+
+Miss Tredgold started, uttered an exclamation, took the little arm in her
+hand, and looked tenderly at the ugly place.
+
+"My poor little girl," she said. "Do you mean that you have been
+suffering from this all this time? But how in the world did it happen?"
+
+"That is what I want to confess. I did something extremely naughty the
+day you kept me in Punishment Land."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"You sent me to bed at seven o'clock."
+
+"Yes; that was part of the punishment."
+
+"Well, I didn't like it. Oh! here comes Verena. Renny, I am confessing my
+sins."
+
+Verena ran up, her face full of anxiety. She put her arm round Pauline's
+waist.
+
+"See how bad her poor arm is," she said, glancing at Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Tredgold, "it is badly hurt; but don't interrupt,
+Verena. I am listening to the story of how Pauline burnt her arm."
+
+"You sent me to bed at seven o'clock," said Pauline, who, now that she
+had embarked on her narrative, felt emboldened and, strange to say,
+almost enjoyed herself. "I could not possibly sleep at seven o'clock, you
+know; so, to amuse myself, I tried on my new white dress; and then I lit
+a candle, drew down the blinds, and looked at myself in the glass. I was
+so pleased! I did look nice; I felt quite conceited."
+
+"You needn't tell me how you felt, Pauline. I want to hear facts, not
+accounts of your feelings. You did wrong to put on your white dress, for
+it had already been fitted on by the dressmaker, and it was being
+carefully kept for Sunday wear. But proceed. After you lit the candle and
+drew down the blinds what happened?"
+
+"A great puff of wind came in through the window, and it blew the blind
+against the candle, and the flame of the candle came towards me, and I
+had my hand up to arrange my hair. I was fastening it up with hairpins to
+make myself look quite grown-up."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And the candle caught my sleeve and set it on fire."
+
+Miss Tredgold now began to look so pale that Verena vaguely wondered if
+she were going to faint. The little culprit, however, stood bolt upright
+and gazed with defiant black eyes at her aunt.
+
+"Yes," said Pauline, "I suffered awful pain, and the sleeve blazed up
+like anything; but I ran to the basin of water and put it out. I was
+afraid to tell you. I had to tell Renny that I had burnt my arm, but I
+didn't tell her how it happened, and I wouldn't allow her to breathe to
+you that I was in pain. That was the reason I could not wear my pretty
+blouse last night, and you were angry with me. I hope you won't be angry
+any more; but the sleeve of the dress is burnt badly. Perhaps you won't
+give me any birthday present because the sleeve of my new dress is so
+much injured."
+
+"I will see about that. The thing is to cure your arm. The doctor must
+come immediately."
+
+"But it is getting better."
+
+"You must see the doctor," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She went out of the room as she spoke. Pauline sank into a chair; Verena
+looked down at her.
+
+"Have you told the truth?" asked Verena suddenly.
+
+Pauline nodded with such a savage quickness that it made her sister
+positively certain that she had not heard the right story.
+
+Miss Tredgold came back in a minute.
+
+"I have sent for Dr. Moffat," she said. "I hope he will be here after
+dinner. My dear child, why didn't you tell me before?"
+
+"Are you going to forgive me?" faltered Pauline. "I--I almost think I'd
+rather you didn't."
+
+"You are a very queer child, and I may as well tell you frankly you are
+talking nonsense. You did wrong, of course, to put on the white dress;
+but I think, my dear, your sufferings have been your punishment. We will
+say no more now about the burnt sleeve. Fortunately I have plenty of the
+same muslin in the house, and the mischief can be quickly repaired. Now,
+dear, lie back in that chair. No; you are not to come in to dinner. It
+shall be sent to you here on a tray."
+
+For the rest of the evening Pauline was so pitied and fussed over, and
+made so thoroughly comfortable, that she began to think the black, black
+lie she had uttered quite a good thing.
+
+"Here am I half out of my scrape," she thought. "Now, if I can only
+persuade Nancy not to force us to go to that midnight picnic, and not to
+tell if we don't go, and if I can get the thimble back, I shall be once
+more as happy as the day is long. This wicked black lie shall not
+frighten me. There is no other way out. I cannot possibly tell the truth.
+What would Nancy think if I did?"
+
+The doctor came. He ordered a healing lotion for the arm; he also felt
+the pulse of the little patient. He declared her to be slightly feverish,
+and ordered her to bed.
+
+Half the next day Pauline stayed in her comfortable bed. She was fed with
+dainties by Aunt Sophia, was not expected to learn any lessons, and was
+given a fascinating story-book to wile away the time. During the morning,
+when she was not engaged in the schoolroom, Miss Tredgold stayed by the
+little girl's side, and mended the burnt dress, cutting out a new sleeve
+and putting it in with deft, clever fingers.
+
+Pauline watched her as one fascinated. As she looked and observed the
+graceful figure, the kindly expression of the eyes, and the noble pose of
+the head, there stole over her desolate little heart a warm glow. She
+began to love Aunt Sophia. When she began to love her she began also to
+hate herself.
+
+"I don't want to love her a bit," thought the child. "I want quite to
+detest her. If I love her badly--and perhaps I may--it will make things
+that must happen much more difficult."
+
+Aunt Sophia left the room. She came back presently with a dainty jelly
+and some home-made biscuits. She put an extra pillow at Pauline's back,
+and placed the little tray containing the tempting food in front of her.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Paulie?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"About how nice you are," answered the child; and then she added, "I
+don't want you to be nice."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I don't. I can't tell you more than just I don't."
+
+Miss Tredgold said nothing more. She resumed her work, and Pauline ate
+her jelly.
+
+"Aunt Sophy," she said presently, "I want to be awfully good at my
+lessons next week. I want to learn real desperate hard. I want to turn
+into a very clever girl. You'd like me to be clever, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Provided you are not conceited with it," said Aunt Sophia in her abrupt
+way.
+
+"Perhaps I should be," said Pauline. "I was always thought rather smart.
+I like people to call me smart. You don't want me to turn stupid because
+I may get conceited."
+
+"No, dear; I want you to be natural. I want you to try very hard to be
+learned, to be good, to be a lady. I want you to be the sort of woman
+your mother would have wished you to be had she lived. I want you to grow
+up strong in mind and strong in body. I want you to be unselfish. I want
+you to look upon life as a great gift which you must not abuse, which you
+must make use of. I want you, Paulie, and your sisters to be the best in
+every sense of that great word. You will fail. We all fail at times; but
+there is forgiveness for each failure if you go to the right and only
+source. Have I said enough?"
+
+"Yes," said Pauline in a low voice.
+
+Her conscience was pricking her. She lowered her eyes; the long black
+lashes trembled with tears. Miss Tredgold stooped and kissed her.
+
+"I hear Briar in the garden," she said. "I will send her up to you. Be as
+merry as you please with her, and forget my words for the present."
+
+Pauline got up in time for late dinner. She was, of course, excused
+wearing her dinner-blouse, and was still treated somewhat as an invalid.
+But on Sunday morning she was so much better that she was able to wear
+her white dress, and able also to join her sisters in the garden.
+
+They all went to the pretty little church in the next village, and Miss
+Tredgold accompanied them.
+
+Looking back on it afterwards, that Sunday always seemed to Pauline like
+an exquisite dream of peace. Her lie did not press at all against her
+heart. The discomfort of it was for the time in abeyance. She tried to
+forget Miss Tredgold's ideal girl; she was happy without knowing why. She
+was happy, but at the same time she was quite well aware of the fact that
+her happiness would come to an end on Sunday night. She was quite certain
+that on Monday morning her grave and terrible troubles would begin. She
+would have to see Nancy. She would have to decide with regard to the
+midnight picnic. There was no joy for Pauline in the thought of that
+picnic now, but she dared not stay away from it, for if she did Nancy
+would have her way. Nancy's temper, quick and hot as a temper could be,
+would blaze up. She would come to Miss Tredgold and tell her everything.
+If it had been awful to Pauline's imagination to think of Miss Tredgold
+knowing the truth before, what would it be to her now after the lie she
+had told?
+
+"I must coax Nancy," thought the little girl to herself. "I must tell her
+that I can't go to the picnic, and I must implore her not to tell. Oh,
+what shall I do? How shall I persuade her?"
+
+On Sunday morning, therefore, notwithstanding her promises, Pauline was
+inattentive at lessons. But Miss Tredgold was not inclined to be
+over-severe. The doctor had said that the child had not only been badly
+burnt, but had also received a nervous shock. He had further added that
+the more liberty she was given, and the more fresh air just at present,
+the better.
+
+Accordingly Pauline was sent into the garden long before the others had
+finished their lessons. She presently sat down under the shade of a tree.
+She was not to meet Nancy till six o'clock.
+
+By-and-by Penelope came out, saw her sister, and ran towards her.
+
+"Have you got the thimble?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I haven't. I don't know anything about the thimble. What do
+you mean?"
+
+Alas for Pauline! Her first lie had made her second easy.
+
+Penelope looked at her in puzzled wonder.
+
+"I thought you did know about it," she said, disappointment stealing over
+her shrewd little face.
+
+"I don't know anything about it. Don't worry me."
+
+"You are so cross that I'm sure you have done something desperate
+naughty," said Penelope. "I want to find out what it is, and I don't want
+to stay with you. I think you are horrid."
+
+She marched away defiantly, her squat little figure and bare legs looking
+so comical that Pauline burst out laughing.
+
+"What am I coming to?" she said to herself. "This is lie number two. Oh,
+dear! I feel just as if a net were surrounding me, and the net was being
+drawn tighter each moment, and I was being dragged into a pit out of
+which there is no escape. What shall I do?"
+
+Just then Mr. Dale, who seldom left the house, appeared in view. He was
+walking slowly, his hands thrust into his pockets, his head bent forward;
+he was murmuring some sentences of his beloved Virgil to himself. He took
+no notice of Pauline. He did not even see her. Neither did he notice the
+chair in which she was sitting. He came bang up against her before he
+knew that she was there.
+
+"What have I done?" he exclaimed. "Oh, it is you, Pauline! How
+inconsiderate of you to sit like this on the lawn!"
+
+"But we always sit on the chairs, dad," said Pauline, springing to her
+feet.
+
+He forgot that he had made the remark. He laid his hand on her shoulder.
+
+"I have been having a delightful time," he said--"truly a delightful
+time. All this morning I have been in contact with noble thoughts. My
+child, can you realize, even dimly, what it is to dip into those mines of
+wealth--those mines of illimitable wisdom and greatness and strength and
+power? Oh, the massiveness of the intellects of the old classic writers!
+Their lofty ideas with regard to time and eternity--where can their like
+be found?"
+
+Pauline yawned.
+
+"Are you tired?" asked her father.
+
+"No--only worried," she answered.
+
+She did not know why she made the latter remark; but at the same time she
+was perfectly well aware that anything she said to her father was safe,
+as he would absolutely forget it in the course of the next minute. He was
+roused now from his visions of the past by a certain pathos in the little
+face. He put his arm round the child and drew her to him.
+
+"My dear, pretty little girl," he said.
+
+"Am I pretty?" asked Pauline.
+
+He gazed at her out of his short-sighted eyes.
+
+"I think not," he said slowly. "I was imagining you were Verena, or
+perhaps Briar. Briar is certainly very pretty. No, Pauline, you are not
+pretty; you are plain. But never mind; you have perhaps got"--he put a
+finger on each temple--"you have perhaps got something greater."
+
+"It doesn't matter if you are plain or not," said Pauline almost crossly,
+"when you are awfully worried."
+
+"But what worries you, my child? I would not have one so young subjected
+to worries. My dear, is it possible that you already are perplexed with
+the ways of this present life? Truly, I am scarcely surprised. The life
+we lead in these degenerate days is so poor; the giants have left the
+earth, and only the pigmies are left. Don't worry about life, child; it
+isn't worth while."
+
+"I am not," said Pauline bluntly. "I am worrying because----"
+
+"Because of what, dear?"
+
+"Because I am going to be desperately naughty."
+
+Mr. Dale shook his head slowly.
+
+"I wouldn't," he said. "It is very uncomfortable and wrong, and it
+sullies the conscience. When the conscience gets sullied the nature goes
+down--imperceptibly, perhaps, but still it goes down. If your worry is an
+affair of the conscience, take it to Him who alone can understand you."
+
+Pauline looked at her father with awed astonishment.
+
+"You mean God?" she said. "Will He help me?"
+
+"Certainly He will. He is the Great Deliverer, and His strength is as
+immeasurable as it ever was. He gave power to the martyrs to go through
+the flames. He will help a little, weak girl if she asks Him. Oh, my
+dear, it has struck twelve! I have lost a quarter of an hour. Don't keep
+me another moment."
+
+The scholar and dreamer hurried to the house. Long before he got there he
+had forgotten Pauline and her childish worries. She was going to be
+desperately naughty. He certainly no longer remembered those words.
+
+Meanwhile the child stayed behind with her hands clasped.
+
+"I wish he had told me more," she said to herself. "I don't believe God
+could put this straight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE NET.
+
+
+On Monday Pauline's troubles began over again. She ought to have been
+very happy on this special day, for the birthday--the great, important
+birthday, her very own, when she would reach the completion of her
+fourteenth year--was near at hand. But although Pauline was perplexed and
+unhappy, there was nevertheless a birthday feeling in the air. In the
+first place, there was a great and exciting sense of mystery. The girls
+were seen darting quickly here and there; in every imaginable corner
+there were whispered consultations. Aunt Sophia, in particular, never
+looked at Pauline without smiling. She was kindness itself. It seemed to
+the poor little girl that her aunt had taken a great fancy to her. This
+was the case. Miss Tredgold was interested in all her nieces, but even
+Verena with her daintiness and pretty face, and Briar with her most
+charming personality, did not attract Miss Tredgold as did the
+blunt-looking, almost plain child who called herself Pauline.
+
+"She has got character and independence," thought the good lady. "She
+will be something by-and-by. She will always be able to hold her own in
+the world. She is the kind of girl who could do much good. It hurt me
+very much to send her into Punishment Land, but she is all the better for
+it. Oh, yes, she must taste the rough as well as the smooth if she is to
+be worth anything. She will be worth a good deal; of that I am
+convinced."
+
+Miss Tredgold, therefore, had compassion on Pauline's late indisposition,
+and made lessons as easy as possible for her. Thus Pauline had very
+little to do, except to think of that mystery which was growing thicker
+and thicker. In one way it helped her own dilemma. With her sisters
+walking in twos and threes all over the place, it would not be at all
+remarkable for her to slip down at the appointed hour to the wicket-gate.
+Even Penelope would not notice her, so absorbed was she in assisting
+Adelaide to make a special present for Pauline.
+
+As the day advanced the little girl became terribly nervous. She felt a
+sense of irritation when one of her sisters looked at her, whispered to
+her companion, and then turned away. She would almost have preferred Miss
+Tredgold to be as stern as she was before. Her whole mind was in a state
+of tumult. She felt the net closing tighter and tighter around her. Even
+the birthday was scarcely interesting while such a weight rested on her
+heart. Miss Tredgold had said during the afternoon as they were all
+sitting together on the lawn:
+
+"This is to be a great birthday. This is the very first birthday I have
+spent under your roof. You must all remember it as long as you live."
+
+"Oh, can I ever forget it?" thought poor Pauline. "But Aunt Sophy little
+knows that I shall not remember it for its kindness and its sunshine and
+its presents; I shall remember it always because I am such a wicked
+girl."
+
+Now as evening approached she could not help whispering to herself:
+
+"The net is closing--closing round me. It is gathering me up into a heap.
+My legs and arms are tied. Soon the wicked, dreadful thing will press my
+head down, and I shall be powerless and lost."
+
+She thought out this metaphor, and it seemed to haunt her footsteps.
+
+"It is right that a girl who told a black lie should be cramped up in
+it," thought Pauline. "Oh, why hadn't I courage to tell Aunt Sophy the
+truth? She might have been angry, but in the end she would have forgiven
+me. I would far rather have no notice whatever taken of my birthday than
+be as miserable as I am now."
+
+"That child isn't well," said Miss Tredgold to Verena, as Pauline was
+seen slowly creeping in a subdued sort of way in the direction of the
+lower shrubbery. "Why is she always stealing off by herself? I have a
+good mind to call her back and take her for a drive. It is a lovely
+evening, and a drive would do her good."
+
+"So it would, Aunt Sophy. You know how busy all the rest of us are
+finishing her presents. I am sure she would love to drive with you, for I
+think she is getting very fond of you."
+
+"Perhaps, my dear; but I have made up my mind not to have favorites. As
+long as you are all good I shall love you all.--Pauline--yes, Verena, I
+shall offer her a drive--Pauline, come here."
+
+Pauline hated to be called back, but she could not do otherwise than
+obey. She approached lingeringly.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Sophy," she said.
+
+"Would you like to take a drive with me? We might go and find out how
+soon Peas-blossom and Lavender will be ready to come to their new home."
+
+At another time such a request on the part of Miss Tredgold would have
+enraptured Pauline; but she knew that it only wanted five minutes to six,
+and she doubted if Nancy would consent to be kept waiting long.
+
+"No," she answered slowly; "my head aches. Please, I would rather not
+take a drive."
+
+She did not wait for Miss Tredgold's response, but continued her slow
+walk.
+
+"The poor child is certainly ill," said the good lady. "If she continues
+to look as poorly and as sadly out of sorts next week I shall take her to
+the seaside."
+
+"Will you, Aunt Sophy? How lovely! Do you know that Paulie and I have
+never been to the sea? We do so long to see it!"
+
+"Well, my dear, I shall take you all presently, but I can't say when.
+Now, as Pauline does not want to drive with me, I shall go into the house
+and finish some of my arrangements."
+
+Miss Tredgold went indoors, and Verena joined Briar and Patty, who were
+in a great state of excitement.
+
+Meanwhile Pauline had reached the wicket-gate. She opened it and went
+out. Nancy was waiting for her. Nancy's cheeks were flushed and her eyes
+bright. She looked as if she had been quarreling with somebody. Pauline
+knew that look well. Nancy's two friends Becky and Amy were standing at a
+little distance. There was a small governess-cart drawn up not far away,
+and Becky was stroking the nose of a rough little Forest pony.
+
+"Father gave me the cart and pony this morning," said Nancy. "There's
+nothing he wouldn't do for me. The pony and cart aren't much, perhaps,
+but still it is fun to have them to fly over the place. Well, and how
+goes her little high-and-mightiness? Frumpy, I can see. Grumpy, I can
+guess. Now, is Pauline glad to see poor old Nance--eh?"
+
+"Of course, Nancy; but I have come to say----"
+
+"We'll have no 'buts,' darling, if you please."
+
+"I can't come to the picnic, Nancy; I really cannot."
+
+"How white poor little Dumpy looks! Wants some one to cheer her up, or
+she'll be dumped and frumped and grumped all in one. Now, darling, I'm
+going to put my arm round your waist. I am going to feel your little
+heart go pit-a-pat. You shall lean against me. Isn't that snug? Doesn't
+dear old Nancy count for something in your life?"
+
+"Of course you do, Nancy. I am fond of you. I have always said so,"
+replied Pauline.
+
+"Then you will yield, darling, to the inevitable."
+
+"I am yielding to it now," replied Pauline. "I am not going with you
+because I can't."
+
+"And you are going with me because you must," Nancy responded. "For
+listen, Pauline. Although I am affectionate, I can be--oh, yes--dangerous.
+And if you don't come, why, I can keep my word. Wednesday is your
+birthday. I wonder when the crown of the day will come?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, there always is a crown to a birthday. There is a time, either in
+the evening or in the morning, when the queen receives the homage of her
+subjects. She gets her presents, and there are pretty speeches made to
+her, and she has her dainty feast and her crown of flowers. Yes, that
+time is the crown of the day, and that is just the moment when the poor
+little queen shall topple down. The throne shall be knocked from under
+her; the presents will vanish; the sovereignty will cease to exist. Poor,
+poor little queen without a kingdom! How will you like it, Paulie? Do you
+think you could bear it? To have no kingdom and no crown and no presents
+and no love, and to be bitterly disgraced as well! How will you like it,
+Paulie?"
+
+"I know that you can do all that you say," answered Pauline. "I know you
+can be dreadful, and everything is against me. You can ruin me if you
+like, but I want you not to do it, Nancy."
+
+"And if you don't come with us I want to do it, dear; and I rather think
+that my will is stronger than yours."
+
+"But if it kills me?"
+
+"It won't do that, Paulie. You will feel bad, and, oh! as though somebody
+had crushed you; but you won't die. There's only one way out."
+
+Pauline was silent.
+
+"It is quite an easy way," continued Nancy. "It is easy and safe, and
+there's a deal of fun to be got out of it. You have got to come to the
+picnic. Once you are there you will enjoy yourself tremendously. I
+promise to get you home in the morning. You will come, and you will bring
+two of your sisters with you. Two will be enough. I have yielded that
+point. You will meet us here, at this very spot, at eleven o'clock on
+Wednesday night. We are going some distance away, so that no one in the
+neighborhood of The Dales need hear our singing and our fun and our
+jollity. We will come back before daybreak and deposit you just outside
+the wicket-gate. You may think it very unpleasant just now, and very mean
+and all the rest, but it is the only possible way to save yourself. You
+must come to the picnic, and bring two of your sisters."
+
+"But suppose they won't come?"
+
+"They will if you manage things properly. It needn't be Verena. I expect
+Verena, for all she is so soft and fair, is a tough nut to crack; but you
+can bring Briar and Patty. My father will be quite satisfied if three of
+you are present. The fact is, he is awfully hurt at the thought of your
+all thinking yourselves too good for us. He says that the Dales and the
+Kings were always friends. My father is a dear old man, but he has his
+cranks, and he has made up his mind that come you must, or he'll make
+mischief. It won't be only me; it will be my father as well. He will
+appear at The Dales, and if I go straight to Miss Tredgold, he will go
+straight to Mr. Dale. Now, what do you think of that? I am determined to
+have you for reasons of my own, and I shall poke up my father to do no
+end of mischief if you don't appear. Now don't be a goose. Get up a
+little dash of courage and a little dash of your old spirit and
+everything will be as straight as possible."
+
+Pauline stood quite still. Nancy danced in front of her. Nancy's face was
+almost malicious in its glee. Pauline looked at it as a child will look
+when despair clutches at her heart.
+
+"I didn't know--I couldn't guess--that you were like that," she said in a
+sort of whisper.
+
+"Couldn't you, dear little duckledoms? Well, you do know it now; and you
+know also how to act. Don't you see by the lines round my mouth and the
+expression in my eyes that I can be hard as hard when I please? I am
+going to be very hard now. My honor is involved in this. I promised that
+you would be there. There are presents being bought for you. Come you
+must; come you shall."
+
+Pauline stood quite silent; then she flung her arms to her sides and
+faced her tormentor.
+
+"There was a time," she said slowly, "when I loved you, Nancy. But I
+don't love you now. By-and-by, perhaps, you will be sorry that you have
+lost my love, for I think--yes, I think it is the sort that doesn't come
+back. I don't love you to-night because you are cruel, because you have
+already got me into a scrape, and you want to push me into a yet deeper
+one. I am not the sort of girl you think me. However grand and stately
+and like a lady Aunt Sophia is--and compared to you and me, Nancy, she is
+very stately and very grand and very noble--I would not give you up. Aunt
+Sophy is a lady with a great brave heart, and her ideas are up-in-the-air
+ideas, and she doesn't know anything about mean and low and vulgar
+things. I'd have clung to you, Nancy, and always owned you as my friend,
+even if Aunt Sophy had taken me into good society. Yes, I'd have stuck to
+you whatever happened; but now"--Pauline pressed her hand to her
+heart--"everything is altered. You are cruel, and I don't love you any
+more. But I am in such trouble, and so completely in despair, that I will
+come to the picnic; and if I can bring two of the girls, I will. There is
+nothing more to say. You may expect us at eleven o'clock on Wednesday
+night."
+
+"But there is more to say," cried Nancy.
+
+She flew at Pauline, and before she could stop her Nancy had lifted the
+younger girl into her strong arms. She had not only lifted her into her
+arms, but she was running with her in the direction where Becky and Amy
+were minding the pony.
+
+"Hurrah! I have won!" she cried. "She yields. Come and kiss her, the
+little duck.--Pauline, you silly, if you don't love me, I love you; and
+you will soon find out for yourself what a good time you are going to
+have, and what a goose you have made of yourself with all this ridiculous
+fuss. What a grand birthday you are going to have, Paulie! A birthday for
+a whole twenty-four hours--a whole day and a whole night! Remember, there
+will be presents, there will be surprises, there will be love, there will
+be sweetness. Trust us, you will never get into a scrape for this. Now
+run along home as fast as you can."
+
+Pauline did not run. She closed the wicket-gate and walked soberly to the
+house. Strange as it may seem, once she had made her decision, the fact
+that she was to deceive her aunt, and do the thing that of all others
+would fill Aunt Sophia with horror, did not pain her. The conflict was
+over; she must rest now until the time came to go. She was a clever
+child, and she thought out the situation with wonderful clearness. She
+must go. There was no help for it. The sin must be sinned. After all,
+perhaps, it was not such a very great sin. Aunt Sophia would be happier
+if she never knew anything at all about it.
+
+"If I go she will never know," thought the child. "Nancy is clever, and
+now that I have yielded to her she will not fail me. If I go it will
+never be discovered, and what has happened before will never be
+discovered; and Aunt Sophy will never have reason to distrust me, for she
+will never know. Yes," thought Pauline, "it is the only possible way."
+
+She saw Penelope coming to meet her. The other girls were still busy with
+their birthday surprises, but Penelope had just deposited her own small
+and somewhat shabby present in Verena's keeping, and was now, as she
+expressed it, taking the air. When she saw Pauline she ran to meet her.
+
+"I suppose you are feeling yourself monstrous 'portant, and all that sort
+of thing," she said.
+
+"No, I am not," said Pauline.
+
+Penelope gave her a quick glance out of her sharp eyes.
+
+"Does you like me to be nursery or schoolroom child?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, I like you to be just what you are, Pen; and I do beg of you not to
+worry me just now."
+
+"You is most ungrateful. I has been spending my teeny bit of money on
+you. You will know what I has done on your birthday. You are going to get
+a most 'licious present, and it will be I who has gived it to you.
+Sometimes I does wish I was two years older; but Aunt Sophy has got
+monstrous fond of me, Paulie, and of you, too. I know it. Shall I tell
+you how I know it?"
+
+"How?" asked Pauline.
+
+"I was standing near her when you said you wouldn't go for a drive, and
+she gave a big sigh, just as though she was hurted. I was hurted, too,
+for I thought I might perhaps sit on the little back-seat and hear more'n
+is good for me. People always say that little girls like me hear more'n
+is good for them. I love--I love hearing things of that wicked sort.
+Well, you didn't go, and I couldn't have my nice drive on the little
+back-seat. But Aunt Sophy did give a pained sigh. She loves you, does
+Aunt Sophy. She loves me, too."
+
+"Do you love me, Pen?" said Pauline suddenly, for it occurred to her that
+perhaps Penelope was the child who would have to accompany her to the
+midnight picnic. She knew enough of Penelope to be sure that she could be
+bribed. She was not so certain about the others.
+
+"Do you love me, Pen?" she repeated.
+
+"When you speak in that softy, sympathisy voice, I feel that I could just
+hug you," said Penelope.
+
+"Then would you really help me?"
+
+"Really and really. What am I to do? If you will whisper secrets to me, I
+will even forget that I am certain you know something most 'portant about
+that thimble, and I will cling to you like anything. You will be the oak,
+and I will be the ivy. It will be most lovely to be the close friend of
+the birthday queen. I do--oh, I do hope you are going to tell me a great
+secret!"
+
+"Perhaps I am, but I can't tell you now."
+
+"When will you tell me?"
+
+"If I ever tell you, it will be before midday on my birthday. Now run
+away. Don't whisper a word of this."
+
+"Not me," said Penelope. "I was borned to keep secrets."
+
+She marched away in her usual stalwart fashion.
+
+"I may have to take her with me," thought Pauline again. "If the others
+won't be bribed, I must fall back on her."
+
+She felt a curious sense of relief, for of course Penelope could be
+bribed. A shilling would do it. Penelope would go to the end of the earth
+for a shilling, particularly if it was given to her all in pence. Twelve
+separate pence would send Penelope off her head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CONFERENCE.
+
+
+It was late on the following evening when Pauline found herself alone
+with Briar and Patty. Both these little girls had plenty of character;
+but perhaps Patty had more of that estimable quality than her sister.
+They were both straightforward by nature, upright and noble, and were
+already benefiting by the discipline which had at last come into their
+lives. The glories of the birthday which was so near were already
+beginning to shed some of their rays over Pauline, and her sisters felt
+themselves quite honored by her company.
+
+"To think," said Briar, "that you are really only Paulie! I can scarcely
+bring myself to believe it."
+
+"Why so?" asked Pauline.
+
+"In twelve hours' time--in less--you will be a queen."
+
+"It is rather like the Lord Mayor," said Patty. "It's all very grand, but
+it lasts for a very short time. Aunt Sophy was telling us to-day about
+the Lord Mayor and the great, tremendous Show, and I began to think of
+Pauline and her birthday. I could not help myself. It is a pity that a
+birthday should only last such a very short time!"
+
+"Yes, that is the worst of it," said Pauline. "But then it comes every
+year. Perhaps it is all for the best that it should have a quick come and
+a quick go. Of course, I shall be very happy to-morrow, but I dare say I
+shall be glad when the next day arrives."
+
+"Not you," said Briar. "I have known what the next day meant, even when
+we had only shilling birthdays. The others used to cry out, 'Your
+birthday is the farthest off now.' I used to keep my head covered under
+the bedclothes rather than hear them say it. Adelaide and Josephine
+always said it. But don't let's get melancholy over it now," continued
+Briar in a sympathetic tone. "When you lie down to-night you won't be
+able to sleep much; but you will sleep like a top to-morrow night. I
+expect you will wake about every two minutes to-night. Oh, it is exciting
+the night before a birthday! Even when we had shilling birthdays I used
+to wake the night before every few minutes. Once I got up at four o'clock
+in the morning. I went out. I had a cold afterwards, and a bad sore
+throat, but I never told anybody how I got it. If I was excited about my
+poor little birthday, what will you be to-morrow?"
+
+"I don't know," said Pauline. "Listen, girls. I am so excited in one
+sense that I couldn't be any more so. I am so excited that I'm not
+excited. Can you understand what I mean?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I can't a bit," said Briar.
+
+"And it's quite likely," continued Pauline, "that I shall have no sleep
+at all the night after my birthday."
+
+"What do you mean now?" asked Briar.
+
+Pauline looked mysterious. The two girls glanced at her. Suddenly Pauline
+put one arm around Briar's neck and the other arm round Patty's neck.
+
+"You are the nicest of us all--that is, of course, except Verena," she
+said. "I have always been fonder of you two than of Adelaide or Josephine
+or Helen or Lucy. As to Pen, well, I don't suppose any of us feel to Pen
+as we do to the rest. She is so different. Yes, I love you two. I love
+you just awfully."
+
+"It is sweet of you to say that; and, seeing that you are to have a
+birthday so soon, it makes us feel sort of distinguished," said Briar.
+
+"How old are you, Briar?"
+
+"I'll be thirteen next May. That's a long time off. I do wish my birthday
+had waited until Aunt Sophy came on the scene."
+
+"And my birthday comes in the winter," said Patty--"near Christmas; but I
+dare say Aunt Sophy will give us a good time then, too."
+
+"I do like her awfully," said Pauline. "Now, girls, I want to ask you a
+question. I know you won't tell, for you are not the sort to tell."
+
+"Of course we won't tell, Paulie."
+
+"And you love me, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," echoed both little girls.
+
+"This is my question. If I do something that is not just exactly
+absolutely right, will you still love me?"
+
+"Why, of course. We're not so wonderfully good ourselves," said Briar.
+
+"I know what you are thinking of," said Patty. "You are thinking of
+Punishment Day. But we have forgotten all about that."
+
+"I was thinking of Punishment Day. And now I want to say something. I
+want to make the most tremendous confidence. I want to tell you the most
+tremendous secret."
+
+"Oh!" echoed both.
+
+"Light that candle, Briar," said Pauline.
+
+Briar crossed the room, struck a match, lit the candle, and then turned
+to see what her darling Paulie wished further.
+
+"Bring it right over here," said Pauline. "Put it on this table."
+
+Briar did so.
+
+"Kneel down, Briar, so that the light from the candle falls full on your
+face."
+
+Briar knelt. Her eyes were beaming with happiness.
+
+"Look at me," said Pauline.
+
+Briar raised two honest and pretty brown eyes to her sister's face.
+
+"I think," said Pauline slowly, "that you are the sort of girl to make a
+promise--a solemn, awfully solemn promise--and stick to it."
+
+"Yes; you are right. I am made that way," said Briar proudly.
+
+"I see you are. Patty, will you kneel so that the candle may shine on
+your face?"
+
+Patty hurried to obey.
+
+"I am made like that, too," she said. "I always was like that. When I
+said I wouldn't tell, you might pinch me black and blue, but it didn't
+change me. Pen has tried to run pins into me sometimes to make me tell.
+Pen is the only one who would tell when she promised not."
+
+"I think so," said Pauline decidedly. "Pen would not do at all. Girls, I
+shall come to you to-morrow evening. To-morrow evening, very late, I will
+come to you here. Perhaps you will have gone to bed, but that won't
+matter. I will come to you whether you are in bed or whether you are up;
+and I will claim your promise. You will do what I ask, and you will
+never, never, never tell. You must help me. You will--oh, you will!"
+
+"Of course," said Briar. "Darling Paulie, don't cry. Oh, how the pet is
+trembling! Patty, she's trembling like anything. Do kiss her and hug her,
+and tell her there's nothing we wouldn't do for her."
+
+"There's nothing in all the world we wouldn't do for you," said Patty.
+
+They both kissed her so often and with such deep affection that she found
+herself leaning on their innocent strength. She would not tell them yet;
+she would tell them just before the time to-morrow evening. Of course
+they would go with her. Pen would never do. It would be madness to
+confide in Pen.
+
+Notwithstanding her excitement Pauline did sleep soundly that night
+before her birthday. No sooner had her head touched the pillow than sweet
+unconsciousness visited her. She slept without dreaming, and was at last
+awakened by the shouts of her sisters.
+
+"Paulie, get up. It's your birthday. Oh, do dress yourself fast! There's
+such a lot of fun going on! We are to have a whole holiday, and Aunt
+Sophy is so delightful. And what do you think? She has dragged father out
+of his study, and he is standing in the very middle of the lawn. He has a
+huge, untidy-looking parcel in his hands, and he looks as if he didn't in
+the least know what to do with it. He is trying each moment to escape
+back into the house, but Aunt Sophy won't let him. She says he must not
+stir until you come down. Poor father does look in misery. Be quick and
+dress and come downstairs."
+
+At this moment there was a shout from below, and the three girls who had
+summoned Pauline from the land of dreams rushed off, dashing through the
+house with whoops of triumph.
+
+Pauline rose and dressed quickly. She put on the pretty pale lavender
+print frock that Aunt Sophia had decided she was to wear, and went
+downstairs. When she joined the others Mr. Dale greeted her with one of
+his slow, sweet smiles.
+
+"How are you, darling?" he said. "I have a sort of idea that I am kept
+standing here on this lawn, exposed to the heat of a very powerful sun,
+on your account."
+
+"Of course it is on Pauline's account, Henry," said Miss Sophia. "It is
+her birthday. Kiss me, Pauline, dear. Many happy returns of the day.
+Henry, give your daughter her present. She is fourteen to-day."
+
+"Fourteen! Ah!" said Mr. Dale, "a charming age. The ancients considered a
+woman grown-up at fourteen."
+
+"But no one is so silly in these days," said Miss Tredgold. "We know that
+a girl is never more childish than at fourteen. Henry, open that parcel
+and give Pauline what it contains."
+
+Mr. Dale dropped the brown-paper parcel at his feet. He looked at it in
+bewilderment.
+
+"It is heavy," he said. "I haven't the least idea what is in it."
+
+"It is your present to your daughter."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Dale, "I forgot; and I packed it myself last night. My
+child, I wonder if you are worthy of it."
+
+"I don't suppose I am, father," said Pauline.
+
+"For goodness' sake open it, Henry, and don't torture the child's
+feelings."
+
+"I put it in an old bandbox," said Mr. Dale. "I couldn't find anything
+else. Pauline, in giving you what I am about to give you, I show a high
+appreciation of your character. I remember now what my present is. I had
+an awful night in consequence of it. I felt as though one of my limbs was
+being severed from my body. Nevertheless, my dear, I don't retract nor go
+back, for that is not my way. I give you this most noble gift with a
+distinct object. I have lately been examining all your foreheads.
+Although I have appeared to take little notice of you, I have watched you
+as day by day I have enjoyed the excellent food provided by your most
+worthy aunt. While my body was feeding, my mind was occupying itself, and
+I have at last come to the decision that you, my child, are the only one
+of my young people who has been blessed with a classical brow. As yet you
+have not even begun to learn the language of the ancients; but now that
+you have reached the mature age of fourteen, I shall be pleased to
+instruct you myself for one hour daily, in both that Latin and Greek
+which delighted our forefathers."
+
+"But the Romans and Greeks were not our forefathers," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+She snapped out the words quite angrily, and the look on her aunt's face
+caused Pauline to go closer to her father and take one of his long white
+hands and hold it close to her heart.
+
+"It doesn't matter whether we are descended from them or not, does it,
+Padre?" she said.
+
+"All that is noble in thought, all that is original, all that partakes of
+inspiration, has come down to us from the classics," said Mr. Dale. "But
+take your gift, Pauline. Now, my dear children, I beseech of you, don't
+keep me any longer from my important work."
+
+He was striding towards the house, when Verena got in front of him, Briar
+stood at his left hand, Patty at his right, and Adelaide, Josephine,
+Lucy, Helen, and Penelope came up in the rear.
+
+"You don't stir," they cried, "until Paulie opens her parcel."
+
+So Pauline knelt down on the grass, untied the clumsy cord, and removed
+the brown paper. She then lifted the lid from a broken-down bandbox and
+revealed a musty, fusty tome bound in old calf.
+
+"It is my precious annotated edition of Cicero," said Mr. Dale. "I have
+written your name in it--'Pauline Dale, from her affectionate father.' It
+is yours now, and it will be yours in the future. If you like to leave it
+on the shelf in my study, I shall not object, but it is yours to do what
+you like with."
+
+He sighed profoundly, and turned away with his lip trembling.
+
+"Good gracious!" Miss Tredgold was heard to exclaim. Then she spoke to
+Adelaide.
+
+"Run into the house and bring out a cup of coffee. The precious man gets
+queerer each moment. What a present to give the child!"
+
+Pauline raised the big book and clasped it against her neat lilac frock.
+
+"Thank you, father," she said. "I will learn to read it. Thank you very
+much."
+
+"And you don't object to its occupying its old place on my shelf?"
+
+"No. Shall I run and put it there now?"
+
+"Do. You are really a wise child. Sophia, as I have given Pauline her
+present, I presume I need not stay out any longer wasting my precious
+time and running the risk of sunstroke."
+
+Miss Tredgold nodded and laughed. Adelaide appeared with the coffee. Mr.
+Dale drank it off at a single draught. Pauline ran into the house with
+the treasure which was hers and yet not hers. For surely never during his
+lifetime would Mr. Dale allow that special edition of Cicero out of his
+study. She put it gravely and quietly into its accustomed place, kissed
+her father, told him she appreciated his present beyond words, and then
+went back to her sisters and aunt, who were waiting for her.
+
+What a day it was! What a wonderful, magnificent day! The weather was
+perfect; the air was sweet; the garden was full of perfume. And then the
+presents. Every imaginable thing that a little girl could want was poured
+at the feet of the birthday queen. The story-books she had longed for;
+the little writing-desk she had always coveted but never possessed; the
+workbox with its reels of colored silks, its matchless pair of scissors,
+its silver thimble, its odds and ends of every sort and description; the
+tennis-bat; the hockey-club; the new saddle that would exactly fit
+Peas-blossom: all these things and many more were given to Pauline. But
+besides the richer and more handsome presents, there were the sort of
+pretty things that only love could devise--that charming little
+pin-cushion for her dressing-table; that pen-wiper; that bag for her
+brush and comb; that case for her night-dress. Some of the gifts were
+clumsy, but all were prompted by love. Love had begun them, and gone on
+with them, and finished them, and Pauline laughed and had brighter eyes
+and more flushed cheeks each moment as the day progressed.
+
+After breakfast Miss Tredgold took her nieces for a drive. The little
+party were all packed into the wagonette, and then they went off. They
+drove for miles and miles under the trees of the Forest. Miss Tredgold
+told more interesting and fascinating stories of her own life than she
+had ever told before. The girls listened to her with the most absorbed
+attention. As a rule Miss Tredgold's stories carried a moral with them;
+but the birthday stories had no moral. Pauline waited for one. She waited
+with a sort of trembling dread. She expected it to intrude its sober face
+at each moment, but it did not put in an appearance anywhere. It stayed
+out of sight in the most delightful and graceful manner. Soon the girls,
+Pauline amongst them, forgot to look out for the moral. Then Verena began
+telling anecdotes of the past, and Pauline joined her; and the children
+laughed, and nearly cried with delight. That drive was the happiest they
+had ever enjoyed.
+
+But it was somewhat late in the afternoon when the birthday treat came to
+its culmination. They were having tea on the lawn, a most fascinating
+tea, with a frosted cake in the middle of the table, on which Pauline's
+name was inscribed in golden letters, and round which were lighted
+fourteen little wax candles, denoting that she had now come to that
+mature age. The candles were protected by tiny glass shades, so that the
+soft summer air could not blow them about, and all the girls thought they
+had never seen such a wonderful sight. Mr. Dale was abducted from his
+study--there was really no other word to describe the way in which he was
+carried off bodily--and requested to light the candles. He did so looking
+very confused, and as though he did not in the least comprehend what he
+was doing. Nevertheless he was there, and he was obliged to seat himself
+in the centre of the group; and then garlands and garlands of flowers
+suddenly made their appearance, and Pauline was conducted to her throne,
+and a crown of tiny roses was placed on her dark head, and wreaths of
+flowers were laid at her feet.
+
+"Now you are queen, Pauline," said Miss Tredgold. "Your father and I and
+your sisters are bound to obey you from now until ten o'clock to-night.
+This is your reign. It is short, but full of possibilities. What are we
+to do for you, fair queen? In what way do you wish to employ us?"
+
+"May I wish for anything?" asked Pauline eagerly.
+
+She had a flashing thought as she uttered the words--a quick, terrible,
+agonized thought. Oh, if only she might claim her birthright! If only she
+might put into use her grand privilege and ask for the one thing she
+really wanted--a free, absolute pardon! If she might confess her sin
+without confessing it, and get her aunt and father to say that, whatever
+she had done in the past, she was forgiven now! Just for an instant her
+black eyes looked almost wild; then they fixed themselves on Miss
+Tredgold, who was looking at her attentively. She glanced beyond her, and
+met the great black eyes of Penelope. Penelope seemed to be reading
+Pauline. Pauline felt a sudden revulsion of feeling.
+
+"That would never do," she said to herself.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" said Verena in her gentle voice.
+
+"I was considering what to ask," replied Pauline.
+
+"It isn't to ask, it is to command," said Miss Tredgold. "What sort of a
+queen would you make, Pauline, if you really had a kingdom? This is your
+kingdom. It lasts for a few hours; still, for the present it is your own.
+Your sway is absolute."
+
+"Then let us have hide-and-seek in the garden," she said.
+
+She laughed. The spell was broken. Penelope's eyes lost their watchful
+glance. The girls were all agreeable. Mr. Dale rose to his feet.
+
+"I have had my tea," he said, "and the queen has received her crown. I am
+truly thankful that birthdays don't last longer than a day. I presume
+there is no reason why I may not return to my study."
+
+"No, father, you mustn't stir," said Pauline. "You are my subject, and I
+command you to play hide-and-seek. You and Aunt Sophy must hide together.
+Now let us begin."
+
+The games that followed were provocative of mirth. Even Mr. Dale was
+heard to chuckle feebly. This was when Josephine put her hand into his
+pocket and withdrew his handkerchief. He made a scholarly remark the next
+moment to Miss Tredgold, who replied:
+
+"For goodness' sake, Henry, come down from the clouds. This is your
+child's birthday. It is all very well to know all that musty stuff, but
+there are times when it is fifty times better to be full of nonsense."
+
+Mr. Dale groaned, and then Lucy seemed to spring out of the ground. She
+laughed in his face, and cried out that she had found him.
+
+So the merry game proceeded. It had nearly come to an end when Pauline
+and Penelope found themselves alone.
+
+"I waited for you at twelve o'clock," said Penelope, "but you never
+comed. Why didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't want to, Pen. I have changed my mind. Think no more about what
+I said."
+
+"I can't never forget it," replied Pen.
+
+But then she heard a whoop from a distant enemy, and darted to another
+part of the garden.
+
+The game of hide-and-seek was followed by another, and then another and yet
+another, and the cries of mirth and laughter sounded all over the place.
+Even Betty forgot the tragic end of the Duke of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton,
+who was killed by a brigand in Italy while defending his fair duchess.
+Betty had been weeping scalding tears over the tragedy when the sound of
+mirth called her forth. John accompanied her, and the other servants looked
+on in the distance.
+
+"There never was such a rowdy family," said Betty.
+
+"Rowdy do you call it?" cried John.
+
+"Yes; and the very rowdiest is Miss Tredgold. For mercy's sake look at
+the way she runs! She's as fleet as a hare."
+
+"She have very neat ankles," said John. "I call her a neat figure of a
+woman."
+
+"Don't tell me," said Betty. "Much you know what a neat figure of a woman
+means. Miss Tredgold's a haristocrat. Now, if you'll believe me, she's
+the moral image of the duchess."
+
+"What duchess?" cried John.
+
+"The Duchess of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton--her that's just made a widow,
+and is crying her eyes out over the murdered remains of the poor dook."
+
+"Sometimes," said John, "I think that you have gone off your head, Betty.
+But I can't stay to listen to any more of these nonsenses. I have my
+garden to look after."
+
+The final delight before the curtain of that birthday was dropped down
+for ever found its vent in music--music in which Mr. Dale took a part,
+and in which Miss Tredgold excelled herself. It was the music that awoke
+Pauline's slumbering conscience. It was during that music that her heart
+truly began to understand itself.
+
+"I am wicked--a coward and a liar," she thought. "But, all the same, I am
+going on, for I must. Aunt Sophy loves me, and I love her, and I wouldn't
+have her love turned to hate for all the world. She must never find out
+what I did in the past, and the only way to keep it from her is to go on
+as I am going on."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A WILD FROLIC.
+
+
+The first part of the birthday was absolutely over, but the second
+part--the terrifying, awful part--was at hand. Aunt Sophy had kissed
+Pauline and had blessed her by a look. Her father had also put his
+trembling hand on her shoulder.
+
+"When you want to read that lovely volume of Cicero," he said, "come to
+me and I will teach you. I will spare a few minutes of my valuable time
+to give you instruction."
+
+Verena had also kissed her heartily, and she and the rest of her sisters
+had gone to bed. They were all tired. Verena came for a minute into
+Pauline's little room.
+
+"I am too sleepy even to brush my hair in your room to-night, Paulie,"
+she said. "I am too sleepy to talk about our long happy day. What a pile
+of presents you have got! Don't you think you have had a perfect
+birthday? I only wish mine was near at hand."
+
+"It will come in good time," said Pauline; "and even birthdays----"
+
+She broke off abruptly.
+
+"What do you mean by 'even birthdays'?" asked Verena. "What were you
+going to say?"
+
+"I was going to say that even birthdays had drawbacks. I know that I am
+dead-tired."
+
+"You look it, darling. Do turn into bed and go to sleep."
+
+Verena kissed her sister and left the room.
+
+Pauline stood by the attic window. The window was a French one, and was
+wide open. The night was warm; the sky was without a cloud; stars like
+diamonds dotted the firmament; the sky itself looked darkly blue. Pauline
+felt a sudden thrill going through her. It was a thrill from the nobler
+part of her being. The whole day, and all that happened in the day, had
+wrought her up to her present state of feeling. A touch now and she would
+have confessed all. A touch, a look, would have done it--for the child,
+with her many faults, was capable of noble deeds; but the touch was not
+there, nor the word of gentle advice given. Had her mother been alive,
+Pauline would have certainly gone to her and confessed what she had done.
+As it was, she only felt that, in order to save herself from the past,
+she must do something much more wicked in the future.
+
+She waited until she was quite certain that Verena was in bed; then she
+gently unfastened the door of her room and stole out on to the landing.
+There was not a light in the house. All the tired people had gone to bed.
+She reached the room, at the farther end of the same wing, where Briar
+and Patty slept. The sleeping attics occupied two wings of the old house,
+the centre part of the house being without rooms in the roof. Pauline,
+Verena, Briar, and Patty slept in one of the wings, the rest of the girls
+and the nursery children in the other. Mr. Dale had the room exactly
+under the large attic occupied by Briar and Patty. Miss Tredgold's room
+was under the nursery wing.
+
+Pauline now very gently opened the door of the room where her two little
+sisters slept. They were not asleep; they were sitting up in their beds
+waiting for her.
+
+"We thought you would come, Paulie," said Briar. "We are so excited! What
+is it you want us to do for you, darling Paulie?"
+
+"To save me! To save me!" said Pauline.
+
+Her tone was dramatic; her action was more so. She fell on her knees by
+Briar's bed; she clasped her arms round the little girl's neck; she laid
+her head on her shoulder and burst into tears. The birthday queen was
+weeping. Could emotion go beyond that fact? Patty bounded out of her bed
+and knelt by Pauline's other side. The two little girls clasped their
+arms round her. She had exercised a glamour over them all day, which now
+became greater than ever. Was she not their queen? Oh, yes, until
+midnight she was their own dear and absolutely beautiful queen. An hour
+was still left of her sovereignty. She had quite stolen their hearts;
+they loved her like anything.
+
+"What is it, Paulie?" said Briar.
+
+"I must tell you," said Pauline. "I know you won't betray me."
+
+"Indeed we won't," they both answered.
+
+"Well, then, this is what has happened."
+
+She began to tell her story. She told it quickly, for the time was short.
+If they were to meet Nancy they must steal away almost at once. Pauline
+told her tale with scarcely any comment. When it was finished she looked
+at her sisters. The moonlight was in the room, and Pauline's face looked
+ghastly, but it looked beautiful also. Her eyes were very big and dark
+and solemn and beseeching. Briar and Patty glanced at each other.
+
+"Shall we?" said Briar.
+
+"It seems the only thing to do," said Patty.
+
+"All the same, it is awfully wrong," said Briar.
+
+"Think of poor Paulie," said Patty.
+
+"If we are discovered----" cried Briar.
+
+"Oh, bother!" interrupted Patty. "She's our queen. We must obey her. We
+are bound to help her. Let us go. She mustn't run into danger. You know
+what Nancy has said: two of us must go with her. She mustn't go alone."
+
+Briar leant towards Patty, and Patty whispered in her ear; and then the
+two little girls began to dress.
+
+"You are darlings," said Pauline. "I shall never forget this to
+you--never. I have everything else managed. I am going back to my room.
+When you are dressed you must shut the door of your room very quietly
+behind you, and then you must steal along the corridor and you will find
+my door just ajar. We will get out of my window by the beech-tree, and
+we'll be back and safe in our beds before any one is up in the morning."
+
+"It certainly is thrilling," said Briar, raising her voice in her
+excitement.
+
+"Oh, don't speak so loud!" said Pauline. "Dress very fast. I will wait
+for you in my room. I shall be quite ready."
+
+Pauline rushed back to her own room. She then put on a warm golf-cape and
+an old hat; and her arrangements having been completed, she bent out of
+the French window. In an incredibly short time Briar and Patty appeared.
+All three girls were now in the wildest state of excitement. Scruples
+were silenced for the time being. Pauline's conscience no longer spoke.
+She felt that a midnight picnic, stolen, partaken of under difficulties,
+sinned mightily to obtain, had its own inexplicable charm. It was
+certainly sweet to be naughty; there was a thrill about it, and a sense
+of adventure, which goodness never brought. Oh, yes, it was well worth
+the risk and danger. Her two little sisters partook of Pauline's
+feelings. They all easily reached the ground, and when they found
+themselves outside in the middle of the night, it was with difficulty
+that Briar could keep from giving a shriek of ecstasy.
+
+"I suppose it's because I'm so awfully naughty that I enjoy it so," she
+said.
+
+"Come along; don't speak," said Pauline.
+
+She took a hand of each sister. They ran quickly over the dew-laden
+grass. Their feet soon got wet, for they had forgotten to put on strong
+shoes. But what mattered that? What did small discomforts signify when
+the grand total of pleasure was so enormous?
+
+They opened the wicket-gate, and Pauline found herself immediately in the
+strong embrace of Nancy King.
+
+"There you are, darling!" she cried, bestowing a resounding kiss on her
+cheek. "I feared that the she-dragon would waken and call you back; but
+you are here, and you have brought--let me see. Oh, you are Patty, are
+you not? And Briar? You are my friends for ever now. Oh, we shall have
+fun! The wagonette is here, and the dogcart; there are a party of us, and
+a lot more coming to meet us at the rendezvous. We shall have the most
+glorious time you ever imagined."
+
+As Nancy spoke she called out to two girls who were standing in the
+shadow.
+
+"Becky, this is Briar Dale--in other words, Rose Dale. You are to see
+after her. Amy, Patty Dale is your charge. Now let us get into the
+wagonette, for it is the snuggest of all the carriages, and the horses
+are so fleet. Listen how they are pawing the ground; they're mad to be
+off. Oh, here's father! Father, three of the young Dales have come."
+
+"Pleased to see you, I'm sure," said the farmer. "It's a warm night for
+the time of year."
+
+The little girls did not answer. Even Pauline, now that she had met the
+rest of the party, felt curiously silent. A weight seemed to rest on her.
+Her wild and riotous spirits had died down. Her conscience was not
+troubling her, but she felt depressed, she scarcely knew why.
+
+"I want something to poke me up," she said to herself. "I thought I'd be
+quite riotous with bliss when I met Nancy. I don't feel riotous; and, oh,
+how white the moonlight is making Briar look! Briar," whispered Pauline
+suddenly, "are your feet very wet?"
+
+"Very: and they're getting so cold," said Briar.
+
+"What are you talking about?" said Nancy.
+
+"The fact is," said Pauline, "we forgot to put on our outdoor shoes, and
+the dew is very heavy."
+
+"Dear, dear! That will never do. Father, what do you think these silly
+little misses have done? They've come out in their house slippers."
+
+"I never!" cried the farmer. "You are silly little ladies; that I will
+say. I tell you what it is, Nance; we don't want these children to catch
+cold. Shall we drive back to The Hollies and get them some of your shoes?
+You have enough, I take it, to shoe a regiment."
+
+Nancy laughed.
+
+"They wouldn't fit," she said. "They'd be too big for any of them."
+
+"Well, then," said the farmer, "they shall all three take their shoes off
+and wrap their feet in these warm rugs. They can put them on again, and
+when the dancing begins they will soon dry."
+
+"Are we to dance?" said Pauline, her eyes sparkling.
+
+"You wait and see," said Nancy.
+
+"Yes, you wait and see," cried the farmer. "There are all sorts of
+surprises. And there's a birthday queen of this here party, ain't there,
+Nancy?"
+
+"I have heard tell that there was," said Nancy. As she spoke she took
+Pauline's hand and dragged the little girl forward to sit by her.
+
+The drive took some time, and the farmer and his party were extremely
+loud and riotous and merry. As they passed under the huge oak-trees some
+one in a dogcart went by, and the light from a lantern fell on his face.
+Pauline recognized Dr. Moffat. The moment she saw him he looked round,
+and she fancied that he must have seen her, and that his eyebrows went up
+with an expression of astonishment. But he did not look again; he only
+continued on his way.
+
+"I do hope he didn't see me," said Pauline to Nancy.
+
+"What matter if he did? He's thinking of his profession, and not of a
+little girl like you. I wonder where he is going to."
+
+"To Farmer Jackson," said Farmer King. "He broke his leg a fortnight ago,
+and they say mortification is setting in and he can't live. Poor Farmer
+Jackson! Here are we all on a rollick, so to speak, a midnight picnic in
+summer, and all our hearts as light as froth, and the farmer lying on the
+flat of his back and like to pass away before morning."
+
+Pauline felt uncomfortable. She turned her head away. She did not wish to
+think of the sober events of life at that moment.
+
+By-and-by the long drive came to an end. The girls again put on their wet
+slippers, and the next moment they found themselves inside a large
+marquee, with a boarded floor, where a magnificent feast was prepared at
+the farther end. The whole centre of the marquee was got ready for
+dancing, and a number of young people whom Pauline had never seen before
+were standing about in little knots, evidently waiting for the arrival of
+the farmer and his family.
+
+"There!" said Nancy. "Now, Paulie, what do you think? Here's feasting for
+you at this end, and there's dancing at the other, and if the Kings don't
+do things in style I don't know who do."
+
+"Ah, Miss King, and how are you?"
+
+"Pleased to see you, I'm sure," was Nancy's response.
+
+A bashful-looking young man with sandy hair and light-blue eyes now came
+forward. He was followed by a girl of similar type, and the two were
+introduced to Pauline as Mr. and Miss Minchin. The Minchins were
+accompanied by other neighbors, and the Dale girls found themselves in
+the midst of a party numbering at least fifty people.
+
+Pauline felt suddenly shy. As a rule she was not remarkable for this
+quality. She had a certain pretty assurance, and never, as her sisters
+expressed it, lost her head; but now her principal desire was to creep
+into her shell, not to answer the inane remarks made by the young men of
+the party, and on no account to allow them to put their arms round her
+waist and carry her round in the dance. Her face grew first red, then
+pale. She realized that she was very tired, and more than ever did she
+wish that she had never yielded to Nancy's enticements.
+
+Patty and Briar, on the other hand, were enjoying themselves very much.
+They had done this very naughty thing on account of Pauline; they were
+glad they were helping her--their consciences did not trouble them in the
+least. They leant upon Pauline more than they were themselves aware of.
+If trouble came, she would of course shield them. At present there was no
+trouble. A picnic in the middle of the night, miles away from home, was
+the most exciting thing they had ever imagined. It beat the joys of the
+birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by there would perhaps
+be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast--and
+such a feast!--on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad,
+intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could
+scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer
+moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed
+people, and all the merry voices? Oh, it was an intoxicating time!
+
+So Briar danced with the first man who asked her, and Patty did likewise.
+They danced with the ease and lightness and grace of children in whom the
+accomplishment is born. Nancy's clumsy efforts, and the clumsy efforts of
+her friends, were nowhere beside them.
+
+"That little girl," said a rough-headed farmer, pointing to Patty as he
+spoke, "dances like the foam of the sea. I never saw anything like it in
+all my life."
+
+"But why doesn't the elder Miss Dale dance?" asked Farmer King.
+
+He had noticed that she was declining one partner after another.
+
+"Come, Miss Paulie," he said, going to her side: "this won't do. May I
+have the pleasure of a barn-dance with you, miss? You can't refuse me."
+
+Pauline did find it impossible to refuse the good man. He took her hand
+and led her out, and presently she, too, was being whirled round and
+round. But her sense of weariness increased, and the heavy pain and
+bewilderment at her heart grew worse. Oh, why had she come? Once the
+farmer, looking at her, saw tears in her eyes. In a moment he stopped
+dancing. He took her hand and led her to the other side of the tent.
+
+"You dance beautifully, miss," he said; "not quite so light as your
+little sister, but I am proud to be seen with you, miss, all the same.
+And now, if I may make so bold, what is the matter with you, Miss Pauline
+Dale?"
+
+"Nothing," answered Pauline.
+
+"Don't tell me," replied the farmer. "Is it in reason that a little lady
+like yourself would have tears in her eyes at a moment like the present
+if there was nothing the matter? Is it in reason, miss?"
+
+"Oh, I ought not to have come!" said Pauline.
+
+The farmer's face grew rather red. He looked full at Pauline for a
+moment; then he said:
+
+"I can't speak out now, for it's only the beginning of the fun. There's a
+great deal planned, and you are in the thick of it, but before you go
+back home I'll have a word with you; so cheer up, my pretty little miss,
+for things that aren't right can be put right. You trust Farmer King for
+that."
+
+Pauline did cheer up. She felt that the farmer was her friend, and she
+also knew that he was a friend worth having. The other girls met her once
+or twice, and Patty whispered:
+
+"Oh, there never was anything like this before! I could be naughty every
+single night of my life to have such fun!"
+
+The dance was followed by the feast, and the feast was A1. When it was
+over there was a moment of silence. Then Nancy, accompanied by Briar and
+Patty, Becky and Amy, and the two boys, Jack and Tom, assembled round the
+seat where Pauline had placed herself.
+
+"It is your turn, Paulie," said Nancy. "You are queen of to-night, for it
+is the night following your birthday. Come, queen, take your throne."
+
+"I am sick of thrones," answered Pauline.
+
+But Nancy took her hand.
+
+"Whatever you feel, you must not show it," she said, "for that will spoil
+everything. Here is your throne; step up."
+
+Pauline looked round her. Up to the present moment a curtain had been
+drawn across one end of the tent. It was now removed, and the little girl
+saw a deep chair covered completely with flowers and moss and ferns. A
+bright light was hanging just at the back of this throne. Now Pauline, as
+queen of the day, was led up to it, and requested to take her seat
+thereon. She did so, feeling queer and giddy. When she was seated the
+young people stood in groups at her right hand and at her left.
+
+The farmer now appeared, carrying a table. All the guests stood in the
+background and looked on. The table was placed in front of Pauline. At
+the same instant Nancy bent forward and laid her hand across the little
+girl's eyes.
+
+"Don't look just for a minute," she said.
+
+Pauline heard the ecstatic whispers of her own little sisters, and for
+the first time a feeling of wonder and pleasure stole over her. She
+forgot all that had gone before, and for the time was both happy and
+excited.
+
+"Now you may look," said Nancy.
+
+As Pauline opened her eyes she felt something cool and soft descending on
+her head.
+
+"Don't touch it," whispered Nancy; "it's your crown. But come, girls and
+boys, we must do more than this to make our queen beautiful."
+
+As she spoke all the young people divided into two groups, crossed the
+floor, and came past Pauline as she sat on her throne; and each one, as
+she or he passed, threw a wreath of flowers either over the head of the
+little girl, or round her neck, or into her lap, until finally she found
+herself absolutely embedded in flowers.
+
+"Look at yourself," said Nancy, suddenly slipping a looking-glass in
+front of the birthday queen. "Tell us what you see."
+
+Pauline looked. The lights were so managed that she could see everything
+distinctly. The lights fell full upon her. She saw a pair of dark eyes,
+sweet, anxious, and beautiful; she saw a radiant and rosy face. Lilies of
+the valley, sweet-peas, and summer roses fell about her soft dark hair.
+Similar flowers fell about her neck. Her dress was hidden beneath its
+wealth of flowers; her charming face rose out of a perfect foam of
+flowers.
+
+"Oh, I do look beautiful!" she said aloud, and at the naive remark the
+whole party shouted with merriment. Nancy cried, "Long life to the
+queen!" and Joe the Fiddler burst into his merriest strains; it was with
+the greatest difficulty that the desire for dancing could be suppressed,
+for the little ceremony was not yet quite over. It was Nancy's turn to
+come forward.
+
+"Queen of the night," she said, "we hope that you will like what we, your
+subjects, have done for you, and we hope that you will never forget your
+happy birthday. There is just one thing I have to say. When the flowers
+fade--and they are fading already--you, dear queen, will have no longer a
+kingdom, so we have brought you something; we have subscribed among us
+for something that will not fade--something that you can always wear in
+memory of us. Look! isn't it beautiful?"
+
+As Nancy spoke, she took a morocco case from the table, touched a spring,
+and revealed to Pauline's dazzled eyes, a necklace of thin pure gold, to
+which a little locket, with a diamond in the centre, was attached.
+
+"This won't fade," said Nancy. "You can keep it all your life long. You
+can also remember that there are people in the world, perhaps born a
+little lower than yourself, who love you and care for you."
+
+"Oh, you are good!" cried Pauline. "I will never forsake you, Nancy, or
+think myself better than you are."
+
+"Didn't I say she was a brick?" said Nancy. "Stoop your head, queen; I
+will clasp the necklace around your neck."
+
+Pauline did stoop her head, and the necklace was put in its place. The
+little diamond in the centre glittered as though it had a heart of fire.
+The flowers smelled sweet, but also heavy. Pauline was tired once again;
+but the music was resumed. Fiddler Joe played more enchanting music than
+before, and Pauline, suddenly rising from her throne, determined to dance
+during the remaining hours of that exciting night.
+
+But all happy things, and all naughty things come to an end, for such is
+the fashion of earth; and by-and-by the farmer said that if they wished
+to be home before morning they must get into the wagonette and the
+dogcart, and their guests must take themselves away. Now it was the
+farmer's turn to come up to Pauline.
+
+"You have given us all pleasure to-night, Miss Pauline," he said; "and it
+warms our hearts to feel that, whatever the circumstances, you will
+always be true to us, who have been true to you and yours for
+generations. For, miss, the history of the Dales is almost bound up with
+the history of the Kings. And if the Dales were gentlefolks and lords of
+the manor, the Kings were their humble retainers. So, miss, the Dales and
+Kings were always good to each other; the Kings over and over again
+laying down their lives for the Dales in the Civil Wars, and the Dales on
+their part protecting the Kings. So, after all, miss, there's no earthly
+reason, because a grand aunt of yours has come to live at The Dales, why
+the traditions of your house should be neglected and forgotten. I am
+proud to feel that this will never happen, and that your family and mine
+will be one. We do not consider ourselves your equals, but we do consider
+ourselves your friends. And if I can ever help you, Miss Pauline, you
+have only to come to me and I will do it. That's all I've got to say. I
+don't want thanks. I'm proud that you and your little sisters have
+trusted yourselves to us to-night, and I leave the matter of whether it
+was right or wrong to your own consciences. But whatever happens, what
+you did to-night is the sort of thing that Farmer King will never
+forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+VINEGAR.
+
+
+It was certainly not at all remarkable that the entire party should be
+drowsy and languid on the following day. Pauline had dark shadows under
+her eyes, and there was a fretful note in her voice. Nurse declared that
+Briar and Patty had caught cold, and could not imagine how they had
+managed to do so; but Miss Tredgold said that colds were common in hot
+weather, and that the children had played too long in the open air on the
+previous night. In short, those who were out of the mischief suspected
+nothing, and Pauline began to hope that her wild escapade would never be
+known. Certainly Briar and Patty would not betray her.
+
+They had all managed to climb up the tree and get in at her window
+without a soul knowing. Pauline therefore hoped that she was quite safe;
+and the hope that this was the case revived her spirits, so that in the
+afternoon she was looking and feeling much as usual. As she was dressing
+that morning she had made a sort of vow. It was not a bit the right thing
+to do, but then poor little Pauline was not doing anything very right
+just then. This was her vow. She had said in her prayer to God:
+
+"If You will keep Aunt Sophy from finding out how naughty I have been, I
+will, on my part, be extra good. I will do my lessons most perfectly, and
+never, never, never deceive Aunt Sophy again."
+
+Now, Pauline, unaware that such a prayer could not possibly be answered,
+felt a certain sense of security after she had made it.
+
+In addition to the beautiful chain with its locket and its diamond star
+in the middle, she had received several other presents of the gay and
+loud and somewhat useless sort. Nancy's friends, Becky and Amy, had both
+given her presents, and several young people of the party had brought
+little trifles to present to the queen of the occasion. There was a time
+when Pauline would have been highly delighted with these gifts, but that
+time was not now. She felt the impossible tidies, the ugly pin-cushions,
+the hideous toilet-covers, the grotesque night-dress bags to be more
+burdens than treasures. What could she possibly do with them? The gold
+chain and locket were another matter. She felt very proud of her chain
+and her little heart-shaped locket. She was even mad enough to fasten the
+chain round her neck that morning and hide it beneath her frock, and so
+go downstairs with the diamond resting on her heart.
+
+Miss Tredgold had wisely resolved that there were to be very few lessons
+that day. The girls were to read history and a portion of one of
+Shakespeare's plays, and afterwards they were to sit in the garden and do
+their fancy-work. They were all glad of the quiet day and of the absence
+of excitement, and as evening progressed they recovered from their
+fatigue, and Pauline was as merry as the rest.
+
+It was not until preparation hour that Pauline felt a hand laid on her
+arm; two keen black eyes looked into her face, and a small girl clung to
+her side.
+
+"Oh, what is it, Pen?" said Pauline, almost crossly. "What do you want
+now?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you'd like to know," replied Penelope.
+
+"To know what, you tiresome child? Don't press up against me; I hate
+being pawed."
+
+"Does you? Perhaps you'd rather things was knowed."
+
+"What is it, Pen? You are always so mysterious and tiresome."
+
+"Only that I think you ought to tell me," said Penelope, lowering her
+voice and speaking with great gentleness. "I think you ought to tell me
+all about the things that are hidden away in that bandbox under your
+bed."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Pauline, turning pale.
+
+"Why, I thought I'd like to go into your room and have a good look
+round."
+
+"But you have no right to do that sort of thing. It is intolerably mean
+of you. You had no right to go into my bedroom."
+
+"I often does what I has no right to do," said Penelope, by no means
+abashed. "I went in a-purpose 'cos you didn't tell me what you wished to
+tell me once, and I was burning to know. Do you understand what it is to
+be all curiosity so that your heart beats too quick and you gets fidgety?
+Well, I was in that sort of state, and I said to myself, 'I will know.'
+So I went into your room and poked about. I looked under the bed, and
+there was an old bandbox where you kept your summer hat afore Aunt Sophy
+came; and I pulled it out and opened it, and, oh! I see'd---- Paulie, I'd
+like to have 'em. You doesn't want 'em, 'cos you have hidden 'em, and I
+should like to have 'em."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, that pin-cushion for one thing--oh! it's a beauty--and that tidy.
+May I have the pin-cushion and the tidy, Paulie--the purple pin-cushion
+and the red tidy? May I?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May Aunt Sophy have them?"
+
+"Don't be silly."
+
+"May anybody have them?"
+
+"They're mine."
+
+"How did you get them?"
+
+"That's my affair."
+
+"You didn't get them from me, nor from any of the other girls--I can go
+round and ask them if you like, but I know you didn't--nor from father,
+nor from Aunt Sophy, nor from Betty, nor from John, nor from any of the
+new servants. Who gave them to you?"
+
+"That's my affair."
+
+"You won't tell?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May I tell Aunt Sophy about the bandbox chock-full of funny things
+pushed under the bed?"
+
+"If you do----"
+
+Penelope danced a few feet away. She then stood in front of her sister
+and began to sway her body backwards and forwards.
+
+"I see'd," she began, "such a funny thing!"
+
+"Penelope, you are too tormenting!"
+
+"I see'd such a very funny thing!"
+
+Miss Tredgold was seen approaching. Penelope looked round at her and then
+deliberately raised her voice.
+
+"I see'd such a very, very funny thing!"
+
+"What is it, Pen? Why are you teasing your sister?" said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"I aren't!" cried Penelope. "I are telling her something what she ought
+to know. It is about something I---- Shall I go on, Paulie?"
+
+"No; you make my head ache. Aunt Sophy, may I go in and lie down?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear. You look very pale. My poor child, you were
+over-excited yesterday. This won't do. Penelope, stop teasing your
+sister, and come for a walk with me. Pauline, go and lie down until
+dinner-time."
+
+Pauline went slowly in the direction of the house, but fear dogged her
+footsteps. What did Penelope know, and what did she not know?
+
+Meanwhile Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hand and began to pace up
+and down.
+
+"I have a great deal to correct in you, Pen," she said. "You are always
+spying and prying. That is not a nice character for a child."
+
+"I can be useful if I spy and pry," said Penelope.
+
+"My dear, unless you wish to become a female detective, you will be a
+much greater nuisance than anything else if you go on making mysteries
+about nothing. I saw that you were tormenting dear little Pauline just
+now. The child is very nervous. If she is not stronger soon I shall take
+her to the seaside. She certainly needs a change."
+
+"And me, too?" said Penelope. "I want change awful bad."
+
+"Not a bit of you. I never saw a more ruddy, healthy-looking little girl
+in the whole course of my life."
+
+"I wonder what I could do to be paled down," thought Penelope to herself;
+but she did not speak her thought aloud. "I mustn't tell Aunt Sophy, that
+is plain. I must keep all I know about Paulie dark for the present.
+There's an awful lot. There's about the thimble, and--yes, I did see them
+all three. I'm glad I saw them. I won't tell now, for I'd only be
+punished; but if I don't tell, and pretend I'm going to, Paulie will have
+to pay me to keep silent. That will be fun."
+
+The days passed, and Pauline continued to look pale, and Miss Tredgold
+became almost unreasonably anxious about her. Notwithstanding Verena's
+assurance that Pauline had the sort of complexion that often looked white
+in summer, the good lady was not reassured. There was something more than
+ordinary weakness and pallor about the child. There was an expression in
+her eyes which kept her kind aunt awake at night.
+
+Now this most excellent woman had never yet allowed the grass to grow
+under her feet. She was quick and decisive in all her movements. She was
+the sort of person who on the field of battle would have gone straight to
+the front. In the hour of danger she had never been known to lose her
+head. She therefore lost no time in making arrangements to take Verena
+and Pauline to the seaside. Accordingly she wrote to a landlady she
+happened to know, and engaged some remarkably nice rooms at Easterhaze on
+the south coast. Verena and Pauline were told of her plans exactly a week
+after the birthday. Pauline had been having bad dreams; she had been
+haunted by many things. The look of relief on her face, therefore, when
+Miss Tredgold told her that they were to pack their things that day, and
+that she, Verena, and herself would start for Easterhaze at an early hour
+on the following morning, was almost beyond words.
+
+"Why is you giving Pauline this great big treat?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Little girls should be seen and not heard," was Miss Tredgold's remark.
+
+"But this little girl wants to be heard," replied the incorrigible child.
+"'Cos she isn't very strong, and 'cos her face is palefied."
+
+"There is no such word as palefied, Penelope."
+
+"I made it. It suits me," said Penelope.
+
+"Pauline's cheeks are rather too pale," answered Miss Tredgold.
+
+She did not reprove Penelope, for in spite of herself she sometimes found
+a smile coming to her face at the child's extraordinary remarks.
+
+Presently Penelope slipped away. She went thoughtfully across the lawn.
+Her head was hanging, and her whole stout little figure testified to the
+fact that she was meditating.
+
+"Off to the sea!" she muttered softly to herself. "Off to the big briny
+waves, to the wadings, to the sand castles, to the shrimps, to the
+hurdy-gurdies, and all 'cos she's palefied. I wish I could be paled."
+
+She ran into the house, rushed through the almost deserted nursery, and
+startled nurse out of her seven senses with a wild whoop.
+
+"Nursey, how can I be paled down?"
+
+"Nonsense, child! Don't talk rubbish."
+
+"Am I pale, nursey, or am I a rosy sort of little girl?"
+
+"You are a sunburnt, healthy-looking little child, with no beauty to fash
+about," was nurse's blunt response.
+
+"Am I healthy-looking?"
+
+"Of course you are, Miss Pen. Be thankful to the Almighty for it, and
+don't worry me."
+
+Pen stuck out her tongue, made a hideous face at nurse, and darted from
+the room. She stood in the passage for a minute or two reflecting, then
+she slipped round and went in the direction of Pauline's bedroom.
+
+The bandbox chock-full of those vulgar presents had been pushed into the
+back part of a dark cupboard which stood in the little girl's room.
+Penelope knew all about that. She opened the cupboard, disappeared into
+its shadows, and then returned with an orange-colored tidy and a
+chocolate-red pin-cushion. Having made a bag of the front of her frock,
+she slipped the pin-cushion and tidy into it, and ran off to the kitchen.
+Aunt Sophia visited the kitchen each morning, but Pen knew that the hour
+of her daily visit had not yet arrived. Betty was there, surreptitiously
+reading a copy of the _Faithful Friend_. She started when Pen darted into
+her domain.
+
+"Now what is it, Miss Penelope? For goodness' sake, miss, get out of
+this. Your aunt would be flabbergasted to see you here."
+
+For response Pen planted down in front of Betty the orange-colored tidy
+and the chocolate-red pin-cushion.
+
+"Here's some things," she said. "Here's two nice things for a nice body.
+What will that nice body give for these nice things?"
+
+"My word!" said Betty, "they're natty."
+
+She took up the pin-cushion and examined it all over. She then laid it
+down again. She next took up the tidy, turned it from side to side, and
+placed it, with a sigh of distinct desire, beside the pin-cushion.
+
+"Them's my taste," she said. "I like those sort of fixed colors. I can't
+abide the wishy-washy tastes of the present day."
+
+"They's quite beautiful, ain't they?" said Pen. "I'll give them to you if
+you will----"
+
+"You will give them to me?" said Betty. "But where did you get them
+from?"
+
+"That don't matter a bit. Don't you ask any questions and you will hear
+no lies. I will give them to you, and nobody and nothing shall ever take
+them from you again, if you do something for me."
+
+"What's that, Miss Pen?"
+
+"Will you, Betty--will you? And will you be awful quick about it."
+
+"I should like to have them," said Betty. "There's a friend of mine going
+to commit marriage, and that tidy would suit her down to the ground.
+She'd like it beyond anything. But, all the same, I don't hold with young
+ladies forcing their way into my kitchen; it's not haristocratic."
+
+"Never mind that ugly word. Will you do what I want?"
+
+"What is it, Miss Pen?"
+
+"Palefy me. Make me sort of refined. Take the color out of me. Bleach
+me--that's it. I want to go to the seaside. Pale people go; rosy people
+don't. I want to be awful pale by to-night. How can it be done? It's more
+genteel to be pale."
+
+"It is that," said Betty, looking at the rosy Penelope with critical
+eyes. "I have often fretted over my own color; it's mostly fixed in the
+nose, too. But I don't know any way to get rid of it."
+
+"Don't you?" said Penelope.
+
+Quick as thought she snatched up the pin-cushion and tidy.
+
+"You don't have these," she said. "Your friend what's going to be married
+won't have this tidy. If you can't take fixed colors out of me, you don't
+have fixed colors for your bedroom, so there!"
+
+"You are awful quick and smart, miss, and I have heard tell that vinegar
+does it."
+
+"Vinegar?"
+
+"I have heard tell, but I have never tried it. You drink it three times a
+day, a wine-glass at a time. It's horrid nasty stuff, but if you want to
+change your complexion you must put up with some sort of inconvenience."
+
+"Suppose, Betty, you and me both drink it. Your nose might get white, and
+I might go to the seaside."
+
+"No, miss, I'm not tempted to interfere with nature. I've got good
+'ealth, and I'll keep it without no vinegar."
+
+"But will you give me some? You shall have the pin-cushion and the tidy
+if you do."
+
+"'Arriet would like that tidy," contemplated Betty, looking with round
+eyes at the hideous ornament.
+
+"You sneak round to the boot-house, and I'll have it ready for you," she
+said. "Come at eleven, come again at half-past three, and come at seven
+in the evening."
+
+This was arranged, and Pen, faithfully to the minute, did make her
+appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her first glass of vinegar
+with a wry face; but after it was swallowed she began to feel intensely
+good and pleased with herself.
+
+"Will it pale me in an hour?" was her thought.
+
+She ran upstairs, found a tiny square of looking-glass, concealed it in
+her pocket, and came down again. During the remainder of the day she
+might have been observed at intervals sneaking away by herself, and had
+any one followed her, that person would have seen her taking the
+looking-glass from her pocket and carefully examining her cheeks.
+
+Alas! the vinegar had only produced a slight feeling of discomfort; it
+had not taken any of the bloom out of the firm, fat cheeks.
+
+"It's horrid, and it's not doing it," thought the child. "I wish I hadn't
+gived her that tidy and that pin-cushion. But I will go on somehow till
+the color is out. They will send for me when they hear that I'm bad.
+Perhaps I'll look bad to-night."
+
+But Pen's "perhapses" were knocked on the head, for Miss Tredgold made a
+sudden and most startling announcement.
+
+"Why wait for the morning?" she exclaimed. "We are all packed and ready.
+We can easily get to Easterhaze by a late train to-night."
+
+Accordingly, by a late train that evening Miss Tredgold, Verena, and
+Pauline departed. They drove to Lyndhurst Road, and presently found
+themselves in a first-class carriage being carried rapidly away.
+
+"I am glad I thought of it," said Miss Tredgold, turning to the two
+girls. "It is true we shall arrive late, but Miss Pinchin will have
+things ready, as she will have received my telegram. We shall sleep at
+our new quarters in peace and comfort, and be ready to enjoy ourselves in
+the morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+GLENGARRY CAPS.
+
+
+Penelope drank her vinegar three times a day. She applied herself to this
+supposed remedy with a perseverance and good faith worthy of a better
+cause. This state of things continued until on a certain night she was
+seized with acute pain, and awoke shrieking out the startling words,
+"Vinegar! vinegar!" Nurse, who was not in the plot, thought the child was
+raving. She scolded Penelope more than pitied her, administered a strong
+dose, and, in short, treated her as rather a naughty invalid.
+
+"It's green apples that has done it," said nurse, shaking her head
+solemnly, and looking as if she thought Penelope ought certainly to
+return to her nursery thraldom.
+
+"I mustn't take so much vinegar," thought the little girl; "but I do hope
+that being so ill, and taking the horrid medicine, and being scolded by
+the nurse will have made me a bit pale."
+
+She doubtless hoped also that her illness would be reported to Miss
+Tredgold, who would send for her in double-quick time; but as Miss
+Tredgold was not told, and no one took any notice of Pen's fit of
+indigestion, she was forced to try other means to accomplish her darling
+desire--for go to the seaside she was determined she would. Of late she
+had been reading all the books she could find relating to the sea. She
+devoted herself to the subject of shells and seaweeds, and always talked
+with admiration of those naughty children who got into mischief on the
+sands.
+
+"Lots of them get drownded," she was heard to say to Adelaide. "It is
+quite, quite common to be washed up a drownded person by the big waves."
+
+Adelaide did not believe it, but Penelope stuck to her own opinion, and
+whenever she found one of her sisters alone and ready to listen to her,
+her one invariable remark was:
+
+"Tell me about the sea."
+
+Once it darted into her erratic little head that she would run away, walk
+miles and miles, sleep close to the hedges at night, receive drinks of
+milk from good-natured cottagers, and finally appear a dusty,
+travel-stained, very sick little girl at Aunt Sophia's lodgings at
+Easterhaze. But the difficulties in the way of such an undertaking were
+beyond even Pen's heroic spirit. Notwithstanding her vinegar and her
+suffering, she was still rosy--indeed, her cheeks seemed to get plumper
+and rounder than ever. She hated to think of the vinegar she had taken in
+vain; she hated to remember Betty and the tidy and pin-cushion she had
+given her.
+
+Meanwhile the days passed quickly and the invitation she pined for did
+not come. What was to be done? Suddenly it occurred to her that, if she
+could only become possessed of certain facts which she now suspected, she
+might be able to fulfil her own darling desire. For Pen knew more than
+the other girls supposed. She was very angry with Pauline for not
+confiding in her on Pauline's birthday, and at night she had managed to
+keep awake, and had risen softly from her cot and stood in her white
+night-dress by the window; and from there she had seen three little
+figures creeping side by side across the lawn--three well-known little
+figures. She had very nearly shouted after them; she had very nearly
+pursued them. But all she really did was to creep back into bed and say
+to herself in a tone of satisfaction:
+
+"Now I knows. Now I will get lots of pennies out of Paulie."
+
+She dropped into the sleep of a happy child almost as she muttered the
+last words, but in the morning she had not forgotten what she had seen.
+
+On a certain day shortly after Penelope had recovered from her very
+severe fit of indigestion, she was playing on the lawn, making herself,
+as was her wont, very troublesome, when Briar, looking up from her new
+story-book, said in a discontented voice:
+
+"I do wish you would go away, Penelope. You worry me awfully."
+
+Penelope, instead of going away, went and stood in front of her sister.
+
+"Does I?" she said. "Then I am glad."
+
+"You really are a horrid child, Pen. Patty and Adelaide, can you
+understand why Pen is such a disagreeable child?"
+
+"She is quite the most extraordinary child I ever heard of in the whole
+course of my life," said Adelaide. "The other night, when she woke up
+with a pain in her little tum-tum, she shouted, 'Vinegar! vinegar!' She
+must really have been going off her poor little head."
+
+"No, I wasn't," said Penelope, who turned scarlet and then white. "It was
+vinegar--real vinegar. It was to pale me."
+
+"Oh, don't talk to her!" said Patty. "She is too silly for anything. Go
+away, baby, and play with sister Marjorie, and don't talk any more
+rubbish."
+
+"You call me baby?" said Penelope, coming close to the last speaker, and
+standing with her arms akimbo. "You call me baby? Then I will ask you a
+question. Who were the people that walked across the lawn on the night of
+Paulie's birthday? Who was the three peoples who walked holding each
+other's hands?--little peoples with short skirts--little peoples about
+the size of you, maybe; and about the size of Briar, maybe; and about the
+size of Paulie, maybe. Who was they? You answer me that. They wasn't
+ghostses, was they?"
+
+Briar turned pale; Patty glanced at her. Adelaide, who had watchful blue
+eyes, turned and looked from one sister to the other.
+
+"You are talking rubbish," said Briar. "Go and play."
+
+"Who was they?" repeated Pen.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Am I baby or big wise girl?"
+
+"Oh, you are an infant Solomon! I don't know who the people were."
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+Penelope looked at Briar with a sigh of disappointment. Then she
+whispered to herself:
+
+"It's 'cos of Adelaide. Course they don't want to say anything when
+Addy's there."
+
+She strolled away.
+
+"What was the child talking about?" asked Adelaide.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," replied Briar. "She's the rummiest little thing
+that ever walked. But there's no good in taking any notice of what she
+says."
+
+"Of course no one does," answered Adelaide. "But I do wonder if ghosts
+ever walk across the lawn. Do you believe in ghosts, Briar?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Briar. "No girl in her senses does."
+
+"I don't know at all as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl
+that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell.
+She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house.
+What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?"
+
+"I don't know," said Briar. "I don't want to talk about ghosts. I don't
+believe in them."
+
+She got up and crossed the lawn. The next moment Pen had tucked her hand
+inside her arm.
+
+"You needn't keep it from me," she said in a whisper. "It was you and
+Patty and Paulie. I knew who you were, 'cos the moon shone on Patty's
+Glengarry cap. You needn't deny it."
+
+"I do deny it. I didn't go," said Briar.
+
+She felt her heart smite her as she told this lie. She walked quickly.
+
+"Do leave me," she said. "You are a little girl that doesn't at all know
+her own place."
+
+"But I do know it," said Penelope. "My place is at the seaside. I want to
+go there. I'm 'termined to go there. If I don't go one way I'll go
+another. Why should Paulie, what is the naughtiest of girls, have all the
+fun? I don't mind Renny being there so much. And why should I, what is
+the very best of girls, be kept stuck here with only nursey and you
+childrens to bother me? I am going. I'm 'termined."
+
+She marched away. Patty came up.
+
+"Patty," said Briar, "I've done it."
+
+"What?" asked Patty.
+
+"I've told a lie about it. I said we weren't on the lawn at all. I told
+her she was talking nonsense."
+
+"Couldn't you have got out of it by any other way?" asked Patty. "It
+doesn't seem right to tell lies."
+
+"I could with any one but Pen; but Pen can see through a brick wall. I
+had to tell it, and very plump, too, where Pen was in the question."
+
+"Well, it makes me feel horrid," said Patty. "I am sorry we went. I think
+we did awfully wrong."
+
+"We did it for Paulie. We'd do more than that for her," replied Briar.
+
+"I suppose so. I certainly love Paulie very much," answered Patty.
+
+"And, Patty," continued Briar, "having told such a great black lie to
+help her, we must go through with it. Pen means mischief. She's the sort
+of child who would do anything to gain anything. She wants to go to the
+seaside, and she wouldn't mind whom she got into trouble if it suited her
+own ends. We must remember she means mischief, and if she talks again
+about three figures on the lawn, you and I have got to stick to it that
+we didn't go. Do you understand?"
+
+"I do, and I consider it awful," said Patty.
+
+She did not add any more, but went slowly into the house. Presently,
+feeling much depressed, she sought nurse's society. Nurse was turning
+some of the girls' skirts. She was a good needlewoman, and had clung to
+the house of Dale through many adverse circumstances. She was enjoying
+herself at present, and used often to say that it resembled the time of
+the fat kine in Egypt.
+
+"Ah, Miss Patty!" she cried. "It's glad I am to see you, darling."
+
+"Can I do anything for you, nursey?" asked Patty.
+
+"Of course you can, dear. You can help me to unpick this frock. I am
+cutting it down to fit Miss Pen. It will make a very neat frock for her,
+and it seems unfair that dear Miss Tredgold should be at more expense
+than is necessary."
+
+"Why," asked Patty, with a surprised look, "doesn't father pay for the
+things?"
+
+"Mr. Dale!" cried nurse in a tone of wrath, "I'd like to see him. It's
+not that he wouldn't, and for all I can tell he may have the money; but,
+bless you, darling! he'd forget it. He'd forget that there was such a
+thing as dress wanted in all the world; and servants and food, and the
+different things that all well-managed houses must have, couldn't lie on
+his memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose if that dear,
+blessed lady didn't put her hand into her pocket in the way she does that
+you'd be having the right good time you are now having, and the nice
+clothes, and the good education, and the pretty ponies coming next week?
+And Miss Pauline, just because she's a bit pale, taken to the seaside?
+Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It's thankful you ought to be to the
+Providence that put it into your aunt's head to act as she has done. Ah!
+if my dear mistress was living she would bless her dear sister."
+
+"Did you know mother before she was married?" asked Patty, taking up a
+skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which nurse provided her with, and
+sitting down happily to her task.
+
+"Didn't I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?" asked nurse. "And
+didn't I over and over again help Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was
+a wild young lady!"
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything wrong?"
+
+"Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit and for dash and
+for go there wasn't her like. Not a horse in the land was wild enough to
+please her. She'd ride bareback on any creature you gave her to mount,
+and never come to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn't
+touch. She had a way with her that they couldn't resist. Just a pat of
+her hand on their necks and they'd be quiet and shiver all over as though
+they were too delighted for anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My
+word! and she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand. And
+as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all the world like our
+Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two have very much in common, and that
+is why Miss Tredgold has taken such a fancy to your sister."
+
+"Do you think she has?" asked Patty.
+
+"Do I think it?" cried nurse. "For goodness' sake, Miss Patty, don't cut
+the material. Do look where you are putting the scissors. Do I think it,
+miss? I know it. Miss Marjorie, sweet pet, you shall thread these
+daisies. You shall make a pretty chain of them to put around your neck.
+There's my little precious."
+
+Fat, lovely, little Marjorie shrieked with delight when nurse put a
+coarse needle, to which was attached an equally coarse piece of cotton,
+and a basket of daisies before her. Marjorie tried to thread daisies, and
+uttered little cries of happiness, while Patty and nurse talked together.
+
+"Miss Tredgold was a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited.
+But if she didn't always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand.
+Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that
+when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while
+before she'd consent--and all because she didn't want to part with Miss
+Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy would consent to live with them she'd
+marry Mr. Dale at once, for she was very much attached to him. But Miss
+Sophy put down her foot. 'Live with a married couple!' she cried. 'Why,
+I'd rather die.' Well, my dear, there were words and tears and groans;
+but at last Miss Sophy took the bit between her teeth, and went off to an
+old relative, a certain Miss Barberry, in Scotland, and arranged to live
+with her and look after her. And your mother married; and when Miss
+Barberry died she left Miss Sophy every penny she possessed, and Miss
+Sophy is very rich now; and well she deserves it. Dear, dear! I seem to
+see Miss Sophia over again in our Miss Pauline. She was very comical, and
+so high-spirited and wild, although she'd never do an underhand thing."
+
+"Never?" asked Patty, with a sigh.
+
+"Of course not. What do you take her for? Noble ladies what is ladies
+don't do mean sort of things."
+
+Patty sighed again.
+
+"What are you sighing for, Miss Patty? I hate to hear young ladies giving
+way to their feelings in that sort of fashion."
+
+"I was only thinking that you compared Aunt Sophy to Pauline."
+
+"And why shouldn't I? Is it you who want to belittle your sister? Miss
+Pauline is as high-spirited as ever young lady was, but neither would she
+do a mean or underhand thing."
+
+Patty suppressed her next sigh. For a long time she did not speak.
+
+"Nurse," she said when she next broke silence, "did you in the whole
+course of your life ever tell a lie?"
+
+"My word!" cried nurse--"Miss Marjorie, you'll prick your little fingers
+if you hold the needle like that. This way, lovey. Did I ever tell a lie,
+Miss Patty? Goodness gracious me! Well, to be sure, perhaps I told a bit
+of a tarradiddle when I was a small child; but an out-and-out lie--never,
+thank the Almighty!"
+
+"But what is the difference between a lie and a tarradiddle?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Patty, there's a deal of difference. A tarradiddle is what you
+say when you are, so to speak, took by surprise. It isn't a lie out and
+out; it's the truth concealed, I call it. Sometimes it is a mere
+exaggeration. You say a person is very, very cross when maybe that person
+is hardly cross at all. I can't quite explain, miss; I suppose there's
+scarcely any one who hasn't been guilty of a tarradiddle; but a lie--a
+thought-out lie--never."
+
+"Is a lie so very awful?" asked Patty.
+
+"Awful!" repeated nurse.
+
+She rose solemnly from her seat, went up to Patty, and put her hand under
+her chin.
+
+"Don't you ever catch me a-seeing you a-doing of it," she said. "I
+wouldn't own one of you Dales if you told falsehoods. A black lie the
+Bible speaks of as a thing that ain't lightly forgiven. But, of course,
+you have never told a lie. Oh, my dear, sweet young lady, you quite
+frightened me! To think that one of my children could be guilty of a sin
+like that!"
+
+Patty made no answer.
+
+"I am tired of work," she said; "I am going out."
+
+She flung down the skirt that she was helping to unpick and let the
+scissors fall to the ground.
+
+"You might put your work tidily away, Miss Patty. You aren't half as
+useful and helpful as you ought to be."
+
+Patty laid the skirt on a chair and slipped away. Nurse continued her
+occupation.
+
+"I wonder what the child meant," she thought. "She looked queer when she
+spoke. But there! with all their faults--and goodness knows they've
+plenty--they're straight, every one of them. A crooked-minded Dale or a
+crooked-minded Tredgold would be a person unheard of. Oh, yes, they're
+straight enough, that's a blessing."
+
+Meanwhile Patty sought her sister.
+
+"It's worse than I thought," she remarked. "It's not even a tarradiddle."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Briar.
+
+"The lie you told--the lie I am to help you to hide. It's black as ink,
+and God is very angry with little girls who tell lies. He scarcely can
+forgive lies. I was talking to nurse, and she explained."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you told her about Pauline?"
+
+"No," answered Patty in a voice of scorn. "I am not quite as bad as that.
+But she was speaking about Aunt Sophy and how wild she used to be, and
+she compared her to Paulie, and said that Aunt Sophy never did anything
+mean or underhand, and that Paulie never did either. I felt as if I could
+jump, for we know, Briar, what Paulie has done."
+
+"Yes, we know," answered Briar. "And you and I have done very wrong, too.
+But there is no help for it now, Patty. We can't go back."
+
+"It certainly does seem awful to think of growing up wicked," said Patty.
+"I don't like it."
+
+"Don't let's talk about it," said Briar. "We'll have to suffer some time,
+but perhaps not yet. Do you know that the apples are getting ripe, and
+John wants us to help him to pick them? Oh! and the mulberry-tree, too,
+is a mass of fruit. What do you say to climbing the apple-trees and
+shaking down the apples?"
+
+"Say!" cried Patty. "Delicious!"
+
+Without more words the little girls ran off to the orchard, and nurse's
+remarks with regard to the difference between lies and tarradiddles were
+forgotten for the time being.
+
+The days went on, but Pen did not forget. There came a morning when, a
+letter having arrived from Aunt Sophy saying that Pauline was much
+better--in fact, quite herself again--and that she and both the girls
+would be home in about a week, the little girl was rendered desperate.
+
+"I has no time to lose," she said to herself. "I am 'termined to go; I am
+going some fashion or t'other."
+
+On this occasion she took a bolder step than she had yet attempted. She
+resolved to walk alone the entire distance between The Dales and The
+Hollies, which was about three miles. Pen was the sort of child who was
+never troubled by physical fear. She also knew the Forest very well. She
+had but to slip away; none of her sisters would miss her. Or if nurse
+wondered where she was, she would conclude that Pen was keeping her elder
+sisters company. If the girls wondered, they would think she was with
+nurse. Altogether the feat was easy of accomplishment, and the naughty
+child determined to go. She started off an hour after breakfast, opened
+the wicket-gate, let herself out, and began to walk quickly. These were
+the days of early autumn, when the Forest was looking its best; the trees
+were beginning to put on their regal dresses of crimson and brown and
+gold. Already the rich red leaves were dropping to the ground. The
+bracken was withering to a golden brown, and the heather was a deep
+purple. Everywhere, too, little bluebells sprang up, looking as if they
+were making fairy music. There were squirrels, too, darting from bough to
+bough of the beech-trees; and rabbits innumerable, with white-tipped
+tails, disappearing into their various holes. A walk in the Forest on
+this special day was the sort to fascinate some children, but Pen cared
+for none of these things. Her way lay straight before her; her object was
+never for a moment forgotten. She meant to reach the sea by some means or
+other.
+
+She was a somewhat tired and hot little person when at last she appeared
+outside the broad gravel walk that led to The Hollies; and it so happened
+that when she entered this walk her courage was put to a severe test, for
+Lurcher, the farmer's bulldog, happened to be loose. As a rule he was
+kept tied up. Now, Lurcher was a very discerning person. He attacked
+beggars in a most ferocious manner, but as to ladies and gentlemen a
+fierce bout of barking was sufficient. Pen, however, looked like neither
+a beggar nor a lady or gentleman. Lurcher did not know what to make of
+Pen. Some one so small and so untidy could scarcely be a visitor. She was
+much too short and much too stout, and her little legs were bleeding from
+the thorny brambles that she had come through during her journey.
+Accordingly Lurcher, with a low growl and a swift bound, pinned poor
+little Pen by the skirt of her short frock. He was sufficiently a
+gentleman not to hurt her, but he had not the least idea of letting her
+go. He pinned her even more firmly when she moved an inch away from him,
+and when she raised her voice he growled. He not only growled, but he
+shook her dress fiercely. Already she felt it snap from its waistband
+under Lurcher's terrible teeth. She was a very brave child, but her
+present predicament was almost more than she could bear. How long it
+lasted no one quite knew. Then there came a stride across the gravel, a
+shout from Farmer King, and Pen was transferred from the ground into his
+sheltering arms.
+
+"You poor little thing!" he said. "You poor little bit of a lass! Now,
+you don't tell me you are one of the Dales? You have their eyes--black as
+black most of them are. Are you a Dale?"
+
+"Course I am," answered Penelope. "I'm Penelope Dale. He's a shocking bad
+dog. I never thought I could be frightened. I was 'termined to come, but
+I never thought you kept such a shocking, awful dog as that."
+
+"I am more sorry than I can say, my little dear. I wonder now who let the
+brute out. He'll catch it from me, whoever he is. Here, Nancy! Hullo,
+Nancy! Come along here, quick!"
+
+Nancy, looking fresh and smiling, stepped out of the open French window.
+
+"Why," she said when she saw Pen, "wherever did you drop from?"
+
+Pen began to cry.
+
+"I wor 'termined to come," she said. "I wanted to see you most tur'ble
+bad."
+
+"Poor little thing!" said the farmer. "She's got a bit of a fright. What
+do you think, Nancy? Lurcher had little miss by her skirt. He'd pinned
+her, so to speak, and he wouldn't let go, not if she fainted; and she was
+that brave, little dear, that she didn't do anything but just stood
+still, with her face as white as death."
+
+"Wor I paled down?" said Pen. "Do tell me if I wor paled down a bit."
+
+"You were as white as death, you poor little pretty," said the farmer;
+and then he kissed the little girl on her broad forehead, and hurried off
+to expostulate with regard to Lurcher.
+
+Nancy took Pen into the house, and sat down in a cosy American
+rocking-chair with the little girl in her lap. She proceeded to gorge her
+with caramels and chocolates. Pen had never been so much fussed over
+before; and, truth, to tell, she had seldom enjoyed herself better.
+
+"I wor 'termined--'termined to come," she repeated several times. At last
+her sobs ceased altogether, and she cuddled up against Nancy and went to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Nancy lifted her up and put her on the horse-hair sofa; she laid a rug
+over her, and then stooped and kissed her. Afterwards she went out and
+joined her father.
+
+"Whatever brought little miss here?" asked the farmer.
+
+"That's more than I can tell you, father."
+
+"And why don't the others come sometimes?" snapped Farmer King. "They
+none of 'em come, not even that pretty girl we made so much fuss over,
+giving her a gold locket and chain. Now, I'd like to find out, Nancy, my
+girl, if she has ever shown that locket and chain to her haristocratic
+aunt. Do you suppose the haristocratic lady has set eyes on it?"
+
+Nancy laughed.
+
+"I guess not," she said. "Paulie's a bit of a coward. She wants to know
+us and yet she don't. She wants to know us behind the aunt's back."
+
+"Left hand, not right hand," said the farmer. "I don't like that sort."
+
+"At any rate she can't come to us at present, father, for Miss Tredgold
+has taken her to the seaside."
+
+"That's it, is it?" said the farmer, his face clearing. "Then I suppose
+little miss has come with a message. What did missie say about your
+friend, Nancy?"
+
+"Nothing. She's asleep at present. I mean to let her have her sleep out,
+then give her some dinner, and drive her home in the dogcart."
+
+"Do as you like, Nance; only for mercy's sake don't make a fool of
+yourself over that family, for it strikes me forcibly they're becoming
+too grand for us."
+
+Nancy said nothing further. She returned to the house and sat down in the
+room where Penelope slept. Her work-basket was open. She was making a
+pretty new necktie for herself. Nancy was a very clever workwoman, and
+the necktie grew under her nimble fingers. Presently she dived into the
+bottom of the basket and took out a gold thimble with a sapphire top and
+turquoises round the rim. She slipped it on to the tip of her slender
+first finger.
+
+"I must send it back again," she said to herself. "I'd have done it
+before, but Pauline is away."
+
+Just then she was attracted by a sound on the sofa. She turned. Pen's big
+black eyes were wide open; she was bending forward and gazing at the
+thimble.
+
+"So you got it after all!" she said.
+
+"Oh, child, how you startled me! What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that's Aunty Sophy's thimble. I was to get a penny if I found it."
+
+Nancy was silent.
+
+"How did it get into your work-basket?" asked Pen.
+
+"I borrowed it from Paulie, and I'd have given it to her long ere this,
+but I heard she was away."
+
+"Give it to me," cried Penelope. Her voice quite shook in her eagerness.
+"Give it to me at once, and I will take it back to her."
+
+"I wish you would, Pen, I am sure; but you must be very careful not to
+lose it, for it is a real beauty. See, I will put it into this little
+box, and cover the box up."
+
+Penelope pressed close to Nancy. Nancy placed the thimble in the midst of
+some pink cotton-wool and looked at it affectionately; then she tied up
+the little box, put brown paper round it, tied string round that again,
+and then she held it out to Pen.
+
+"You are quite positive you won't lose it?" she said.
+
+"Positive. I has a big pocket, and no hole in it. See for yourself,
+there's no hole. Turn it out, will you?"
+
+Penelope's pocket proved to be quite safe, and Nancy, with a qualm at her
+heart which she could not account for, allowed the little girl to put the
+thimble therein.
+
+"Well, that is settled," she cried. "And now I want to know what you came
+for. You are going to have dinner with father and me after a bit."
+
+"No, I'm not," answered Pen. "I'm going home at once."
+
+"But why did you come? Did Pauline send me a message?"
+
+"No, she wouldn't."
+
+"Why not? I've done a great deal for her."
+
+"She's ongrateful," said Pen. "She didn't send no message. I 'spect
+she'll have forgot you when she comes back."
+
+Nancy's face flamed.
+
+"I can make it a little too hot for her if she does."
+
+"What's making a thing too hot?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Oh, making it so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes
+pit-a-pat," replied Nancy. "There! I'm not going to talk any more. If you
+won't tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room
+and have some dinner?"
+
+"I won't. I'm going home. As Paulie didn't send you a message, are you
+going to make it hot for her?"
+
+"That I am. Somebody will come here--somebody I know--to see somebody she
+knows; and there will be a begging and imploring, and somebody she knows
+will do nothing for somebody I know. Now, can you take that in?"
+
+"You are very funny," answered Penelope, "but I think I can. I'm glad,
+and I'm not glad, that I comed. I won't stay to dinner; I'm going
+straight away home this blessed minute."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+PEN VICTORIOUS.
+
+
+Penelope managed to reach home unattended. She was tired and draggled and
+dusty, and also very much scratched. Her sisters received her with whoops
+of astonishment and welcome. They had not missed her, it is true, but
+when they saw her coming sadly and sheepishly in at the wicket-gate they
+concluded that they had. Adelaide was the first to reach her.
+
+"Don't ask me any questions and you'll hear no lies," was Pen's remark.
+She waved her fat hand as she spoke. "I am going to nursey straight away.
+I has something I wants to say to nursey. Has the post gone? I want to
+catch the post immediate."
+
+"You are too queer for anything," said Adelaide; "but go your own way.
+You'll catch it for being out all by yourself in the woods."
+
+"I won't catch it, but there are others who will," replied Penelope. "And
+now keep out of my way. I want to find nursey."
+
+She marched in a most defiant and even queenly style towards the house;
+and the others, after laughing for a moment, returned to their various
+pursuits and forgot all about her.
+
+When nurse saw Penelope she uttered a groan.
+
+"There you come," she said. "You are a handful! You never turned up at
+dinner-time, although we looked for you everywhere. Now, where were you
+hiding?"
+
+"Never mind that, nursey. Get out your writing 'terials."
+
+"Now, whatever does the child mean? Sakes! you are scratched, and your
+nice new holland frock is all torn, and you are dusty and pale and
+trembling--as pale and trembling as can be."
+
+"Is it pale I am?" cried Penelope. "Is it? Is it? Nursey, I love you,
+love you, love you!"
+
+With a flop Penelope's fat arms were flung round nurse's neck; her hot
+little lips caressed nurse's cheeks.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "how much I love you! Get writing 'terials quick. Get
+pen and ink and paper, and sit down and write. I will tell you what to
+say. You must write this instant minute. It is the most 'portant thing in
+all the world. Write, and be quick. If you don't I'll go to Betty, and
+she'll do what I want her to do."
+
+"You needn't do that," cried nurse. "You are a queer child, and more
+trouble than you're worth, but when you are in a bit of a mess I'm not
+the one to refuse my aid. Who have I to write to?"
+
+"To my darlingest Aunt Sophy."
+
+"My word! What on earth have you got to say to her?"
+
+"Get 'terials and you'll know."
+
+Nurse complied somewhat unwillingly. She produced a portfolio, got out
+her ink-bottle and pen, dipped the pen in ink, and looked up at Penelope.
+
+"Go on, and be quick," she said. "I can't be fashed with the whims of
+children. What is it that you want to say?"
+
+"Write, 'Dear, darling Aunt Sophia.'"
+
+"You are too queer!"
+
+Nevertheless nurse put the words on the sheet of paper, and Pen proceeded
+to deliver herself quickly.
+
+"'I am paled down, and want change of air. My breaf is too quick. My legs
+is all tored with briers and things. I has got a prickly feeling in my
+froat, and I gets wet as water all over my hands and round my neck and my
+forehead. It's 'cos I'm weak, I 'spect.'"
+
+"Miss Penelope," said the nurse, "if those symptoms are correct, it is
+the doctor you want."
+
+"'I has a doubly-up pain in my tum-tum,'" proceeded Penelope, taking no
+notice of nurse's interruption. "'I shrieks in my sleep. I wants change
+of air. I am very poorly. Nursey is writing this, and she knows I am very
+poorly. I feel sort of as though I could cry. It's not only my body, it's
+my mind. I has got a weight on my mind. It's a secret, and you ought to
+know. Send for me quick, 'cos I want change of air.
+
+                                                                  Pen.'"
+
+"I never wrote a queerer letter," said nurse; "and from the looks of you
+there seems to be truth in it. You certainly don't look well."
+
+"You will send it, nursey?" asked Pen, trembling with excitement.
+
+"Yes, child; you have dictated it to me, and it shall go by the post.
+Whether Miss Tredgold will mind a word you say or not remains to be
+proved. Now leave me, and do for goodness' sake try not to run about
+wildly any more for to-day at least."
+
+Penelope left the room. She stooped slightly as she walked, and she
+staggered a little. When she got near the door she coughed. As she
+reached the passage she coughed more loudly.
+
+"It's my froat," she said in a very sad tone, and she crept down the
+passage, nurse watching her from the open door of the nursery.
+
+She did not guess that when Penelope turned the last corner she gave a
+sudden whoop, leapt nearly a foot into the air, and then darted out of
+the house as fast as she could.
+
+"I 'spect I's done it this time," thought Pen.
+
+Meanwhile in the nursery, after a moment's reflection, nurse added a
+postscript of her own to Pen's letter.
+
+"Miss Penelope is very queer, and don't look well at all."
+
+That letter was put in the post, and in due time received by Miss
+Tredgold.
+
+Penelope began to count the hours. She knew that no answer could come for
+some time after the letter was written. During the next day she went at
+intervals to visit Betty, and begged her for drinks of vinegar; and as
+she paid Betty by more and more presents out of Pauline's old bandbox,
+she found that individual quite amenable. After drinking the vinegar
+Penelope once again suffered from the "doubly-up pain in her tum-tum."
+She spoke of her agonies to the others, who pitied her a good deal, and
+Josephine even presented her with some very precious peppermints for the
+purpose of removing it. Towards evening she seemed better, and talked
+continually of the seaside and how she intended to enjoy herself there.
+And then she suggested that her sisters should come and help her to pack
+her things. The girls naturally asked why they were to do it, and she
+replied:
+
+"'Cos I'm going on a journey, and it's most 'portant. None of you are
+going, but I am."
+
+"You're not going on any journey," said Lucy. "You do talk rubbish."
+
+"What you bet?" asked Penelope, who saw an instant opportunity of making
+a little money.
+
+"Nothing," replied Lucy. "You are talking rubbish. Get out of my way. I'm
+very busy."
+
+Pen looked wildly around her. She was in such a state of suppressed
+excitement that she could stop at nothing. Her sisters were all close at
+hand. Patty and Briar were sitting as usual almost in each other's
+pockets. Adelaide, Josephine, Lucy, and Helen made a group apart. Pen
+thought carefully.
+
+"There's six of 'em," she said to herself. "I ought to make a little
+money by six of 'em. Look here!" she called out. "You all say I'm not
+going on a journey to-morrow; I say I am. Will you give me a penny each
+if I go? Is it done? Is it truly done? If I don't go I'll give you a
+penny each."
+
+"But you haven't got any pence to give us."
+
+"I will borrow from nursey. I know she'll lend me the money. But I shan't
+need it, for I am going. Will you give me a penny each if I go?"
+
+"Oh, yes, if you want it," said Adelaide.
+
+"But remember," continued Lucy, "we shall keep you to your part of the
+bargain if you don't go."
+
+"All right," cried Pen; and, having received the promise, she walked
+sedately across the grass.
+
+"Six pennies! I'll find them useful at the seaside," she thought.
+"There's nothing like having a little money of your own. It buys
+sweetmeats and cakes. I'll tell Aunt Sophy that my froat is so sore, and
+that I must have constant sweetmeats. Six pennies will get a lot."
+
+She walked more slowly. She was in reality in excellent health; even the
+vinegar was not doing her much harm.
+
+"How hungry I'll be when I get to the seaside!" she said to herself.
+"I'll swell out and get very red and very fat. My body will be 'normous.
+Oh, there's father!"
+
+Mr. Dale was seated near his window. His head was bent as usual over his
+work.
+
+"Father could give me something," thought Pen. "He could and he ought.
+I'll ask him. Dad!" she called.
+
+Mr. Dale did not answer.
+
+"Dad!" called Pen again.
+
+He looked up with a fretful expression.
+
+"Go away, my dear," he said. "I am particularly busy."
+
+"I will if you'll give me sixpence."
+
+"Go away."
+
+Pen's father bent again over his book. He forgot Penelope.
+
+"He's sure to give me sixpence if I worrit him long enough," thought the
+naughty little girl.
+
+She stood close to the window. Suddenly it occurred to her that if she
+drew down the blind, which she could easily do by pushing her hand inside
+the window and then planting her fat little person on the window-sill,
+she would cause a shadow to come before the light on her father's page.
+
+"That will make him look up," she thought. "When he does I'll ask him
+again for sixpence. I'll tell him I won't go away till I get it."
+
+She sat down on the window-sill, cleverly manipulating the blind, and Mr.
+Dale found an unpleasant darkness steal over his page.
+
+"Draw up that blind and go away, Penelope," he said. "Do you hear? Go
+away."
+
+"I will 'mediately you give me sixpence. I will draw up the blind and
+I'll go away," said Pen.
+
+"I will give you nothing. You are an extremely naughty little girl."
+
+Penelope sat on. Mr. Dale tried to read in the darkening light. Presently
+he heard a sniff. The sniff grew louder.
+
+"My froat," said Penelope.
+
+He glanced towards her. She was sitting huddled up; her back looked very
+round.
+
+"Do go away, child. What is wrong?"
+
+"My froat. I want something to moisten it. It is so dry, it hurts me."
+
+"Go and get a drink of water."
+
+"Oh, my froat! Oh, my tum-tum! Oh, my froat!" said Penelope again.
+
+Mr. Dale rose from his seat at last.
+
+"I never was so worried in my life," he said. "What is it, child? Out
+with it. What is wrong?"
+
+Penelope managed to raise eyes brimful of tears to his face.
+
+"If you knowed that your own little girl was suffering from bad froat and
+doubly-up tum-tum, and that sixpence would make her well--quite, really,
+truly well--wouldn't you give it to her?" said Penelope.
+
+"How can sixpence make you well? If you really have a sore throat and a
+pain we ought to send for the doctor."
+
+"Sixpence is much cheaper than the doctor," said Penelope. "Sixpence will
+do it."
+
+"How?"
+
+"It will buy peppermints."
+
+"Well, then, here it is, child. Take it and be off."
+
+Penelope snatched it. Her face grew cheerful. She shot up the blind with
+a deft movement. She jumped from her seat on the window-ledge. She was no
+longer doubled up.
+
+"Thank you, dad," she said. "Thank you--thank you."
+
+She rushed away.
+
+"I'll have another sixpence to-morrow," she thought. "That's a whole
+beautiful shilling. I will do fine when I am at the seaside."
+
+Penelope could scarcely sleep that night. She got up early the next
+morning. She was determined to stand at the gate and watch for the
+postman. The letters usually arrived about eight o'clock. The postman
+hove in sight, and Pen rushed to meet him.
+
+"Have you letters--a letter for me?" she asked.
+
+"No, Miss Penelope, but there is one for your nurse."
+
+"It is from Easterhaze," said the child. "Thank you--thank you, posty."
+
+She snatched the first letter away from the old man and darted away with
+it. Into the nursery she rushed.
+
+"Here it is, nursey. Open it, quick! I am to go; I know I am."
+
+Nurse did open the letter. It was from Miss Tredgold, and it ran as
+follows:
+
+"DEAR NURSE: Penelope is evidently too much for you. I intend to remain
+two or three days longer in this pleasant place, so do not expect me home
+next week. I shall have Penelope here, so send her to me by the first
+train that leaves Lyndhurst Road to-morrow. Take her to the station and
+put her into the charge of the guard. She had better travel first-class.
+If you see any nice, quiet-looking lady in the carriage, put Penelope
+into her charge. I enclose a postal order for expenses. Wire to me by
+what train to expect the child."
+
+The letter ended with one or two more directions, but to these Pen
+scarcely listened. Her face was pale with joy. She had worked hard; she
+had plotted much; she had succeeded.
+
+"I feel as though I'd like to be really quite good," was her first
+thought.
+
+Nurse expected that she would be nearly mad with glee; but she left the
+nursery quietly. She went downstairs quietly. Her sisters were at
+breakfast. She entered the room and stood before them.
+
+"Pennies, please," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Briar, who was pouring out coffee.
+
+"Pennies from all of you, quick."
+
+Josephine put on a supercilious face; Lucy sniffed; Helen and Adelaide
+went on with their breakfast as though nothing had happened.
+
+Penelope came a little nearer.
+
+"Must I speak up?" she said. "Must I ask again? Is you all deaf? I am
+going to Easterhaze to Aunt Sophy. Darling aunty can't do without me. She
+has sent for me as she wants me so badly. I'm going by the first train. I
+am much the most 'portant person in the house, and I's won my bet. I like
+betting. A penny from you all if you please."
+
+The girls were excited and amazed at Pen's news.
+
+"You are clever," said Briar. "How in the world did you get her to do
+it?"
+
+"Tum-tum and sore froat," said Penelope bluntly. "Oh! and vinegar and
+paling down."
+
+"You are really such an incomprehensible child that I am glad Aunt Sophy
+is going to manage you," was Patty's remark. "Here are your pence. Shall
+we help you to pack your things?"
+
+"They are a'most packed. I did some myself last night. I took your new
+little trunk, Briar. I don't 'uppose you'll mind."
+
+Briar did mind, but she knew it was useless to expostulate.
+
+By eleven o'clock Penelope was off to Lyndhurst Road station. By twelve
+o'clock she was in charge of a red-faced old lady. In five minutes' time
+she was _en route_ for Easterhaze. The old lady, whose name was Mrs.
+Hungerford, began by considering Pen a plain and ordinary child; but she
+soon had reason to change her views, for Pen was not exactly plain, and
+was certainly by no means ordinary. She stared fixedly at the old lady,
+having deliberately left her own seat and planted herself on the one
+opposite.
+
+"Vinegar will do it," she said.
+
+"What are you talking about, child?" asked Mrs. Hungerford.
+
+"You are so red--such a deep red, I mean--much the same as chocolate.
+Vinegar will do it. Take three small glasses a day, and pay your Betty
+with vulgar sort of things out of an old bandbox."
+
+"The unfortunate child is evidently insane," was Mrs. Hungerford's
+thought. She spoke, therefore, in a reassuring way, and tried to look as
+though she thought Pen's remarks the most natural in the world.
+
+Pen, however, read through her.
+
+"You don't believe me," she said. "Now you listen. I look a pale little
+girl, don't I? I am nearly eight years old. I don't see why a girl of
+eight is to be trampled on; does you? I wanted to go, and I am going.
+It's tum-tum-ache and sore froat and paling cheeks that has done it. If
+you want to get what you don't think you will get, remember my words.
+It's vinegar does it, but it gives you tum-ache awful."
+
+The old lady could not help laughing.
+
+"Now, I wonder," she said, opening a basket of peaches, "whether these
+will give tum-ache."
+
+Penelope grinned; she showed a row of pearly teeth.
+
+"Guess not," she said.
+
+The old lady put the basket between Penelope and herself.
+
+"I have also got sandwiches--very nice ones--and little cakes," she said.
+"Shall we two have lunch together, even if my face is like chocolate?"
+
+"It's a beauty face, even if it is, and I love you," said Penelope. "I
+think you are quite 'licious. Don't you like to look like chocolate?"
+
+The old lady made no answer. Penelope dived her fat hand into the basket
+of peaches and secured the largest and ripest.
+
+"It is the best," she said. "Perhaps you ought to eat it."
+
+"I think I ought, but if you don't agree with me you shall have it."
+
+Penelope hesitated a moment.
+
+"You wouldn't say that if you didn't mean me to eat it," she said. "Thank
+you."
+
+She closed her teeth in the delicious fruit and enjoyed herself vastly.
+In short, by the time Mrs. Hungerford and her curious charge reached
+Easterhaze it seemed to them both that they had known each other all
+their days.
+
+Miss Tredgold, Verena, and Pauline met the train. The girls looked rosy
+and sunburnt. This was an ideal moment for Penelope. She almost forgot
+Mrs. Hungerford in her delight at this meeting with her relatives. But
+suddenly at the last moment she remembered.
+
+"How are you, Aunt Sophy? I am scrumptiously glad to see you. How are
+you, Verena? How are you, Paulie? Oh! please forgive me; I must say
+good-bye to the chocolate old lady."
+
+And the chocolate old lady was hugged and kissed several times, and then
+Pen was at liberty to enjoy the delights of the seaside.
+
+The lodgings where Miss Tredgold was staying were quite a mile from the
+station. Pen enjoyed her drive immensely. The look of the broad sea
+rolling on to the shore had a curious effect upon her strange nature. It
+touched her indescribably. It filled that scarcely awakened little soul
+of hers with longings. After all, it might be worth while to be good. She
+did not know why the sea made her long to be good; nevertheless it did.
+Her face became really pale.
+
+"Are you tired, dear?" asked Miss Tredgold, noticing the curious look on
+the expressive little face.
+
+"Oh, no, not that," replied Pen; "but I have never seen the sea before."
+
+Miss Tredgold felt that she understood. Pauline also understood. Verena
+did not think about the matter. It was Verena's habit to take the sweets
+of life as they came, to be contented with her lot, to love beauty for
+its own sake, to keep a calm mind and a calm body through all
+circumstances. She had accepted the sea as a broad, beautiful fact in her
+life some weeks ago. She was not prepared for Pen's emotion, nor did she
+understand it. She kept saying to herself:
+
+"Nurse is right after all; it was not mere fancy. Little Penelope is not
+well. A day or two on the sands in this glorious air will soon put her
+straight."
+
+Pauline, however, thought that she did understand her little sister. For
+to Pauline, from the first day she had arrived at Easterhaze, the sea had
+seemed to cry to her in one incessant, reiterating voice:
+
+"Come, wash and be clean. Come, lave yourself in me, and leave your
+naughtiness and your deceits and your black, black lies behind."
+
+And Pauline felt, notwithstanding her present happiness and her long days
+of health and vigor and glee, that she was disobeying the sea, for she
+was not washing therein, nor getting herself clean in all that waste of
+water. The old cry awoke again in her heart with an almost cruel
+insistence.
+
+"Come, wash and be clean," cried the sea.
+
+"I declare, Pauline, you are looking almost as pale as your sister," said
+Miss Tredgold. "Well, here we are. Now, Pen," she added, turning to
+Penelope, "I hope you will enjoy yourself. I certainly did not intend to
+ask you to join us, but as nurse said you were not well, and as your own
+extremely funny letter seemed to express the same thing, I thought it
+best to ask you here."
+
+"And you did quite right, Aunty Sophy," said Penelope.
+
+Then the look of the sea faded from her eyes, and she became once again a
+suspicious, eager, somewhat deceitful little girl. Once again the subtle
+and naughty things of life took possession of her. At any cost she must
+keep herself to the front. At any cost she must assume the power which
+she longed for. She was no longer a nursery child. She had won her way
+about coming to the seaside; now she must go still further. She must
+become a person of the greatest moment to Aunt Sophia. Aunt Sophia held
+the keys of power; therefore Penelope determined to devote herself to
+her.
+
+The lodgings were extremely cheerful. They were in a terrace overhanging
+the sea. From the big bay-windows of the drawing-room you could see the
+sunsets. There was a glorious sunset just beginning when Penelope walked
+to the window and looked out. Miss Tredgold had secured the best rooms in
+this very handsome house, and the best rooms consisted of a double
+drawing-room, the inner one of which was utilized as a dining-room; a
+large bedroom overhead in which Verena and Pauline slept; and a little
+room at the back which she used for herself, and in which now she had
+ordered a cot to be placed for Penelope.
+
+Penelope was taken upstairs and shown the arrangements that had been made
+for her comfort. Her eyes sparkled with delight when she saw the little
+cot.
+
+"There's no time like the night for telling things," she thought to
+herself. "Aunt Sophy can't get away from me at night. It's only to stay
+awake, perhaps to pertend to have a nightmare. Anyhow, night is the time
+to do what I have to do."
+
+Being quite sure, therefore, that she would get her opportunity of
+talking to Aunt Sophia, she revived for the time being to enjoy herself.
+Her volatile spirits rose. She laughed and talked, and ate an enormous
+meal. After the sort of tea-dinner was over the three girls went out by
+themselves on the sands.
+
+"You may stay out half-an-hour," said Miss Tredgold: "no longer, for
+Penelope has to go to bed. Afterwards I will take a walk with you two
+elder ones if you care to have me."
+
+"Of course we care to have you, dear Aunt Sophy," said Verena in her
+gentlest tone; and then the three started off. Penelope, in honor of her
+recent arrival, was promoted to the place in the middle. She laid a hand
+on each sister's arm and swung herself along. People remarked the trio,
+and said to themselves what a remarkably fat, healthy-looking little girl
+the one in the middle was.
+
+"Well, Pen," said Pauline as they approached the house, having discussed
+all sorts of subjects, "I can't see where the tum-ache and the sore
+throat and the pale cheeks come in."
+
+"They're gone," said Penelope. "I knew the sea would cure 'em. I am quite
+perfect well. I am going to be quite perfect well while I am here. I love
+the sea; don't you?"
+
+"Come, wash and be clean," whispered the sea to Pauline.
+
+She was silent. Verena said, however, that she greatly liked the sea.
+They went back to the house. Penelope was escorted upstairs. Pauline
+helped her to undress, and presently she was tucked into her little bed.
+
+"It seems a'most as if I wor still a nursery child," she said to her
+elder sister.
+
+"Why so?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Being sent to bed afore you and Renny. I am quite as old as you and
+Renny--in my mind, I mean."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," said Pauline almost crossly.
+
+"Paulie," said Penelope, taking hold of her hand and pulling her towards
+her, "I went to see Nancy King t'other day."
+
+"Why did you do that?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Because I wanted to come to the sea, and there was no other way. Vinegar
+wouldn't do it, nor tum-aches, but I thought Nancy might."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Pauline. "In what possible way could
+Nancy King have brought you here?"
+
+"Only that I got so desperate after seeing her that I wrote that funny,
+funny letter, and nursey helped me; and now I'm here, and I think I can
+do what I like. You had best be friends with me now, for I can do just
+what I like."
+
+Pauline felt just a little afraid. She knelt down by Pen.
+
+"Tell me why you went," she said. "You know you disobeyed Aunt Sophy when
+you went."
+
+"Yes; but what's one more in a family doing disobeying things?" answered
+Pen in her glib fashion. "But now listen. I will tell you."
+
+She related her adventures with much glee--her walk through the woods,
+her arrival, the terrible way in which Lurcher had treated her, the
+kindness of the farmer, the proposed dinner, Nancy's manners. She was
+working up to the grand climax, to the moment when she should speak about
+the thimble.
+
+"What do you think?" she said suddenly. "Nancy put me on a sofa, and I
+slept. I slept sound, and when I woke up I saw Nancy sitting by the
+window sewing. She wor making a blue scarf, and her thimble went flashing
+in and out; and what do you think, Paulie? What _do_ you think?"
+
+"Well?" said Pauline.
+
+"Pauline, dear, are you ready?" called a voice from below.
+
+"I must go," said Pauline; "but tell me at once, Pen, what you mean."
+
+"It was the thimble--the lost one," said Penelope--"the one with the
+dark-blue top and the light-blue stones round the rim, the goldy thimble
+which was Aunt Sophy's."
+
+In spite of her efforts Pauline did find herself turning white.
+
+"Pauline, dear, we can't wait any longer," said Miss Tredgold's voice.
+
+"I must go," said Pauline. "Tell me afterwards."
+
+"Whisper," said Penelope, pulling her hand. "I have got it. The deep-blue
+top and the light-blue stones and the goldy middle--I have it all. And I
+can tell Aunt Sophy, and show it, and I will if--if you don't tell me
+about----"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About that time when three peoples walked across the lawn--the night
+after your birthday, I mean. Will you tell? I asked Briar, and she said
+she didn't know. She told a lie. Are you going to tell a lie, too? If you
+do I will---- Well, I won't say any more; only I have put it in the
+safest of places, and you will never find it. Now you can go down and go
+out with Aunt Sophy. Now you know, 'cos I've told you."
+
+Pauline slowly left the room. She felt dazed. Once again Miss Tredgold
+called her. She ran to her washstand, filled her basin with cold water,
+and dipped her face into it. Then she ran downstairs. She found it
+difficult to analyze her own sensations, but it seemed to her that
+through her little sister's eyes she saw for the first time her own
+wickedness.
+
+"To think that Pen could do it, and to think that I could be afraid of
+her!" she thought.
+
+She went out and walked with her aunt and Verena, but the insistent voice
+of the sea, as with each swish of the waves it cried, "Come, wash and be
+clean," hit like a hammer on her brain.
+
+"What is the matter with Pauline?" thought Verena.
+
+"The child is tired; she is not quite well yet," was Miss Tredgold's
+mental reflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE WHITE BAY.
+
+
+Penelope did not repeat her threat, but she watched Pauline. Miss
+Tredgold also watched Pauline. Verena felt uncomfortable, without quite
+knowing why. The keen vigor and joy of the first days at the seaside had
+departed. Pauline became pale once more, and Miss Tredgold's anxieties
+about her were revived. The Dales were a healthy race, but one or two of
+the Tredgolds had died of consumption. Miss Tredgold remembered a
+young--very young--sister of her own who had reached Pauline's age, and
+then quite suddenly had become melancholy, and then slightly unwell, and
+then more unwell, until the fell scourge had seized her as its prey. She
+had died when between sixteen and seventeen. Miss Tredgold seemed to see
+her sister's face in Pauline's. She did not for a single moment accuse
+the child of any wrong-doing. She did not imagine that what ailed her
+could have to do with the mind. Nevertheless she was anxious about her.
+Miss Tredgold had a good deal of penetration, but she was not accustomed
+to children. She thought that children of Pen's age were more little
+animals than anything else. It did not occur to her that a small child
+like Pen could have a mind of a very extraordinary order, and that the
+mind of this child could work in a direction which might hurt others. She
+did not suppose such a terrible child could exist.
+
+Pauline was therefore more or less a prey to the naughtiness of Pen, who
+used her as a weapon for her own enjoyment. Pen was quite determined to
+enjoy herself at the seaside. She would have her bucket and spade and
+make castles in the sand as long as ever she liked, and she would play
+with other children, and would make acquaintance with them. She insisted
+also on going very often to the shops to buy caramels or chocolates. In
+short, she was determined that during her brief stay at Easterhaze she
+would have as good a time as possible. It is quite on the cards that she
+would not have had so good a time as she did but for the agency of
+Pauline. Pauline, however, in spite of herself, sided with Pen. She
+almost hated Pen, but she sided with her. She used to throw her voice
+into the scale of Pen's desires, and Pen in consequence got pretty much
+what she wanted.
+
+There came a day when two children, a boy and a girl of the name of
+Carver, ran up to Pen and asked her if she would join them in going round
+the next promontory and gathering shells in a wide bay on the other side,
+which was known as the White Bay. The way to this bay, except at
+low-water, was not very safe, as during high-tide the sea was apt to come
+up and cut off retreat. Pen, however, knew nothing about this. The moment
+she was asked to go it occurred to her that there could be no such
+delightful place as the White Bay anywhere else in the world. She knew
+well, however, that Miss Tredgold never allowed her to go fifty yards
+from the house on either side. She looked up. Pauline was walking along
+the upper walk. She had a story-book in her hand. She meant to reach one
+of the shelters and sit down there to read. Pen turned to the two Carvers
+and said that she must ask permission, but she would be with them in a
+minute. She then scrambled up the path and ran to Pauline's side.
+
+"Pauline," she said, "I am going to the White Bay with the Carvers--those
+two children there--that boy and girl; you see 'em. We are going at once.
+They have got a basket of cakes, and we are going to gather shells and
+have a jolly time. We won't be back till one o'clock."
+
+"But you can't go," said Pauline. She did not know of any danger in
+going; she only thought that Penelope meant to disobey Miss Tredgold.
+"Aunt Sophy is out, and she has not given you leave," she said. "You must
+stay where you are, Pen."
+
+"But you can give me leave, Paulie, darling, can you not?"
+
+"I can't do anything of the sort; you mustn't ask me."
+
+Pen's eyes danced. The children on the sands called out to her.
+
+"Be quick, little girl, or we'll be cotched. If nurse comes out she won't
+let us go. We can go if we start at once."
+
+"Well, I'm off. You must give me leave, Paulie. If you don't I will----"
+
+"Don't!" said Pauline, backing away from her sister. She felt a sort of
+terror when Penelope taunted her with her superior knowledge and the
+cruel use she meant to put it to.
+
+"Go if you like," she said, in a white heat of passion. "You are the
+worry of my life."
+
+Pen gave her a flashing, by no means good sort of glance, and then tore
+down the winding path which led to the sands. Pauline got up; she left
+her seat by the shore and went inland.
+
+"I don't know how I am to bear it," she said to herself. "Pen has made me
+so wretched. I was hoping that nothing would be known. I was trying to
+forget, and I was making a lot of good resolves, and I am loving Aunt
+Sophy more and more each day. Why have I got such a dreadful little
+sister as Pen? She is like none of the rest. It seems almost incredible
+that I should be in the power of such a small child. Nevertheless I am in
+her power. I had no right to let her go to the White Bay; still, I told
+her to go, for I couldn't bear the agonies I should have to go through if
+I refused. Oh, I am wretched! Pen practically knows everything; so does
+Patty, and so does Briar. But they're safe enough; they won't betray
+me--they wouldn't for all the world. As to Pen, I don't know what she is
+made of. She will be a terrible woman by-and-by."
+
+Pauline walked on until she heard Verena's voice. She then turned back.
+
+"Aunt Sophy said we were to go up to the town to meet her," said Verena.
+"She's doing some shopping. She wants to get a new autumn hat for you,
+and another for me. Come along, Paulie. We are to be at Murray's in the
+High Street at eleven o'clock."
+
+Pauline turned and walked soberly by her sister's side.
+
+"Are you as tired as ever this morning, Paulie?" asked Verena.
+
+"I am not tired at all," replied Pauline.
+
+Verena considered for a minute.
+
+"Aunt Sophy is often anxious about you," she said. "I can't imagine why,
+but she is. She says that she doesn't think you are at all strong."
+
+"Oh, I am!" interrupted Pauline. "I wish she wouldn't worry about me. I
+wish you'd tell her not to worry. I am really as strong as any girl could
+be. Do tell her not to fret about me any more."
+
+"Where is Pen?" said Verena suddenly.
+
+Pauline did not speak.
+
+"I suppose she is down on the beach as usual," said Verena again in a
+careless tone. "She's always down there. She is such a queer little
+mite!"
+
+"Don't let's talk about her," said Pauline almost crossly.
+
+The girls turned their conversation to other matters, and when they
+joined Miss Tredgold at Murray's shop they had both forgotten the
+existence of their little sister Penelope.
+
+Meanwhile that young person was having a good time. Having gained her
+wish, she was in excellent spirits, and was determined to make herself
+extremely agreeable to the Carvers. She thought them quite nice children.
+They were different from the children at home. They had lived almost all
+their lives in London. They told Pen a good many stories about London. It
+was the only place worth living in, Harry Carver said. When you went out
+there you always turned your steps in the direction of the Zoo. Pen asked
+what the Zoo was. Harry Carver gave her a glance of amazement.
+
+"Why, it's chock-full of wild beasts," he said.
+
+Pen thought this a most exciting description. Her cheeks paled; her eyes
+grew big. She clasped hold of Harry's arm and said in a trembling voice:
+
+"Are you joking, or do you mean real lions and bears and tigers?"
+
+"I mean real lions and bears and tigers," said Harry. "Oh, if you only
+heard the lions roar! We see them fed, too. It is fun to hear them
+growling when they get their meat; and the way they lick it--oh, it's
+most exciting!"
+
+"So it is," said Nellie Carver. "It's awful fun to go to the Zoo."
+
+"You must be very courageous," said Pen, who did not know that the wild
+beasts were confined in cages.
+
+Neither Eleanor nor Harry Carver thought it worth while to enlighten Pen
+with regard to this particular; on the contrary, they determined to keep
+it to themselves. It was nice to have a little girl like Pen looking at
+them with awe.
+
+"It isn't everybody who can go to the Zoo," proceeded Harry. "There are
+people that the wild beasts don't ever care to touch. Nellie and I are
+that sort; we're made that way. We walk about amongst them; we stroke
+them and pet them. I often sit on the neck of a lion, and quite enjoy
+myself."
+
+"My pet beast for a ride is a panther," said Nellie, her eyes sparkling
+with fun at her own delicious ideas; "but most children can never ride on
+lions and panthers."
+
+"I don't believe you ride on them," said Pen. "You don't look half brave
+enough for that."
+
+"Why don't you think us brave?" asked Harry. "You are not a nice girl
+when you talk in that way. You wouldn't even be brave enough to ride on
+the elephants. Oh, it's very jolly for the real brave people when they go
+to the Zoo."
+
+"And is that the only place to go to in London?" asked Pen.
+
+As she spoke she quickened her steps, for the children were now crossing
+the extreme end of the promontory round which was the celebrated White
+Bay.
+
+"There are other places. There's the British Museum, full of books. There
+are miles and miles of books in London, and miles and miles of pictures."
+
+"What an awful place!" said Pen, who had no love for either books or
+pictures. "Don't tell me any more about it. Go on ascribing the wild
+animals. Is there serpents at the Zoo?"
+
+"Tons of 'em. When they have gorged a rabbit or a lamb or a girl whole,
+they lie down and sleep for about a week."
+
+"They don't gorge girls!"
+
+"They think nothing of it; that is, if the girl is the sort of child they
+don't like."
+
+"I won't go," said Pen. "I am not the sort of child the wild beasts would
+love. I think maybe I might be crunched up by the lions. I shan't go."
+
+"Well, no one asked you," said Harry. "You are quite certain to be eaten,
+so you had best stay away."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+Harry glanced at his sister. Nellie laughed. Harry laughed also.
+
+"Why do you talk in that way, you horrid boy?" said Pen, stamping her
+foot. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you, only you need not try to kill me with your eyes. The wild
+beasts only like good uns. You ain't good. The wild beasts would soon
+find that out."
+
+For some extraordinary reason Pen found herself turning pale. She had a
+moment of actual fear. At this instant she would have resigned the
+thimble--the golden thimble, with its sapphire top and turquoise rim--to
+the safe keeping of Pauline. For if Pauline had the thimble Pen would
+have very little to say against her. As long as she possessed the thimble
+she felt that Pauline was in her power. She liked the sensation, and she
+was honest enough to own as much.
+
+The conversation was now quickly turned. The children found plenty of
+shells in the White Bay. Soon they were sitting on the sands picking them
+up and enjoying themselves as only children can.
+
+"So," said Pen, pushing back her hat and fixing her eyes on Harry's face,
+"you comed here without leave?"
+
+"Of course we did," said Harry. "Won't nurse be in a state when she finds
+we've gone! She will rush up and down in front of the house and cry, for
+father and mother have gone away for the whole day, and nurse is in sole
+charge. Oh, won't she be in a state! She went off to walk with her young
+man, and we thought we'd play a joke on her, for she's often told us not
+to come here. 'If you go near that White Bay,' she said, 'you will be
+drowned as sure as sure.' She daren't tell father and mother because of
+her young man. Isn't it fun?"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope, "it's prime fun; but isn't this fun, too? You won't
+be able to go to that Zoo place any more."
+
+"Now what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, this: the animals will eat you up. You are bad, same as me. You two
+won't be able to go to any more Zoos;" and Pen rolled round and round in
+fiendish delight.
+
+The other children looked at her with anything but approval.
+
+"I don't like her," whispered Nellie to her brother.
+
+"Of course you don't like bad little girls," replied Harry. "Let's run
+away at once and leave her. Let's."
+
+They scrambled to their feet. To love a new playmate and yet without an
+instant's warning to desert her was quite in accordance with their
+childish ideas. In a moment they were running as fast as their legs would
+permit across the sands. The tide had been coming in fast for some time.
+
+For a moment Pen sat almost petrified; then she rushed after them. She
+was wild with passion; she had never been so angry in all her life. There
+were many times when the other children at The Dales treated her with
+scant courtesy, but to be suddenly deserted in this fashion by strange
+children was more than she could endure.
+
+"Oh, how bad you have got! You are so bad--so dreadfully, horribly
+bad--that the tide is certain to come in and drown you up," she cried.
+"You can't go away from me; you can't. Oh, see! it has comed;" and Pen
+danced up and down and clapped her hands in triumph.
+
+She was right. She had gained a complete victory. Just at the extreme end
+of the promontory a gentle wave, peaceful, pretty, and graceful, curled
+up against the solid rock. It had scarcely retired in bashful innocence
+when another wave tumbled after it. They looked like charming
+playfellows. Then came a third, then a fourth and a fifth. Faster and
+faster they rolled in, flowing up the white sands and making a white foam
+round the rock.
+
+The little Carvers stood still, transfixed with a curious mingling of
+delight, excitement, and horror. Pen ceased to jump up and down.
+Presently she ceased to laugh. She was only a very small girl, and did
+not in the least realize her danger; nevertheless, as she used her eyes
+to good purpose, and as she quickly perceived that the opposite side of
+the bay was now shut away by a great body of water, it did occur to her
+that they would have to stay in their present shelter for some time.
+Harry turned round slowly. Harry was ten years old, and he understood. He
+had heard his father talk of the dangerous White Bay. He went straight up
+to Pen, and, taking her hand, burst out crying.
+
+"It don't matter," he said--"it don't matter whether we are good or
+whether we are bad. We can none of us ever go to the Zoo again. Nellie
+and I won't ever go any more, and you can never go at all."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Pen.
+
+Her heart began to beat fast and loud.
+
+"What do you mean? Oh, you dreadful bad----"
+
+"Don't call names," said Harry. "You will be sorry by-and-by; and
+by-and-by comes soon. We have got to be drowned, all three of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"OUR FATHER" IS BEST.
+
+
+Pauline and Verena found Miss Tredgold waiting for them. They went into
+the shop, which was quite one of the best shops in the High Street. There
+Miss Tredgold asked to see hats, and presently the two girls and their
+aunt were absorbed in the fascinating occupation of trying on new
+headgear. Miss Tredgold was buying a very pretty hat for herself also. It
+was to be trimmed with lace and feathers, and Verena had a momentary
+sense of disappointment that she was to have nothing so gay to wear on
+her own head. The attendant who was serving them made a sudden remark.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," she said, "this little brown hat trimmed with velvet will
+exactly suit the dark young lady." Here she looked at Pauline. "And I
+should venture to suggest a very little cream-colored lace introduced in
+front. The autumn is coming on, and the young lady will find this hat
+very suitable when the weather changes."
+
+"Well, the weather seems inclined to remain fine," said Miss Tredgold,
+glancing out of the window, where a very blue sky met her gaze. There
+were heavy white clouds, however, drifting quickly across the sky, and
+the young shop attendant said:
+
+"I hear that there's a storm expected. And anyhow it is high-tide
+to-night. The tide will come up and quite cover the White Bay this
+evening. It is always more or less dangerous there, but it is specially
+dangerous to-day. I never like these high-tides; children and nursemaids
+are so apt to forget all about them."
+
+Miss Tredgold muttered something conventional. Pauline suddenly sat down
+on a chair.
+
+"How white you are, dear!" said Miss Tredgold. "Would you oblige me," she
+added, turning to the attendant, "by bringing this young lady a glass of
+water?"
+
+But Pauline had already recovered herself.
+
+"Please don't," she said. "I want to go out. I want to get the air.
+Don't--don't keep me."
+
+Her movement was so sudden and so unexpected that neither Miss Tredgold
+nor Verena had time to say a word. The people in the shop saw a somewhat
+untidy-looking little girl rush wildly down the stairs and out of doors,
+and long before Miss Tredgold had time to recover her scattered senses
+that same little girl was tearing as though on the wings of the wind up
+the High Street. Panting, breathless, overpowered with emotion, she
+presently reached the long flat stretch of beach at the farther end of
+which was the dangerous White Bay. Never in all her life had Pauline run
+as she did now. Faster and faster flew her feet. There was a noise in her
+ears as though something was hammering on her brain. She was almost faint
+with terror. Should she be in time? Should she be too late? Oh! she must
+be in time.
+
+Presently she saw the far end of the promontory. Her heart gave a bound
+and almost stood still. What was that white thing curling round it?
+Water? Oh, yes; but she did not mind. She had waded before now. This was
+a case of wading again. She reached the spot, and a moment later she had
+torn off her shoes and stockings, had gathered her skirts round her
+waist, and was walking through the waves. The water was already over a
+foot deep. There was also a strong tide, and she had some difficulty in
+keeping her feet. She managed to hold her own, however, and found herself
+a minute or two later, drenched all over, panting and trembling, but
+still safe in the White Bay. To her relief, she saw three terrified
+children crouching up as near as they dared to the water. Even now a
+great wave, deeper and stronger than its predecessors, rolled in. It took
+Pauline off her feet just as she was clambering to dry ground. She
+recovered herself, ran up to Pen, took her hand, and said:
+
+"We have played pickaback before now. Get on my back this moment; don't
+stop to think."
+
+"I daren't," said Pen.
+
+"Little boy--I don't know your name," said Pauline--"put Pen onto my back
+whatever happens."
+
+Harry Carver sprang towards Pen.
+
+"You must," he said. "She is brave; she is a true heroine. The lions and
+tigers would love her. Get on her back and she will return for us. Oh! be
+quick--do be quick--for we don't any of us want to be drowned."
+
+"Can you swim?" asked Pauline. "No; I know you can't. I haven't a moment
+to stay; I'll come back somehow."
+
+She struggled towards the water, but Pen scrambled off her back and stood
+firm on the ground.
+
+"I am bad," she said--"there never was anybody much badder--but I'm not
+going first. Take that little girl; I will go afterwards."
+
+"Come, little girl," said Pauline.
+
+Harry rushed towards his sister.
+
+"Do go, Nellie. Let mother keep one of us. I don't mind being
+drowned--not a bit. You tell mother I don't mind. Go, Nellie; do go with
+the big brave girl."
+
+So Pauline carried Nellie through the rising tide, and, marvellous to
+relate, did land her safely on the other side.
+
+"Now look here," she said, "you must rush home as fast as you can, and
+when you get there you are to say that there are two girls and a boy in
+the White Bay, and that your people are to bring a boat immediately.
+Don't waste a second. Find somebody. If all your people are out, go to
+ours. Our house is No. 11. You understand? There isn't a minute to lose."
+
+"Yes, see you go," shouted Harry Carver. "And if you are too late, be
+sure you tell mother that I wasn't afraid to drown."
+
+Nellie Carver began to run as fast as she could across the sands. Pauline
+hesitated for a moment; then she deliberately waded back to the other
+two. The water was up to her waist now, and she had the greatest
+difficulty in keeping her feet.
+
+"I couldn't face anybody again if Pen were drowned," she said to herself.
+"If she drowns, so will I. It is the only thing fit for me. Perhaps when
+God sees that I am sorry, and that I did try to save Pen, He will forgive
+me; but I am not sure. Anyhow, I deserve to be drowned. I could never,
+never face the others if Pen were to die because of me."
+
+She was just able to scramble again out of the water on the White Bay
+side. The tide was coming in with great rapidity. It was hopeless to
+think of carrying Pen across.
+
+"Let us go to the top part of the bay, as close to the rocks as
+possible," said Pauline; "and don't let's be really frightened, for I am
+sure the boat will be in time."
+
+"Oh, I am certain of it!" said Harry. "Nellie never does lose her head.
+She won't want us to drown, so she'll hurry up."
+
+"Give me your hand, Pen," said Pauline. "You are a very brave little girl
+to let the other little girl go first. I am glad you did it."
+
+"Will God remember that about me by-and-by?" asked Pen.
+
+"I hope so," replied Pauline, with a shiver.
+
+She took Pen's icy hand and began to rub it.
+
+"It isn't at all good for you to shiver like this," she said. "Here is a
+bright piece of sunshine. Let us run up and down in the sunshine. It
+doesn't seem, somehow, as though anybody could drown when the sun
+shines."
+
+"Maybe the boat will be in time," said Harry.
+
+They ran up and down for some time, and then stood quiet. Pauline was
+very silent. Beside the other two children she felt quite old and
+grown-up. She had got Pen into this terrible scrape; it was her mission
+to help them both. If they must all die, she at least would have to show
+courage. She was not ready to die. She knew that fact quite well. But she
+had naturally plenty of pluck, and fearful as her present surroundings
+were, she would not have been afraid but for that ugly black thing which
+rested on her conscience. Penelope looked full into her face. There was
+something also pricking Penelope's conscience. The three children stood
+close together on the little white patch of sand which had not yet been
+covered by the waves. The wind was getting up, and the waves were
+mounting higher; they rushed farther and farther up the bay, and curled
+and swept and enjoyed themselves, and looked as though they were having a
+race up the white sands. Pauline made a rapid calculation, and came to
+the conclusion that they had about half-an-hour to live; for the bay was
+a very shallow one, and when the wind was in its present quarter the tide
+rose rapidly. She looked back at the rocks behind her, and saw that
+high-water mark, even on ordinary occasions, was just above their heads.
+This was what is called a spring-tide. There was not the least hope.
+
+"If only we could climb up," she thought.
+
+Then Penelope gave her hand a great tug. She looked down. Pen went on
+tugging and tugging.
+
+"Look," she said; "stoop and look."
+
+In the palm of Pen's hand lay the thimble.
+
+"Take it," said Pen. "I comed with it to make mischief, but I won't never
+tell now--never. Take it. Put it in your pocket. I am sorry I was so bad.
+Take it."
+
+Pauline did take the little gold thimble. She slipped it into her pocket;
+then she stooped and kissed Pen.
+
+"What are you two doing?" said Harry. "Why don't you talk to me? Can't I
+do something to help? I'm ten. How old are you?"
+
+"I was fourteen a few weeks ago," said Pauline.
+
+"Granny!" said the boy. "Why, you are quite old; you are withering up. I
+wouldn't like to be fourteen. You must know a monstrous lot. You are a
+very plucky one to come through the water as you did. I wish I could
+swim, and I wouldn't let the waves get the better of me; but I'm glad I
+let Nellie see that I wasn't afraid of drowning. Do you mind drowning,
+big, big, old girl?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Pauline.
+
+"You have a queer sort of look in your eyes, like the little one has in
+hers. Are you wicked, too?"
+
+"You have guessed it," said Pauline.
+
+"I expect we're all wicked for that matter; but we can say our prayers,
+can't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Pauline, and now her lips trembled and the color faded from
+her cheeks. "Let us say them together."
+
+"By-and-by," said Pen. "We needn't say our prayers yet. It will be some
+time afore the water will touch us; won't it, Paulie?"
+
+Pauline knew that the water would come in very quickly. Harry looked full
+at Pen, and then he nodded his head. He came to Pauline and whispered
+something in her ear.
+
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"She's little," he said. "She's quite a baby--not eight yet. I am ten.
+When the water begins to come in we'll lift her in our arms and raise her
+above it; shan't we?"
+
+"Yes; that is a very good thought," said Pauline. She looked back again
+at the rocks. They were smooth as marble; there did not seem to be a
+possible foothold. She felt a sense of regret that they had not gone to
+the farther end of the bay, where the rocks were lower and more indented,
+and where it might be possible for a brave boy and girl to get temporary
+foothold; but the sea had already reached those rocks and was dashing
+round them.
+
+"I wish I had thought of it," said Pauline.
+
+"What about?"
+
+"The rocks--those rocks out there."
+
+The words had scarcely passed her lips before Harry darted back. A wave
+from the incoming tide had rolled over his feet.
+
+Pen uttered a sudden cry:
+
+"I am frightened. I won't drown. I am awful frightened."
+
+She began to shriek.
+
+"Try and keep up your courage, darling," said Pauline. "It won't be long.
+It will be quickly over, and I will stay close to you. Paulie will be
+close to you."
+
+"Let us get her to stand on our two shoulders, and we'll lean up against
+the rocks," said Harry. "She can steady herself against the rock, and I
+will support you both. Here, I will hoist her up. Now, missy, you look
+slippy. That's it."
+
+Harry was a very active boy, and he did manage to lift Pen, who was stiff
+with cold and fright, and miserable with a sense of her own naughtiness,
+on to Pauline's and his shoulders. When she was established in that
+position she was propped up against the rocks.
+
+"Now you are safe," said Harry, looking back at her and trying to laugh.
+"We'll both drown before you. See how safe you are."
+
+Just for a moment Pen was somewhat consoled by this reflection. But
+presently a fresh terror seized her. It would be so awful when she was
+left alone and there was only a dead Pauline and a dead Harry to keep her
+company. She had never seen anybody die, and had not the least idea what
+death meant. Her terrors grew worse each moment. She began to cry and
+whimper miserably, "I wish that boat would come."
+
+Another wave came in and washed right over both Pauline's and Harry's
+ankles. They were jammed up against the rocks now. This big wave was
+followed by a second and a third, and soon the children were standing in
+water very nearly up to their knees.
+
+"Seems to me," said Harry in a choky voice, "that it is about time we
+began our prayers. It is like going to sleep at night. Just when you are
+preparing to sleep you say your prayers, and then you dump your head down
+on your pillow and off you go to by-bye land. Then mother comes and
+kisses you, and she says---- Oh, bother! I don't want to think of that.
+Let's try and fancy that it is night. Let's begin our prayers. Oh, what a
+wave that is! Why, it has dashed right into my eyes."
+
+"How far up is the water now, Pauline?" asked Penelope from her position.
+
+"It is not very far up yet," replied Pauline in as cheerful a tone as she
+could. "We had better do what Harry says, and say our prayers."
+
+"Shall us?" said Pen.
+
+"I think so," replied Pauline.
+
+There was a strange sensation in her throat, and a mist before her eyes.
+Her feet were so icy cold that it was with difficulty she could keep
+herself from slipping.
+
+"Which prayer shall we say?" asked Harry. "There's a lot of them. There's
+our special private prayers in which we say, 'God bless father and
+mother;' and then there's 'Our Father.'"
+
+"'Our Father' is best," said Pauline.
+
+The children began repeating it in a sing-song fashion. Suddenly Pen
+violently clutched hold of Pauline.
+
+"Will God forgive our badnesses?" she asked.
+
+"He will--I know He will," answered Pauline; and just at that instant
+there came a cry from Harry.
+
+"A boat! a boat!" he shrieked. "And it's coming our way. I knew Nellie
+was a brick. I knew she'd do it."
+
+A boat rowed by four men came faster and faster over the waves. By-and-by
+it was within a stone's-throw of the children. A big man sat in the
+stern. Harry glanced at him.
+
+"Why, it's father!" he cried. "Oh, father, why did you come home? I
+thought you had gone away for the day. Father, I wasn't a bit afraid to
+drown--not really, I mean. I hope Nellie told you."
+
+"Yes, my brave boy. Now, see, when I hold out my hand, spring up
+carefully or the boat will capsize."
+
+The next instant a stalwart hand and arm were stretched across the
+rapidly rising waves, and Harry, with a bound, was in the boat.
+
+"Lie down in the boat, and stay as quiet as a mouse," said his father.
+
+Pauline, already up to her waist in water, struggled a step or two and
+was dragged into the boat; while two of the men bent over, and, catching
+Penelope round the waist, lifted her into their ark of shelter.
+
+"It was touch-and-go, sir," said one of the sailors who had accompanied
+Harry's father. "Five minutes later and we could have done no good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DULL WEIGHT.
+
+
+The rest of that day passed for Pauline in a sort of dream. She felt no
+fear nor pain nor remorse. She lay in bed with a languid and sleepy
+sensation. Aunt Sophia went in and out of the room; she was all kindness
+and sympathy. Several times she bent down and kissed the child's hot
+forehead. It gave Pauline neither pain nor pleasure when her aunt did
+that; she was, in short, incapable of any emotion. When the doctor came
+at night his face looked grave.
+
+"The little girl is all right," he said. "She has had a terrible fright,
+but a good night's rest will quite restore her to her usual health; but I
+don't quite like the look of the elder girl."
+
+Verena, who was in the room, now came forward.
+
+"Pauline is always pale," she said. "If it is only that she looks a
+little more pale than usual----"
+
+"It isn't that," interrupted the doctor. "Her nervous system has got a
+most severe shock."
+
+"The fact is this," said Miss Tredgold. "The child has not been herself
+for some time. It was on that account that I brought her to the seaside.
+She was getting very much better. This accident is most unfortunate, and
+I cannot understand how she knew about Penelope."
+
+"It was a precious good thing she did find it out," said the doctor, "or
+Mr. Carver's two little children and your young niece would all have been
+drowned. Miss Pauline did a remarkably plucky thing. Well, I will send
+round a quieting draught. Some one had better sleep in the child's room
+to-night; she may possibly get restless and excited."
+
+When Miss Tredgold and Verena found themselves alone, Miss Tredgold
+looked at her niece.
+
+"Can you understand it?" she asked.
+
+"No, Aunt Sophy."
+
+"Has Pen told you anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"We must not question her further just now," said Miss Tredgold. "She
+will explain things in the morning, perhaps. Why did the children go to
+the White Bay--a forbidden place to every child in the neighborhood? And
+how did Pauline know that they were there? The mystery thickens. It
+annoys me very much."
+
+Verena said nothing, but her eyes slowly filled with tears.
+
+"My dear," said Miss Tredgold suddenly, "I thought it right this
+afternoon to send your father a telegram. He may arrive in the morning,
+or some time to-morrow; there is no saying."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he will come if he remembers," said Verena.
+
+"That's just it, Renny. How long will he remember? Sometimes I think he
+has a fossil inside of him instead of a heart. But there! I must not
+abuse him to you, my dear."
+
+"He is really a most loving father," said Verena; "that is, when he
+remembers. Why he should forget everything puzzles me a good deal; still,
+I cannot forget that he is my father."
+
+"And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go and sleep in the
+same room with Pen, and watch her. I will take care of Pauline."
+
+Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold, placing
+herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over the events of the day. Soon
+her thoughts wandered from the day itself to the days that had gone
+before, and she puzzled much over Pauline's character and her curious,
+half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself.
+
+"What can be the matter with the child?" she thought. "She doesn't really
+care for me as the others do, and yet sometimes she gives me a look that
+none of the others have ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with
+such a passionate love that it would make up for everything I have ever
+missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and sweet, and open as the
+day. As to Pen, she is an oddity--no more and no less. I wish I could
+think her quite straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission
+to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the one who really
+puzzles me."
+
+By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself alone. She
+stretched out her arms and said in a voice of excitement:
+
+"Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right to send it away to
+London. It was like stealing it. I want it back. Nancy, I must have it
+back."
+
+Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was evidently speaking in
+her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned again to her place by the window. The
+dawn was breaking. There was a streak of light across the distant
+horizon. The tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched the
+waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest chance Pauline and
+Pen might have been now lying within their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold
+shuddered again. She stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to
+prevent the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light, when
+Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her aunt, and said:
+
+"Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you have got! And have
+you brought it back at last? She wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps
+on looking and looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It
+is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful. Have you got
+it for me, Nancy?"
+
+"It is I, dear, not Nancy," said Miss Tredgold, coming forward. "You have
+had a very good night. I hope you are better."
+
+Pauline looked up at her.
+
+"How funny!" she said. "I really thought you were Nancy--Nancy King, my
+old friend. I suppose I was dreaming."
+
+"You were talking about something that was dark-blue and light-blue and
+gold," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+Pauline gave a weak smile.
+
+"Was I?" she answered.
+
+Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hands and put them inside the
+bedclothes.
+
+"I am going to get you a cup of tea," she said.
+
+Miss Tredgold made the tea herself; and when she brought it, and pushed
+back Pauline's tangled hair, she observed a narrow gold chain round her
+neck.
+
+"Where did she get it?" thought the good lady. "Mysteries get worse. I
+know all about her little ornaments. She has been talking in a most
+unintelligible way. And where did she get that chain?"
+
+Miss Tredgold's discoveries of that morning were not yet at an end; for
+by-and-by, when the servant brought in Pauline's dress which she had been
+drying by the kitchen fire, she held something in her hand.
+
+"I found this in the young lady's pocket," she said. "I am afraid it is
+injured a good bit, but if you have it well rubbed up it may get all
+right again."
+
+Miss Tredgold saw in the palm of the girl's hand her own much-valued and
+long-lost thimble. She gave a quick start, then controlled herself.
+
+"You can put it down," she said. "I am glad it was not lost."
+
+"It is a beautiful thimble," said the girl. "I am sure Johnson, the
+jeweller in the High Street, could put it right for you, miss."
+
+"You had better leave the room now," replied Miss Tredgold. "The young
+lady will hear you if you talk in a whisper."
+
+When the maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a minute or two holding
+the thimble in the palm of her hand; then she crossed the room on tiptoe,
+and replaced it in the pocket of Pauline's serge skirt.
+
+For the whole of that day Pauline lay in a languid and dangerous
+condition. The doctor feared mischief to the brain. Miss Tredgold waited
+on her day and night. At the end of the third day there was a change for
+the better, and then convalescence quickly followed.
+
+Mr. Dale made his appearance on the scene early on the morning after the
+accident. He was very much perturbed, and very nearly shed tears when he
+clasped Penelope in his arms. But in an hour's time he got restless, and
+asked Verena in a fretful tone what he had left his employment for. She
+gave him a fresh account of the whole story as far as she knew it, and he
+once more remembered and asked to see Pauline, and actually dropped a
+tear on her forehead. But by the midday train he returned to The Dales,
+and long before he got there the whole affair in the White Bay was
+forgotten by him.
+
+In a week's time Pauline was pronounced convalescent; but although she
+had recovered her appetite, and to a certain extent her spirits, there
+was a considerable change over her. This the doctor did not at first
+remark; but Miss Tredgold and Verena could not help noticing it. For one
+thing, Pauline hated looking at the sea. She liked to sit with her back
+to it. When the subject was mentioned she turned fidgety, and sometimes
+even left the room. Now and then, too, she complained of a weight
+pressing on her head. In short, she was herself and yet not herself; the
+old bright, daring, impulsive, altogether fascinating Pauline seemed to
+be dead and gone.
+
+On the day when she was considered well enough to go into the
+drawing-room, there was a festival made in her honor. The place looked
+bright and pretty. Verena had got a large supply of flowers, which she
+placed in glasses on the supper-table and also on a little table close to
+Pauline's side. Pauline did not remark on the flowers, however. She did
+not remark on anything. She was gentle and sweet, and at the same time
+indifferent to her surroundings.
+
+When supper was over she found herself alone with Penelope. Then a wave
+of color rushed into her face, and she looked full at her little sister.
+
+"Have I done it or have I not, Pen?" she said. "Have I been awfully
+wicked--the wickedest girl on earth--or is it a dream? Tell me--tell me,
+Pen. Tell me the truth."
+
+"It is as true as anything in the wide world," said Pen, speaking with
+intense emphasis and coming close to her sister. "There never was anybody
+more wicked than you--_'cept_ me. We are both as bad as bad can be. But I
+tell you what, Paulie, though I meant to tell, I am not going to tell
+now; for but for you I'd have been drownded, and I am never, never, never
+going to tell."
+
+"But for me!" said Pauline, and the expression on her face was somewhat
+vague.
+
+"Oh, Paulie, how white you look! No, I will never tell. I love you now,
+and it is your secret and mine for ever and ever."
+
+Pauline said nothing. She put her hand to her forehead; the dull weight
+on her head was very manifest.
+
+"We are going home next week," continued Pen in her brightest manner.
+"You will be glad of that. You will see Briar and Patty and all the rest,
+and perhaps you will get to look as you used to. You are not much to be
+proud of now. You are seedy-looking, and rather dull, and not a bit
+amusing. But I loves you, and I'll never, never tell."
+
+"Run away, Pen," said Miss Tredgold, coming into the room at that moment.
+"You are tiring Pauline. You should not have talked so loud; your sister
+is not very strong yet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+PLATO AND VIRGIL.
+
+
+Mr. Dale returned home to find metamorphosis; for Betty and John, egged
+on by nurse, had taken advantage of his day from home to turn out the
+study. This study had not been properly cleaned for years. It had never
+had what servants are fond of calling a spring cleaning. Neither spring
+nor autumn found any change for the better in that tattered, dusty, and
+worn-out carpet; in those old moreen curtains which hung in heavy, dull
+folds round the bay-window; in the leathern arm-chair, with very little
+leather left about it; in the desk, which was so piled with books and
+papers that it was difficult even to discover a clear space on which to
+write. The books on the shelves, too, were dusty as dusty could be. Many
+of them were precious folios--folios bound in calf which book-lovers
+would have given a great deal for--but the dust lay thick on them, and
+Betty said, with a look of disgust, that they soiled her fingers.
+
+"Oh, drat you and your fingers!" said nurse. "You think of nothing but
+those blessed trashy novels you are always reading. You must turn to now.
+The master is certain to be back by the late afternoon train, and this
+room has got to be put into apple-pie order before he returns."
+
+"Yes," said John; "we won't lose the chance. We'll take each book from
+its place on the shelf, dust it, and put it back again. We have a long
+job before us, so don't you think any more of your novels and your grand
+ladies and gentlemen, Betty, my woman."
+
+"I have ceased to think of them," said Betty.
+
+She stood with her hands hanging straight to her sides; her face was
+quite pale.
+
+"I trusted, and my trust failed me," she continued. "I was at a wedding
+lately, John--you remember, don't you?--Dick Jones's wedding, at the
+other side of the Forest. There was a beautiful wedding cake, frosted
+over and almond-iced underneath, and ornaments on it, too--cupids and
+doves and such-like. A pair of little doves sat as perky as you please on
+the top of the cake, billing and cooing like anything. It made my eyes
+water even to look at 'em. You may be sure I didn't think of Mary
+Dugdale, the bride that was, nor of poor Jones, neither; although he is a
+good looking man enough--I never said he wasn't. But my heart was in my
+mouth thinking of that dear Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton."
+
+"Who in the name of fortune is he?" asked nurse.
+
+"A hero of mine," said Betty.
+
+Her face looked a little paler and more mournful even than when she had
+begun to speak.
+
+"He's dead," she said, and she whisked a handkerchief out of her pocket
+and applied it to her eyes. "It was bandits as carried him off. He loved
+that innocent virgin he took for his wife like anything. Over and over
+have I thought of them, and privately made up my mind that if I came
+across his second I'd give him my heart."
+
+"Betty, you must be mad," said nurse.
+
+"Maybe you are mad," retorted Betty, her face flaming, "but I am not. It
+was a girl quite as poor as me that he took for his spouse; and why
+shouldn't there be another like him? That's what I thought, and when the
+wedding came to an end I asked Mary Dugdale to give me a bit of the cake
+all private for myself. She's a good-natured sort is Mary, though not
+equal to Jones--not by no means. She cut a nice square of the cake, a
+beautiful chunk, black with richness as to the fruit part, yellow as to
+the almond, and white as the driven snow as to the icing. And, if you'll
+believe it, there was just the tip of a wing of one of those angelic
+little doves cut off with the icing. Well, I brought it home with me, and
+I slept on it just according to the old saw which my mother taught me.
+Mother used to say, 'Betty, if you want to dream of your true love, you
+will take a piece of wedding-cake that belongs to a fresh-made bride, and
+you will put it into your right-foot stocking, and tie it with your
+left-foot garter, and put it under your pillow. And when you get into
+bed, not a mortal word will you utter, or the spell is broke. And that
+you will do, Betty,' said my mother, 'for three nights running. And then
+you will put the stocking and the garter and the cake away for three
+nights, and at the end of those nights you will sleep again on it for
+three nights; and then you will put it away once more for three nights,
+and you will sleep on it again for three nights. And at the end of the
+last night, why, the man you dream of is he.'"
+
+"Well, and did you go in for all that gibberish?" asked nurse, with
+scorn.
+
+She had a duster in her hand, and she vigorously flicked Mr. Dale's desk
+as she spoke.
+
+"To be sure I did; and I thought as much over the matter as ought to have
+got me a decent husband. Well, when the last night come I lay me down to
+sleep as peaceful as an angel, and I folded my hands and shut my eyes,
+and wondered what his beautiful name would be, and if he'd be a dook or a
+marquis. I incline to a dook myself, having, so to speak, fallen in love
+with the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton of blessed memory. But what do
+you think happened? It's enough to cure a body, that it is."
+
+"Well, what?" asked nurse.
+
+"I dreamt of no man in the creation except John there. If that isn't
+enough to make a body sick, and to cure all their romance once and for
+ever, my name ain't Betty Snowden."
+
+John laughed and turned a dull red at this unexpected ending to Betty's
+story.
+
+"Now let's clean up," she said; "and don't twit me any more about my
+dreams. They were shattered, so to speak, in the moment of victory."
+
+The children were called in, particularly Briar and Patty, and the room
+was made quite fresh and sweet, the carpet taken up, the floor scrubbed,
+a new rug (bought long ago for the auspicious moment) put down, white
+curtains hung at the windows in place of the dreadful old moreen, every
+book dusted and put in its place, and the papers piled up in orderly
+fashion on a wagonette which was moved into the room for the purpose.
+Finally the children and servants gazed around them with an air of
+appreciation.
+
+"He can't help liking it," said Briar.
+
+"I wonder if he will," said Patty.
+
+"What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and we have not
+disturbed one single blessed thing."
+
+Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to greet their
+returning parent.
+
+"How is Pauline, father?" asked Briar in an anxious voice.
+
+"Pauline?" replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly through
+his thin locks. "What of her? Isn't she here?"
+
+"Nonsense, father!" said Patty. "You went to see her. She was very ill;
+she was nearly drowned. You know all about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us
+how she is."
+
+"To be sure," said Mr. Dale. "I quite recall the circumstance now. Your
+sister is much better. I left her in bed, a little flushed, but looking
+very well and pretty. Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has
+improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too, and Pen, and your
+good aunt. Yes, I saw them all. Comfortable lodgings enough for those who
+don't care for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not seem to
+be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why I was summoned. Don't
+keep me now, my dears; I must get back to my work. The formation of that
+last sentence from Plato's celebrated treatise doesn't please me. It
+lacks the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how you stare!
+There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty, why the English translation
+should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended
+itself considerably of late, and close application and study may recall
+to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing certain, my
+dear girls---- Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was
+talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from
+his immortal work does not please me; but toil--ceaseless toil--the
+midnight oil, _et cetera_, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I
+may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in
+a way worthy of the immortal master."
+
+Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his forehead. He
+removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired with long, shuffling
+strides to his beloved study.
+
+"No food until I ring for it," he said when he reached the door, and then
+he vanished.
+
+"Blessed man!" said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. "He
+might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he
+clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don't know, but
+his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you
+standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden--do."
+
+"You'll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of
+yours," was John's answer.
+
+Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed
+the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then
+proceeded to make tea.
+
+But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with
+each other, Mr. Dale's condition was by no means so favorable. At first
+when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too
+loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and
+druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and
+stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of
+Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised
+his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with
+a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see?
+He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the
+opposite bookcase. There was his Plato--his idol--actually placed in the
+bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime--a crime that he felt he
+could never forgive--that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked
+across to the fireplace and rang the bell.
+
+"You must go, Miss Patty," said nurse. "I was willing to do it, but I
+can't face him. You must go; you really must."
+
+"Well, I'm not frightened," said Patty. "Come on, Briar."
+
+The two little girls walked down the passage. Mr. Dale's bell was heard
+to ring again.
+
+"Aren't you the least bit frightened, Patty?" asked Briar.
+
+"No," answered Patty, with a sigh. "If only I could get the real
+heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter. Oh, Briar, Briar!"
+
+"Don't talk of it now," said Briar. "To-night when we are alone, when we
+are by ourselves in our own room, but not now. Come, let us answer
+father's bell."
+
+They opened the door and presented themselves--two pretty little figures
+with rosy faces and bright eyes--two neatly dressed, lady-like little
+girls.
+
+"Do you want anything, father?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Dale. "Come in and shut the door."
+
+The girls did what he told them.
+
+"Who did this?" asked the master of The Dales. He swept his hand with a
+certain majesty of gesture round the restored room. "Who brushed the
+walls? Who put those flimsies to the windows? Who touched my beloved
+books? Who was the person? Name the culprit."
+
+"There were quite a lot of us, father. We all did it," said Briar.
+
+"You all did it? You mean to tell me, little girl, that you did it?"
+
+"I dusted a lot of the books, father. I didn't injure one of them, and I
+put them back again just in the same place. My arms ached because the
+books were so heavy."
+
+"Quite right that they should ache. Do you know what injury you have done
+me?"
+
+"No," said Patty suddenly. "We made the room clean, father. It isn't
+right to live in such a dirty room. Plato wouldn't have liked it."
+
+"Now what do you mean?"
+
+Mr. Dale's white face quieted down suddenly; for his daughter--his small,
+young, ignorant daughter--to dare to mention the greatest name, in his
+opinion, of all the ages, was too much for him.
+
+"You are always talking to us about Plato," said Patty, who grew braver
+and braver as she proceeded. "You talk of Plato one day, and Virgil
+another day, and you always tell us how great they were; but if they were
+really great they would not be dirty, and this room was horrid and dirty,
+father. It really was. Nice, great, good, noble people are clean. Aunt
+Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt Sophy came we have been very
+happy, and the house has been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and
+so does Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your
+room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil--that is,
+if they can see us."
+
+"If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?" said Mr. Dale.
+
+He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead, and gazed at the
+children.
+
+"There is the door," he said. "Go."
+
+They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.
+
+"Upon my word!" he said several times. "Upon--my--word! So Plato liked
+things clean, and Virgil liked things orderly. Upon--my--word!"
+
+He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was working, for his
+glasses were sometimes removed and then put on again, and several times
+he brushed his hand through his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and,
+gazing at the frills of the white window-curtains, he opened the French
+windows, and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open air. He went
+for a walk--a long one. When he came back he entered his clean study, to
+find the lamp burning brightly, his Plato restored to its place by his
+left-hand side, and a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own
+old pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled with fresh
+ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and wrote on a sheet of
+paper, "Plato likes things clean, and Virgil likes things orderly," and
+then pinned the paper on the opposite wall.
+
+For the rest of the evening the astonished household were much beguiled
+and overcome by the most heavenly strains from Mr. Dale's violin. He
+played it in the study until quite late at night; but none of the
+household went to bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that
+music.
+
+About eleven o'clock Patty and Briar found themselves alone.
+
+"Well," said Patty suddenly, "I have made up my mind."
+
+"Yes," said Briar, "I thought you had."
+
+"When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her everything."
+
+Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her.
+
+"I wonder what she will say," said Briar.
+
+"Say!" echoed Patty. "She will be hurt. Perhaps she'll punish us; but
+that doesn't matter, for in the end she is quite, quite certain to
+forgive us. I am going to tell her. I couldn't go through another night
+like last night again."
+
+"Nor could I," said Briar. "I stayed awake and thought of Paulie, and I
+seemed to see her face as it might look if she were really dead. I wish
+they'd all come back, for Paulie is better. And then we'd have just a
+dreadful ten minutes, and everything would be all right."
+
+"That's it," said Patty. "Everything would be all right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"YOU ARE NOT TO TELL."
+
+
+Pauline was certainly better, although she was not what she was before.
+In body she was to all appearance quite well. She ate heartily, took long
+walks, and slept soundly at night; but she was dull. She seldom laughed;
+she took little interest in anything. As to the sea, she had a positive
+horror of it. When she went out for walks she invariably chose inland
+directions. She liked to walk briskly over the great moors which surround
+Easterhaze, and to sit there and think, though nobody knew what she was
+thinking about. Her face now and then looked pathetic, but on the whole
+it was indifferent. Miss Tredgold was much concerned. She made up her
+mind.
+
+"The seaside is doing the child no good," she thought. "I will take her
+straight back home. She is certainly not herself; she got a much greater
+shock than we knew of or had any idea of. When she gets home the sight of
+the other children and the old place will rouse her. She is not
+consumptive at the present moment. That is one thing to be thankful for.
+I shall take her to London for the winter. If going back to The Dales
+does not arouse her, she must go somewhere else, for roused she certainly
+must be."
+
+Miss Tredgold, having made up her mind, spoke to Verena.
+
+"We are going home to-morrow, Verena," she said.
+
+"And a very good thing," answered the young girl.
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"I do, Aunt Sophy. Pauline has got all she can get out of the sea at
+present. She does not love the sea; she is afraid of it. She may be
+better when she is home."
+
+"And yet she is well," said Miss Tredgold. "The doctor pronounces her in
+perfect health."
+
+"In body she is certainly well," said Verena.
+
+"Oh, then, you have observed it?"
+
+"Yes, I have," replied Verena slowly. "There is some part of her stunned.
+I can't make out myself what ails her, but there is undoubtedly one part
+of her stunned."
+
+"We will take her home," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+The good lady was a person of very direct action and keen resource. She
+had whisked Pauline and Verena off to the sea almost at a moment's
+notice, and quite as quickly she brought them back. They were all glad to
+go. Even Pen was pleased. Pen looked very still and solemn and contented
+during these days. She sat close to Pauline and looked into her eyes over
+and over again; and Pauline never resented her glance, and seemed to be
+more pleased to be with Penelope than with anybody else.
+
+The nice landau which Miss Tredgold had purchased met the travellers at
+Lyndhurst Road, and the first piece of news which Briar, who had come to
+meet them, announced was that the ponies had arrived.
+
+"Peas-blossom and Lavender are so sweet!" she said. "They came yesterday.
+We are quite longing to ride them. As to Peas-blossom, he is quite the
+dearest pony I ever looked at in my life."
+
+"Peas-blossom will be Pauline's special pony," said Miss Tredgold
+suddenly. "Do you happen to know if the sidesaddles have arrived?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they have; and the habits, too," said Briar. "It is
+delicious--delicious!"
+
+"Then, Pauline, my dear, you shall have a ride to-morrow morning."
+
+Pauline scarcely replied. She did not negative the idea of the ride, but
+neither did she accept it with any enthusiasm.
+
+There was a wild moment when the entire family were reassembled. All the
+girls surrounded Pauline, and kissed her and hugged her as though she had
+come back from the dead.
+
+"You quite forget," said Penelope, "that I was nearly drownded, too. I
+was very nearly shutting up of my eyes, and closing of my lips, and
+stretching myself out and lying drownded and still on the top of the
+waves. I was in as big a danger as Pauline, every bit."
+
+"But you didn't get ill afterwards, as Paulie did," said the other girls.
+
+They kissed Pen, for, being their sister, they had to love her after a
+fashion; but their real adoration and deepest sympathy were centred round
+Pauline.
+
+Meanwhile Pen, who never cared to find herself neglected, ran off to
+discover nurse.
+
+"Well," she said when she saw that worthy, "here I am. I'm not pale now.
+I am rosy. The seaside suits me. The salty waves and the sands, they all
+agrees with me. How are you, nursey?"
+
+"Very well," replied nurse, "and glad to see you again."
+
+"And how is Marjorie? Kiss me, Marjorie."
+
+She snatched up her little sister somewhat roughly.
+
+"Don't make the darling cry," said nurse.
+
+"All right," replied Pen. "Sit down, baby; I have no time to 'tend you.
+Nursey, when I was at the sea I was a very 'portant person."
+
+"Were you indeed. Miss Pen? But you always think yourself that. And how
+is Miss Pauline?"
+
+"Paulie?" said Penelope. "She's bad."
+
+"Bad!" echoed nurse.
+
+"Yes, all-round bad," said Penelope.
+
+As she spoke she formed her mouth into a round O, and looked with big
+eyes at nurse.
+
+"The seaside didn't agree with her," said Pen. "Nor does the fuss, nor
+the petting, nor the nice food, nor anything else of that sort. The only
+thing that agrees with Paulie is me. She likes to have me with her, and I
+understand her. But never mind about Paulie now. I want to ask you a
+question. Am I the sort of little girl that lions would crunch up?"
+
+"I never!" cried nurse. "You are the queerest child!"
+
+"But am I, nursey? Speak."
+
+"I suppose so, Miss Pen."
+
+"I thought so," answered Pen, with a sigh. "I thought as much. I am bad
+through and through, then. They never eat good uns. You know that, don't
+you, nursey? They wouldn't touch Marjorie, though she is so round and so
+white and so fat; and they wouldn't look at Adelaide or Josephine, or any
+of those dull ones of the family; but they'd eat me up, and poor Paulie.
+Oh! they'd have a nice meal on Paulie. Thank you, nursey. I am glad I
+know."
+
+"What is the child driving at?" thought nurse as Penelope marched away.
+"Would lions crunch her up, and would they crunch up Miss Paulie? Mercy
+me! I wouldn't like any of us to be put in their way. I do hope Miss Pen
+won't go off her head after a time; she is too queer for anything. But
+what is wrong with Miss Pauline? I don't like what she said about Miss
+Pauline."
+
+When nurse saw Pauline she liked matters even less. For though her dearly
+beloved young lady looked quite well in health, her eyes were no longer
+bright, and she did not take the slightest interest in the different
+things which the children had to show her. When asked if she would not
+like to visit the stables, now in perfect restoration, and see for
+herself those darling, most angelic creatures that went by the names of
+Peas-blossom and Lavender, she said she was tired and would rather sit in
+the rocking-chair on the lawn.
+
+The others, accompanied by Aunt Sophia, went off to view the ponies; and
+then at the last moment Pen came back. She flung herself on the ground at
+Pauline's feet.
+
+"I has quite made up my mind for ever and ever," she said. "Not even
+lions will drag it from me."
+
+"What?" asked Pauline.
+
+"Why, all that I know: about who stole the thimble, and about the picnic
+on the birthday, and about what Briar and Patty did, and about you,
+Paulie, and all your wicked, wicked ways. I meant to tell once, but I
+will never tell now. So cheer up; even lions won't drag it from me."
+
+Pauline put her hand to her forehead.
+
+"I keep having these stupid headaches," she said. "They come and go, and
+whenever I want to think they get worse. I suppose I have been very bad,
+and that all you say is right, but somehow I can't think it out. Only
+there is one thing, Pen--if I were you I wouldn't do wrong any more. It
+isn't worth while."
+
+"It is quite worth while getting you cheered up," said Pen, "so I thought
+I'd let you know."
+
+That same evening Briar and Patty held a consultation in their own room.
+
+"We must do it after breakfast to-morrow," said Patty.
+
+Just then there was a slight rustle. Briar paused to listen.
+
+"Those horrid mice have come back again," she said. "We must get
+Tiddledywinks to spend a night or two in this room."
+
+"Oh, bother the mice!" was Patty's response. "Let us arrange when we must
+see her."
+
+"I have planned it all out," said Briar. "We must tell her just
+everything we know. She won't be so terribly angry with Paulie, because
+poor Paulie is not well. But I suppose she will punish us terribly. I
+have been thinking what our punishment ought to be."
+
+"What?" asked Patty.
+
+"Why, not to ride either of the ponies until after Christmas."
+
+"Oh! don't tell her to do that," said Patty, in some alarm. "I have been
+so pining for my rides."
+
+"There's that mouse again," said Briar.
+
+The children now looked under the little beds, and under the farther one
+there was something which would certainly have preferred to be thought an
+enormous mouse. On being dragged to the front, the stout, dishevelled
+figure of Penelope Dale was discovered.
+
+"I comed a-purpose," said Pen, who did not look the least taken aback. "I
+saw by your faces that you were up to fun, and I thought I'd like to be
+in it. It is well I comed. I am willing to talk to you about everything.
+Call me a mouse if you like. I don't care. I meant to listen. I am glad I
+comed."
+
+"You are too mean for anything," said Briar. "You are the horridest girl
+I ever came across. Why did you dare to hide under my bed in order to
+listen to what I had to say to Patty?"
+
+"I knew it all afore," said Penelope, "so that wasn't why I comed. I
+comed to keep you from doing mischief. What are you going to tell
+to-morrow?"
+
+"That isn't your business," said Briar.
+
+"But I am going to make it my business. What you have to tell isn't news
+to me. You are going to 'fess 'cos of the pain in your little hearts. You
+must keep your pain, and you must not 'fess. You are going to tell Aunt
+Sophy about that wicked, wicked birthday night--how you stole away in the
+dark across the lawn, and wore your Glengarry caps, and how you didn't
+come back until the morning. But you mustn't tell. Do you hear me, Briar
+and Patty?"
+
+"But why not? Why should you talk to us like that?" asked Patty. "Why
+shouldn't we say exactly what we like?"
+
+"You mustn't tell 'cos of Paulie. She is ill--more ill than you think.
+She mustn't be punished, nor fretted, nor teased, nor worrited. If you
+tell it will worrit her, so you mustn't tell. Why do you want to tell?
+You have kept it dark a long time now."
+
+"Because we are unhappy," said Patty then. "We haven't got hard hearts
+like yours. My heart aches so badly that I can't sleep at nights for
+thinking of the lies I've told and how wicked I am."
+
+"Pooh!" said Penelope. "Keep your achy hearts; don't worrit."
+
+"But it's past bearing," said Briar. "What we feel is remorse. We must
+tell. The Bible is full of the wickedness of people not confessing their
+sins. We can't help ourselves. We are obliged to tell."
+
+"Just because you have a bit of pain," said Pen in a tone of deepest
+contempt. "I suppose you think I never have any pain. Little you know. I
+have done a lot of wicked things. I consider myself much the most
+desperate wicked of the family. Your little pains is only pin-pricks
+compared to mine. It would relieve me to tell, but I love Paulie too
+much, so I won't. We have all got to hold our tongues for the present.
+Now good-night. I am not a mouse, nor a rat, nor a ferret. But I mean
+what I say. You are not to tell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+DECEITFUL GIRLS.
+
+
+Miss Tredgold was dreadfully puzzled to know what to make of the girls.
+The time was autumn now; all pretense of summer had disappeared. Autumn
+had arrived and was very windy and wet, and the girls could no longer
+walk in twos and twos on the pretty lawn. They had to keep to the walks,
+and even these walks were drenched, as day after day deluges of rain fell
+from the heavens. The Forest, too, was sodden with the fallen leaves, and
+even the ponies slipped as they cantered down the glades. Altogether it
+was a most chilling, disappointing autumn, winter setting in, so to
+speak, all at once. Verena said she never remembered such an early season
+of wintry winds and sobbing skies. The flowers disappeared, several of
+the Forest trees were rooted up in consequence of the terrible gales, and
+Miss Tredgold said it was scarcely safe for the children to walk there.
+
+"The best cure for weather of this sort," she said to herself, "is to
+give the young people plenty to do indoors."
+
+Accordingly she reorganized lessons in a very brisk and up-to-date
+fashion. She arranged that a good music-master was to come twice a week
+from Southampton. Mistresses for languages were also to arrive from the
+same place. A pretty little pony-cart which she bought for the purpose
+conveyed these good people to and from Lyndhurst Road station. Besides
+this, she asked one or two visitors to come and stay in the house, and
+tried to plan as comfortable and nice a winter as she could. Verena
+helped her, and the younger girls were pleased and interested; and Pen
+did what she was told, dashing about here and there, and making
+suggestions, and trying to make herself as useful as she could.
+
+"The child is improved," said Miss Tredgold to Verena. "She is quite
+obliging and unselfish."
+
+Verena said nothing.
+
+"What do you think of my new plans, Verena?" said her aunt. "Out-of-door
+life until the frost comes is more or less at a standstill. Beyond the
+mere walking for health, we do not care to go out of doors in this wet
+and sloppy weather. But the house is large. I mean always to have one or
+two friends here, sometimes girls to please you other girls, sometimes
+older people to interest me. I should much like to have one or two
+_savants_ down to talk over their special studies with your father; but
+that can doubtless be arranged by-and-by. I want us to have cheerful
+winter evenings--evenings for reading, evenings for music. I want you
+children to learn at least the rudiments of good acting, and I mean to
+have two or three plays enacted here during the winter. In short, if you
+will all help me, we can have a splendid time."
+
+"Oh, I will help you," said Verena. "But," she added, "I have no talent
+for acting; it is Paulie who can act so well."
+
+"I wish your sister would take an interest in things, Verena. She is
+quite well in body, but she is certainly not what she was before her
+accident."
+
+"I don't understand Pauline," said Verena, shaking her head.
+
+"Nor do I understand her. Once or twice I thought I would get a good
+doctor to see her, but I have now nearly resolved to leave it to time to
+restore her."
+
+"But the other girls--can you understand the other girls, Aunt Sophy?"
+asked Verena.
+
+"Understand them, my dear? What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the younger ones--Adelaide and Lucy and the others. I
+mean Briar and Patty. They are not a bit what they were."
+
+"Now that you remark it, I have noticed that they are very grave; but
+they always do their lessons well, and I have nothing to complain of with
+regard to their conduct."
+
+"Nor have you anything to complain of with regard to Paulie's conduct,"
+said Verena. "It isn't that."
+
+"Then what is it, my dear?"
+
+"It is that they are not natural. There is something on their minds. I am
+certain of it."
+
+"Verena," said her aunt gently, "I wonder if I might confide in you."
+
+Verena started back; a distressed look came over her face.
+
+"If it happens to be anything against Paulie, perhaps I had better not
+hear," she said.
+
+"I do not know if it is for her or against her. I am as much in the dark
+as you. I have not spoken of it yet to any one else, but I should like to
+mention it to you. It seems to me that light ought to be thrown on some
+rather peculiar circumstances or your sister will never get back her old
+brightness and gaiety of heart."
+
+"Then if you think so, please tell me, Aunt Sophy," said Verena.
+
+She got up as she spoke and shut the door. She was a very bright and
+pretty-looking girl, but her face sometimes wore too old a look for her
+age. Her aunt looked at her now with a mingling of affection and
+compassion.
+
+"Come," she said, "sit on this sofa, darling. We can understand each
+other better when we are close together. You know how much I love you,
+Renny."
+
+"There never, never was a better aunt," said the girl.
+
+"I am not that. But I do love you. Now, dear, I will tell you. You
+remember when first I came?"
+
+"Oh, don't I? And how angry we were!"
+
+"Poor children! I don't wonder. But don't you think, Verena, I was a very
+brave woman to put myself into such a hornet's nest?"
+
+"Indeed you were wonderful. It was your bravery that first attracted me.
+Then I saw how good you were, and how kindly you meant, and everything
+else became easy."
+
+"But was it equally easy for Pauline?"
+
+"I--I don't know. I am sure I do know, however, that now she loves you
+very much."
+
+"Ah! now," said Miss Tredgold. "But what about the early time?"
+
+"I don't quite know."
+
+"Verena, if I am to be frank with you, you must be frank with me."
+
+"I think perhaps she was not won round to you quite as easily as I was."
+
+"You are right, my dear. It was harder to win her; but she is worth
+winning. I shall not rest until I bring her round altogether to my side.
+Now, little girl, listen. You know what a very odd child we are all
+forced to consider your sister Pen?"
+
+"I should think so, indeed." Verena laughed.
+
+"Well, your sister found out one day, not very long after I came, that I
+had lost a thimble."
+
+"Your beautiful gold thimble? Of course we all knew about that," said
+Verena. "We were all interested, and we all tried to find it."
+
+"I thought so. I knew that Pen in particular searched for it with
+considerable pains, and I offered her a small prize if she found it."
+
+Verena laughed.
+
+"Poor Pen!" she said. "She nearly broke her back one day searching for
+it. Oh, Aunt Sophy! I hope you will learn to do without it, for I am
+greatly afraid that it will not be found now."
+
+"And yet, Verena," said Miss Tredgold--and she laid her hand, which
+slightly shook, on the girl's arm--"I could tell you of a certain person
+in this house to whom a certain dress belongs, and unless I am much
+mistaken, in the pocket of that dress reposes the thimble with its
+sapphire base, its golden body, and its rim of pale-blue turquoise."
+
+"Aunt Sophy! What do you mean?"
+
+Verena's eyes were wide open, and a sort of terror filled them.
+
+"Don't start, dear. That person is your sister Pauline."
+
+"Oh! Pauline! Impossible! Impossible!" cried Verena.
+
+"It is true, nevertheless. Do you remember that day when she was nearly
+drowned?"
+
+"Can I forget it?"
+
+"The next morning I was in her room, and the servant brought in the
+dark-blue serge dress she wore, which had been submerged so long in the
+salt water. It had been dried, and she was bringing it back. The girl
+held in her hand the thimble--the thimble of gold and sapphire and
+turquoise. She held the thimble in the palm of her hand, and said, 'I
+found it in the pocket of the young lady's dress. It is injured, but the
+jeweller can put it right again.' You can imagine my feelings. For a time
+I was motionless, holding the thimble in my hand. Then I resolved to put
+it back where it had been found. I have heard nothing of it since from
+any one. I don't suppose Pauline has worn that skirt again; the thimble
+is doubtless there."
+
+"Oh, may I run and look? May I?"
+
+"No, no; leave it in its hiding-place. Do you think the thimble matters
+to me? What does matter is this--that Pauline should come and tell me,
+simply and quietly, the truth."
+
+"She will. She must. I feel as if I were in a dream. I can scarcely
+believe this can be true."
+
+"Alas! my dear, it is. And there is another thing. I know what little
+trinkets you each possess, for you showed them to me when first I came.
+Have you any reason to believe, Verena, that Pauline kept one trinket
+back from my knowledge?"
+
+"Oh, no, Aunt Sophy; of course she did not. Pauline has fewer trinkets
+than any of us, and she is fond of them. She is not particularly fond of
+gay clothes, but she always did like shiny, ornamenty things."
+
+"When she was ill I saw round her neck a narrow gold chain, to which a
+little heart-shaped locket was attached. Do you know of such a locket, of
+such a chain?"
+
+"No."
+
+Miss Tredgold rose to her feet.
+
+"Verena," she said, "things must come to a climax. Pauline must be forced
+to tell. For her own sake, and for the sake of others, we must find out
+what is at the back of things. Until we do the air will not be cleared. I
+had an idea of taking you to London for this winter, but I shall not do
+so this side of Christmas at any rate. I want us all to have a good time,
+a bright time, a happy time. We cannot until this mystery is explained. I
+am certain, too, that Pen knows more than she will say. She always was a
+curious, inquisitive child. Now, until the time of the accident Pen was
+always pursuing me and giving me hints that she had something to confide.
+I could not, of course, allow the little girl to tell tales, and I always
+shut her up. But from the time of the accident she has altered. She is
+now a child on the defensive. She watches Pauline as if she were guarding
+her against something. I am not unobservant, and I cannot help seeing.
+From what you tell me, your sisters Briar and Patty are also implicated.
+My dear Verena, we must take steps."
+
+"Yes," said Verena. "But what steps?"
+
+"Let me think. It has relieved my mind to tell you even this much. You
+will keep your own counsel. I will talk to you again to-morrow morning."
+
+Verena felt very uncomfortable. Of all the Dales she was the most open,
+in some ways the most innocent. She thought well of all the world. She
+adored her sisters and her father, and now also her aunt, Miss Tredgold.
+She was the sort of girl who would walk through life without a great deal
+of sorrow or a great deal of perplexity. The right path would attract
+her; the wrong would always be repellent to her. Temptation, therefore,
+would not come in a severe guise to Verena Dale. She was guarded against
+it by the sweetness and purity and innocence of her nature. But now for
+the first time it seemed to the young girl that the outlook was dark. Her
+aunt's words absolutely bewildered her. Her aunt suspected Pauline, Pen,
+Briar, and Patty of concealing something. But what had they to conceal?
+It is true that when Aunt Sophia first arrived they had felt a certain
+repugnance to her society, a desire to keep out of her way, and a longing
+for the old wild, careless, slovenly days. But surely long ere this such
+foolish ideas had died a natural death. They all loved Aunt Sophia now;
+what could they have to conceal?
+
+"I dare not talk about it to the younger girls. I don't want to get into
+Pen's confidence. Pen, of all the children, suits me least. The people to
+whom I must appeal are therefore Briar or Patty, or Pauline herself.
+Patty and Briar are devoted to each other. The thought in one heart seems
+to have its counterpart in that of the other. They might even be twins,
+so deeply are they attached. No; the only one for me to talk to is
+Pauline. But what can I say to her? And Pauline is not well. At least,
+she is well and she is not well. Nevertheless I will go and see her. I
+will find her now."
+
+Verena went into the nursery. Pauline was sometimes there. She was fond
+of sitting by the cosy nursery fire with a book in her hand, which of
+late she only pretended to read. Verena opened the nursery door and poked
+in her bright head and face.
+
+"Come in, Miss Renny, come in," said nurse.
+
+"I am not going to stay, nurse. Ah, Marjorie, my pet! Come and give me a
+sweet kiss."
+
+The little baby sister toddled across the floor. Verena lifted her in her
+arms and kissed her affectionately.
+
+"I thought perhaps Miss Pauline was here, nurse. Do you happen to know
+where she is?"
+
+"Miss Pauline has a very bad headache," said nurse--"so bad that I made
+her go and lie down; and I have just lit a bit of fire in her bedroom,
+for she is chilly, too, poor pet! Miss Pauline hasn't been a bit herself
+since that nasty accident."
+
+"I am sure she hasn't; but I did not know she was suffering from
+headache. I will go to her."
+
+Verena ran along the passage. Her own room faced south; Pauline's,
+alongside of it, had a window which looked due east. Verena softly opened
+the door. The chamber was tiny, but it was wonderfully neat and cheerful.
+A bright fire burned in the small grate. Pauline was lying partly over on
+her side; her face was hidden. Her dark hair was tumbled about the
+pillow.
+
+"Paulie, it is I," said Verena. "Are you awake?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Pauline.
+
+She turned round almost cheerfully. A cloud seemed to vanish from her
+face.
+
+"I am so glad you have come, Renny," she said. "I see so little of you
+lately. Get up on the bed, won't you, and lie near me?"
+
+"Of course I love to be with you, but I thought----"
+
+"Oh! don't think anything," said Pauline. "Just get on the bed and cuddle
+up close, close to me. And let us imagine that we are back in the old
+happy days before Aunt Sophy came."
+
+Verena did not say anything. She got on the bed, flung her arms round
+Pauline's neck, and strained her sister to her heart.
+
+"I love you so much!" she said.
+
+"Do you, Renny? That is very, very sweet of you."
+
+"And you love me, don't you, Paulie?"
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"Pauline! You don't know? You don't know if you love me or not?"
+
+"I don't think that I love anybody, Renny."
+
+"Oh, Paulie! then there must be something dreadfully bad the matter with
+you."
+
+Pauline buried her face in Verena's soft white neck and lay quiet.
+
+"Does your head ache very badly, Paulie?"
+
+"Pretty badly; but it is not too bad for us to talk--that is, if you will
+keep off the unpleasant subjects."
+
+"But what unpleasant subjects can there be? I don't understand you,
+Paulie. I cannot think of anything specially unpleasant to talk of now."
+
+"You are a bit of a goose, you know," replied Pauline with a smile.
+
+"Am I? I didn't know it. But what are the subjects we are not to talk
+about?"
+
+"Oh, you must know! Aunt Sophia, for instance, and that awful time at
+Easterhaze, and the most terrible of all terrible days when I went to the
+White Bay, and Nancy King, and--and my birthday. I can't talk of these
+subjects. I will talk of anything else--of baby Marjorie, and how pretty
+she grows; how fond we are of nurse, and of father, and--oh!"
+
+Pauline burst into a little laugh.
+
+"Do you know that John is courting Betty? I know he is. He went up to her
+the other day in the garden and put his hand on her shoulder, and when he
+thought no one was by he kissed her. I hid behind the hedge, and I had
+the greatest difficulty to keep back a shout of merriment. Isn't it fun?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Verena. "But, Pauline, what you say makes me
+unhappy. I wish I might talk out to you."
+
+Pauline raised herself on her elbow and looked full into Verena's face.
+
+"What about?" she asked.
+
+Verena did not speak for a minute.
+
+"Where are your dresses?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"My dresses! You silly girl! In that cupboard, of course. I am getting
+tidy. You know I would do anything I possibly could to please Aunt Sophy.
+I can't do big things to please her--I never shall be able to--so I do
+little things. I am so tidy that I am spick-and-span. I hate and loathe
+it; but I wouldn't leave a pin about for anything. You open that door and
+look for yourself. Do you see my skirts?"
+
+Verena got off the bed and opened the cupboard door. Pauline had about
+half-a-dozen skirts, and they all hung neatly on their respective hooks.
+Amongst them was the thick blue serge which she had worn on the day when
+she had gone to the White Bay. Verena felt her heart beating fast. She
+felt the color rush into her cheeks. She paused for a moment as if to
+commune with her own heart. Then her mind was made up.
+
+"What are you doing, Renny?" said her sister. "How funny of you to have
+gone into the cupboard!"
+
+For Verena had absolutely vanished. She stood in the cupboard, and
+Pauline from the bed heard a rustle. The rustling grew louder, and
+Pauline wondered what it meant. A moment later Verena, her face as red as
+a turkey-cock, came out.
+
+"Paulie," she said--"Paulie, there is no good going on like this. You
+have got to explain. You have got to get a load off your mind. You have
+got to do it whether you like it or not. How did you come by this?
+How--did--you--come--by--this?"
+
+As Verena spoke she held in her open palm the long-lost thimble. Poor
+Pauline had not the most remote idea that the thimble was still in the
+pocket of the blue serge dress. She had, indeed, since the day of her
+accident, forgotten its existence.
+
+"Where did you get it?" she asked, her face very white, her eyes very
+startled.
+
+"In the pocket of the dress you wore on the day you were nearly drowned
+in the White Bay."
+
+"I told you not to mention that day," said Pauline. Her whole face
+changed. "I remember," she said slowly, but she checked herself. The
+words reached her lips, but did not go beyond them. "Put it down,
+Verena," she said. "Put it there on the mantelpiece."
+
+"Then you won't tell me how you got it? It is not yours. You know it
+belongs to Aunt Sophy."
+
+"And it is not yours, Renny, and you have no right to interfere. And what
+is more, I desire you not to interfere. I don't love anybody very much
+now, but I shall hate you if you interfere in this matter."
+
+Verena laid the thimble on the mantelpiece.
+
+"You can leave me, Renny. I am a very bad girl; I don't pretend I am
+anything else, but I won't talk to you now."
+
+"Oh!" said poor Verena. "Oh!"
+
+Before she reached the door of the room she had burst into tears. Her
+agony was so great at Pauline's behavior to her that her tears became
+sobs, and her sobs almost cries of pain. Pauline, lying on the bed, did
+not take the least notice of Verena. She turned her head away, and when
+her sister had left the room and shut the door Pauline sprang from the
+bed and turned the key in the lock.
+
+"Now, I am safe," she thought. "What is the matter with me? There never
+was anything so hard as the heart that is inside me. I don't care a bit
+whether Renny cries or whether she doesn't cry. I don't care a bit what
+happens to any one. I only want to be let alone."
+
+At dinner-time Pauline appeared, and tried to look as though nothing had
+happened. The other girls looked neat and pretty. They had not the least
+idea through what a tragedy Verena and Pauline were now living. Verena
+showed marks of her storm of weeping, and her face was terribly
+woebegone. Miss Tredgold guessed that things were coming to a crisis, and
+she was prepared to wait.
+
+Now, Miss Tredgold was a very good woman; she was also a very wise and a
+very temperate one. She was filled with a spirit of forbearance, and with
+the beautiful grace of charity. She was all round as good a woman as ever
+lived; but she was not a mother. Had she been a mother she would have
+gone straight to Pauline and put her arms round her, and so acted that
+the hard little heart would have melted, and the words that could not
+pass her lips would have found themselves able to do so, and the misery
+and the further sin would have been averted. But instead of doing
+anything of this sort, Miss Tredgold resolved to assemble the children
+after breakfast the next day, and to talk to them in a very plain way
+indeed; to assemble all before her, and to entreat the guilty ones to
+confess, promising them absolute forgiveness in advance. Having made up
+her mind, she felt quite peaceful and happy, and went down to interview
+her brother-in-law.
+
+Mr. Dale still continued to like his study. He made no further objection
+to the clean and carefully dusted room. If any one had asked him what was
+passing in his mind, he might have said that the spirits of Homer and
+Virgil approached the sacred precincts where he wrote about them and
+lived for them night after night, and that they put the place in order.
+He kept the rough words which he had printed in large capitals on the
+night when he had returned to his study still in their place of honor on
+the wall, and he worked himself with a new sense of zest and freedom.
+
+Miss Tredgold entered the room without knocking.
+
+"Well, Henry," she said, "and how goes the world?"
+
+"The world of the past comes nearer and nearer," was his reply. "I often
+feel that I scarcely touch the earth of the nineteenth century. The world
+of the past is a very lovely world."
+
+"Not a bit better than the world of the present," said Miss Sophia. "Now,
+Henry, if you can come from the clouds for a minute or two----"
+
+"Eh? Ah! What are you saying?"
+
+"From the clouds, my dear brother, right down to this present prosaic and
+workaday world. Can you, and will you give me five minutes of your
+attention?"
+
+"Eh? Yes, of course, Sophia."
+
+Mr. Dale sat very still, drumming with his right hand on his pad of
+blotting-paper. Miss Tredgold looked at him; then she crossed the room,
+took away the pad, his pen and ink, the open volume of Homer, and removed
+them to another table.
+
+"Sit with your back to them; keep your mind clear and listen to me,
+Henry."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+"I want you to come into the schoolroom after breakfast to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"To the schoolroom?"
+
+"I have a reason. I should like you to be present."
+
+"But it is just my most important hour. You commence lessons with the
+girls--when, Sophia?"
+
+"We sit down to our work at nine o'clock. Prayers take ten minutes. I
+should like you to be present at prayers--to conduct Divine worship in
+your own house on that occasion."
+
+"Oh, my dear Sophia! Not that I have any objection--of course."
+
+"I should hope you have no objection. You will take prayers, and
+afterwards you will assist me in a most painful task which lies before
+me."
+
+"Painful, Sophia? Oh, anything I can do to help you, my dear sister, I
+shall be delighted to undertake. What is it? I beg of you to be brief,
+for time does fly. It was only a quarter of an hour ago that I found
+Homer----"
+
+"I could say a very ugly word about Homer," said Miss Tredgold.
+"Sometimes I wish that I were a man in order that I might swear hard at
+you, Henry Dale. As I am a woman I must refrain. Do you know that your
+daughter Pauline, your daughter Briar, your daughter Patty, and your
+extraordinary daughter Penelope are all of them about as naughty children
+as they can be. Indeed, in the case of Pauline I consider her worse than
+naughty. What she has done I don't know, and I don't know what the others
+have done; but there is a weight on their minds, and those four girls
+must be got to confess. And you must be present, and you must speak as a
+father to them. Now do you understand?"
+
+"I am to be in the schoolroom to-morrow," said Mr. Dale, "and four of my
+girls are turning wicked, and I am not to know what they have done. I
+will be in the schoolroom at nine o'clock to-morrow, Sophia. May I thank
+you to hand me back my blotting-pad, my pen and bottle of ink, and my
+beloved Homer? Take care of the volume. Take it tenderly. Put both hands
+under the binding. Ah! that is so. You will have the goodness to leave me
+now, Sophia. To-morrow morning at nine o'clock precisely."
+
+Miss Tredgold went out of the room.
+
+"How my poor dear sister ever brought herself to marry that man," she
+whispered under her breath, "I know not. But he is capable of being
+roused, and I rather fancy I shall manage to rouse him to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+PAULINE IN DISTRESS.
+
+
+When Pauline went up to her room late that evening she gave Verena a very
+cold good-night. Her little fire was still burning, for nurse had taken
+care of it. Verena heard her lock the door. Had she not done so her
+sister would have gone to her, and begged and prayed, as such a sweet
+girl might, for the confidence of Pauline. Verena had to get into bed
+feeling lonely and unhappy. Just as she was doing so she heard a firm
+step walking down the corridor. A hand turned the handle of Pauline's
+door, and Verena heard Pen's voice say:
+
+"It's me, Paulie. It's me. Let me in, Paulie."
+
+Verena instantly opened her own door.
+
+"Go away, Pen," she said. "Go straight back to your bed. You are not to
+go near Pauline to-night."
+
+"Yes, but I want her," said Pauline, opening the door and putting out her
+head.
+
+"Very well," said Verena. "You shall see her with me. I will ring the
+bell and ask nurse to fetch Aunt Sophy."
+
+Pauline gave a shrill laugh.
+
+"It isn't worth all that fuss. Go to bed, Pen. We shall have plenty of
+time for our chat to-morrow morning."
+
+Penelope looked disgusted. Verena stood in the passage until her stout
+little figure had disappeared. She then turned, hoping that Pauline would
+speak to her; but Pauline had gone into her room and locked the door.
+
+Now, Pauline Dale was at this time going through a curious phase. She was
+scarcely to be blamed for her conduct, for what she had lately lived
+through had produced a sort of numbness of her faculties, which time
+seemed to have no intention of restoring to her. To look at her face now
+no one would suppose her to be in the ordinary sense of the word an
+invalid; for she was rosy, her eyes were bright, her appetite was good,
+and she had plenty of strength. Nevertheless there was a certain part of
+her being which was numb and cold and half-dead. She was not frightened
+about anything; but she knew that she had behaved as no right-minded or
+honorable girl should have done. Verena's words that afternoon had roused
+her, and had given her a slight degree of pain. She lay down on her bed
+without undressing. She left the blind up so that the moon could shine
+through her small window, and she kept repeating to herself at intervals
+through the night the words that had haunted her when she was at
+Easterhaze: "Wash and be clean." It seemed to Pauline that the sea was
+drawing her. The insistent voice of the sea was becoming absolutely
+unpleasant. It echoed and echoed in her tired brain: "Wash--wash and be
+clean." After her accident she had hated the sea while she was there, but
+now she wanted to get back to it. She dreaded it and yet she was hungry
+for it.
+
+As she lay with her eyes wide open it seemed to her that she was looking
+at the sea. It seemed to her, too, that she really did hear the murmur of
+the waves. The waves came close, and each wave as it pressed nearer and
+nearer to the excited child repeated the old cry: "Wash and be clean."
+
+"Oh, if only I could get to the sea!" was her thought. She pressed her
+hand to that part of her forehead which felt numb and strange. All of a
+sudden the numbness and strangeness seemed to depart. She saw one vivid
+picture after another, and each picture revealed to her the sin which she
+had sinned and the wrong she had committed. At last she saw that fearful
+picture when she stood with her little sister in the White Bay, and the
+waves had so nearly drowned them. She sat up in bed. The idea of going
+straight to Aunt Sophia and of telling her everything did not occur to
+her. She wanted to get back to the sea. How could she manage this? She
+was not in the least afraid of Aunt Sophy; she was only afraid of the God
+whom she had offended. She got up, pushed back her black hair, tied it
+neatly behind her ears, and taking her little sailor-hat and her
+dark-blue serge jacket, she put them on. She would go back to the sea.
+She did not know exactly how she could manage it, but somehow she would.
+When she was dressed she opened a drawer. She must have money. Aunt
+Sophia was liberal in the matter of pocket-money, but Pauline was
+careless and spent hers as she got it. All she possessed now was a
+shilling. She put the shilling into her pocket. Turning round, she saw
+the flash of the gold thimble as it rested on the mantelpiece. She
+slipped that also into her pocket. She then opened the window, and, as
+she had done on a previous night long ago, she got out and let herself
+down to the ground. She was now out all alone about midnight. Once again
+the numb feeling had come back to her; nevertheless her mind was made up.
+She would at any cost get back to the sea.
+
+She walked across the grass. By-and-by she found herself at the
+wicket-gate. When she reached the gate she had a sudden overwhelming
+memory of Nancy King. During the last few weeks she had forgotten Nancy.
+Now she thought of her. Standing with one hand on the post of the
+wicket-gate, she reflected on an idea which presented itself to her. If
+she, Pauline, was wicked--if she had been a naughty girl from the
+first--surely Nancy was worse! If it was necessary for Pauline to wash
+and be clean, it was still more necessary for Nancy. Together they could
+visit the seaside; together lave themselves in the waves; together reach
+that beautiful state where sin did not trouble.
+
+Pauline smiled to herself. She walked through the Forest in the dead of
+night, and presently reached Nancy's home. Now, it would have been a very
+bad thing for Pauline, as it had very nearly been a bad thing for
+Penelope some weeks ago, had Lurcher been out. But Lurcher was ill, and
+had been sent to a neighboring vet.'s. And it also happened--just, as it
+were, in the nick of time--that Farmer King was returning very late from
+visiting a neighboring fair. He had been kept by a friend until past
+midnight, and had driven home through the woods. As Pauline got to the
+gate the farmer drew up his mare within a few feet of the tired girl. He
+saw a girl standing by the gate, and could not make out who she was or
+what she was doing. He said gruffly:
+
+"You get out of this. What are you doing here at this time of night?"
+
+Then Pauline raised a white face. He recognized the face, gave a
+smothered, hasty exclamation, sprang to the ground, flung the reins over
+the neck of the mare, and came towards the girl.
+
+"Miss Pauline," he said, "what in the name of all that is wonderful are
+you doing here at this hour?"
+
+Pauline looked full up at him.
+
+"You said you would help me. You said you would if ever the time came. I
+want to be helped--oh, so badly!--and I have come."
+
+"Because I said that?" exclaimed the farmer, his face flushing all over
+with intense gratification. "Then you be certain of one thing, my
+dear--sure and positive certain--that when Farmer King says a thing he
+will do it. You come straight in with me, missy--straight in with me this
+blessed minute."
+
+Pauline gave him her hand. It was quite wonderful how he soothed her, how
+her fear seemed to drop away from her, how contented and almost happy she
+felt.
+
+"You are very strong, aren't you?" she said. "You are very, very strong?"
+
+"I should about think I am. I can lift a weight with any man in England,
+cut up a sheep with any man in existence, run a race with any farmer of
+my age. Strong! Yes, you are right there, missy; I am strong--strong as
+they're made."
+
+"Then you are what I want. You will help me."
+
+The farmer opened the hall door with his latch-key. Nancy had been in bed
+for an hour or more. The farmer unlocked the door which led into the
+kitchen.
+
+"The parlor will be cold," he said, "and the drawing-room will be sort of
+musty. We don't use the drawing-room every night. But the kitchen--that
+will be all right. You come right into the kitchen, Miss Pauline, and
+then you'll tell me."
+
+He took her into the kitchen, lit a big lamp which hung over the
+fireplace, and poked the ashes in the big stove.
+
+"You do look white and trembly all over. Shall I call Nancy to see you,
+miss?"
+
+"Please, please do."
+
+Farmer King went noisily upstairs.
+
+"Nancy!" he called to his daughter. "I say, Nancy!"
+
+Nancy was in her first sleep. She opened her eyes at the sound of the
+farmer's voice, and said in a sleepy tone:
+
+"Well, what now, dad? I wish you wouldn't call me just because you come
+in late."
+
+"You get up, my girl. There's trouble downstairs. Missy has come."
+
+"Missy? Miss Pen?"
+
+"No, not Miss Pen; the other one--the one we love, both of us--the one
+who was our queen--Miss Pauline. She's downstairs, and she's shocking
+bad. She has come to me to help her."
+
+"Why, of course she's bad, father," said Nancy. "Don't you know all that
+happened? Pauline was nearly drowned at Easterhaze, and they say she
+hasn't been quite, so to say, right in her head ever since. I have been
+nearly mad about it."
+
+"Sane, you mean, to my way of thinking," exclaimed the farmer; "for you
+never said a word to me about it, eating your meals as hearty and
+contented as you please, buying your winter finery, and talking about
+going to London for Christmas. Give me a friend who will think of me when
+I am in trouble. But the lass knows what's what, and it isn't to you she
+has come; it's to me. She wants me to help her because I made her a
+promise, forsooth! But you come right down, for she will want a bit of
+cuddling from a girl like yourself. Come right down this minute and see
+her, for she badly wants some one to do something for her."
+
+Now, Nancy was really fond of Pauline, notwithstanding her father's
+words, and she got up willingly enough and ran downstairs to the kitchen;
+and when she saw her little friend sitting by the fire, looking very
+white, her head dropped forward, and her big black eyes fixed with an
+almost vacant expression straight before her, a great lot of Nancy's
+heart did go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side,
+threw her arms round her, and hugged her over and over again.
+
+"Come," said the farmer, "it's a bit of something to eat she wants; then
+to go upstairs and share your bed with you, Nance. And in the morning,
+why, I am at her service."
+
+"Yes, that's what you do want, isn't it, Paulie?" said Nancy.
+
+Pauline nodded. She felt almost incapable of speaking. So the farmer
+brought her food, and made her eat and drink. And then she went upstairs
+with Nancy, and Nancy made her he down by her side, and when they were
+both together in the dark, in the warm bed in the pretty room, Pauline
+flung her arms round Nancy and began to cry. It was really quite a long
+time since Pauline had cried. At first her tears came slowly and with
+great difficulty; but in a little they rained from her eyes more and more
+easily, until at last they came in torrents, and her tears hurt her and
+shook her little frame, and came faster, and yet faster, until from sheer
+exhaustion she dropped asleep. But when Pauline woke from that sleep it
+seemed to her that the numb part had greatly left her brain and that she
+could think clearly. Only, still she had no wish to go back to The Dales.
+She only wanted to wash and be clean.
+
+"You are the queerest girl that ever lived," said Nancy. "You come right
+downstairs and have breakfast. Of course, they are sure to look for you
+and try to find you, but you must come straight downstairs now and hear
+what father has got to say."
+
+Pauline got up willingly enough and went downstairs. There was a groaning
+breakfast on the board. On most occasions the farmers' servants ate below
+the salt, but now only the farmer and his daughter Nancy were present.
+
+"Here's cake worth eating," said the farmer, "and new-laid eggs worth
+taking; and here's honey the like of which is not to be found anywhere
+else, even in the New Forest. And here's chicken rissoles, and here's
+cooked ham. Now, missy, fall to--fall to."
+
+Pauline ate very little, and then she turned to the farmer.
+
+"And now you want me to help you?" he said.
+
+"I want you to take me to the seaside. I want Nancy to come, too. I want
+to go where the waves are high, and where I can wash and be clean."
+
+"My word!" said the farmer, "what does the little lass say?"
+
+"I don't want to go home. I can't go home. If I am alone with you and
+with Nancy I might get better. Don't let me go home."
+
+"My lass, my lass, you have applied to Farmer King in your trouble, and
+Farmer King won't desert you. I have not the most remote notion what
+trouble it can be that worrits a poor little lass, but, such as it is,
+Farmer King will be your friend. There is no doubt, my dear, that when
+they miss you at The Dales they will come to look for you here, and what
+am I to do?"
+
+"Hide me! Oh, hide me! I can't go home."
+
+"What a lark!" cried Nancy. "We could, couldn't we, father?"
+
+"And we won't," said the farmer, bringing his hand down with a great bang
+on the table. "What we do we'll do above-board. We did wrong that time in
+the summer when we took miss to that picnic and got her into trouble. Now
+we're bound to see her out of her trouble. It has to do with that night
+partly, hasn't it, missy?"
+
+"I have never been happy since," said Pauline.
+
+"Well, then, my dear, I said I would help you out if the time came, and I
+will. You shall stay here--I vow it--and I am just going to get on my
+horse Caesar, and I shall ride over to The Dales this blessed minute. You
+leave it to me. You leave it all to me, my dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+FARMER KING.
+
+
+Since Pauline's illness she had very often not been down in time for
+breakfast. The fact, therefore, that she did not appear on this special
+morning caused no excitement in the mind of any one. Miss Tredgold was so
+much absorbed in the task which lay before her that she scarcely noticed
+the little girl's absence; nurse would see to her, would take her a
+proper meal, would do all that was necessary. Very often nurse did not
+disturb Pauline until long after the others had breakfasted, for the
+doctor had said that she ought never to be wakened when asleep, and that
+she ought to have as much rest and sleep as possible. So breakfast came
+to an end. There was a weight in the air. Now, it happened that the day
+was a specially fine one, for the skies, after crying so many tears, had
+cleared up, the sun had come out, and the few flowers that were left held
+up their heads gayly and tried to forget the storm through which they had
+lived and the winter days which were before them.
+
+Mr. Dale had, of course, forgotten what he had promised his sister-in-law
+to do on the previous night. But Miss Tredgold had not the slightest idea
+of letting him off.
+
+"Come, Henry," she said; "we will go into the schoolroom to prayers."
+
+Accordingly they went, and Mr. Dale read prayers in his somewhat sleepy
+tones. The children, with the exception of Pauline, were all present. At
+last family worship was finished and the servants were allowed to leave
+the room. As nurse was going she looked at Verena.
+
+"Miss Pauline is sleeping longer than usual," she said. "She asked me a
+few days ago never to waken her, and said she would ring her bell when
+she wanted breakfast or hot water. I had better find out if she is
+awake."
+
+"Yes, do, nurse," said Miss Tredgold briskly; "and ask her to be quick
+and come downstairs. I want all the children except little Marjorie to be
+present."
+
+"Oh, my dear Sophia!" said Mr. Dale at that moment, "you cannot expect me
+to wait here with all my morning's work neglected while one of the girls
+chooses to dress herself."
+
+"Here's a very interesting paper on Plato," said Miss Tredgold suddenly,
+and as she spoke she handed Mr. Dale the last number of the _Spectator_.
+"I thought you might like to see it."
+
+"Eh? What?" he cried. "An article on Plato. By whom?"
+
+"By the great classical scholar, Professor Mahaffy," replied Miss
+Tredgold calmly.
+
+Mr. Dale was in an intense state of excitement.
+
+"When did this come?"
+
+"On Saturday morning."
+
+"But this is Wednesday. How is it I did not see it before?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, Henry, I read it and kept it back on purpose. I
+want to keep your attention until all the family are assembled. Here is
+your chair, here are your spectacles, and here is the paper."
+
+Mr. Dale took the paper, muttering to himself:
+
+"Mahaffy--Mahaffy; one of the greatest scholars of the time;" and then he
+was lost to external things.
+
+Yes, Mr. Dale of The Dales, the head of an ancient house, the father of a
+large family, forgot everything on earth except a certain disputed
+passage in which he and Professor Mahaffy diametrically disagreed. He
+continued to forget everything else, even when nurse rushed into the
+room.
+
+"Why, she has gone!" cried the good woman. "She ain't in her bed; and
+what's more, she's been out of it for hours, and the window is open. Oh,
+whatever has come to the child? Where in the world is she?"
+
+Miss Tredgold looked terribly startled. Verena's face turned like a
+sheet. Briar and Patty clasped each other's hands. Pen said to herself:
+
+"This is the time for a good sort of child like me to do something."
+
+Then a clatter of horse's hoofs was heard on the gravel outside, and a
+stoutly built, rubicund man, on a very large horse, drew rein at the
+front door.
+
+"It's Farmer King!" cried Verena.
+
+"Yes, it's Farmer King," said Pen.
+
+"Penelope, be quiet," said her aunt.
+
+The next moment the door was opened, and the parlor-maid said that Farmer
+King had come and was anxious to see Mr. Dale and Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Show him in here," said Miss Tredgold. "Henry, have the goodness to give
+me that paper."
+
+"But I---- My dear Sophia, I have not finished reading it. I don't agree
+a bit with Mahaffy--not a bit. He takes the text in its literal meaning.
+He ought to read it with the context. Now, there is not the slightest
+manner of doubt that Plato meant----"
+
+"Henry! Are you mad? Give me that paper."
+
+It is to be regretted that Miss Tredgold snatched the _Spectator_ from
+Mr. Dale's unwilling hand.
+
+"Now, Henry, wake up," she said. "Pauline is lost, and Farmer King has
+come to speak to us both on a matter of importance."
+
+Just then Farmer King came into the room. Now, the Kings may have been
+the humble retainers of the Dales for generations, but there was not the
+slightest doubt that Farmer King made a far more imposing appearance at
+that moment than did Mr. Dale of The Dales; for Mr. Dale stood up, thin,
+bewildered, shivering, his mind in the past, his eyes consumed by a sort
+of inward fire, but with no intelligence as far as present things were
+concerned; and Farmer King was intensely wide awake, and, so to speak,
+all there.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dale," he said. "And I beg your pardon, miss. I
+presume I am speaking to Miss Tredgold?"
+
+"You are, Mr. King," said that lady.
+
+"Good-day to you all, misses," said the farmer.
+
+He looked round at the somewhat frightened little group of sisters in the
+background.
+
+"I have come to say something," said the farmer. "It is something about
+Miss Pauline. It is something about myself and Nancy, and it has to do
+with you, sir"--here he bowed low to Mr. Dale--"and with you, madam"--his
+bow was not quite so reverential when he turned to the lady.
+
+"What is it? Please speak," said Miss Tredgold. "We are very anxious
+about Pauline. Our nurse has just told us that she is not in her bedroom.
+Do you know where she is?"
+
+"Well, madam, about half an hour ago I left Miss Pauline seated in my
+warm kitchen, in the company of my good daughter, Nancy, and eating as
+good a breakfast as I could provide for her. She did not eat much, madam,
+but it is there for her acceptance. The young lady is heartily welcome.
+She prefers us to you for the time being. She did not want you to know
+anything about it, but that ain't quite my way, so I came to explain."
+
+"Please, please, Aunt Sophy, don't be too angry," here came from Verena's
+lips.
+
+"Silence, Verena!" said her father.
+
+Surely there was quite a new note in his voice! He rose; his languor left
+him; he came up to Farmer King and held out his hand.
+
+"Why, good old friend," he said, "it seems ages since we met. Do you
+remember that day when we were boys together and went in search of
+robins' eggs?"
+
+"Don't I?" said the farmer.
+
+He gave an embarrassed laugh, which ended in a sort of roar.
+
+"And haven't I the eggs safe still?" he said. "I have parted with many
+things, but not with the eggs the young squire and I took together."
+
+"It is ages since we met," said Mr. Dale. "You are looking very well,
+Robert--admirably well. I am pleased to see you. Sit down, won't you?
+Pray sit down."
+
+"That man is enough to turn the brain of any one," was Miss Tredgold's
+private ejaculation. Aloud she said:
+
+"I presume, Farmer King, that you have not come here without a story to
+tell."
+
+"That is just it, madam. And now, if I may speak, I will tell you my
+story."
+
+"We are all prepared to listen," said Miss Tredgold.
+
+"Yes, Robert, and with attention--with attention and interest," said Mr.
+Dale. "Why, upon my word, this is almost as good as a fresh rendering of
+the immortal Plato. Sit down, farmer, sit down."
+
+The farmer did not sit down.
+
+"It's no use mincing matters," he said, "nor walking round the bush. It
+is just this. If there is a family on this earth that I have been proud
+to have to do with, it is that of the Dales. If there were children that
+I loved next to my own, it was the Dales. Why, I was brought up, so to
+speak, to look on them as my liege lords. My mother had the old feudal
+principles in her, and she never went with the times. She never held that
+we were as good as our betters. We were good enough, straight enough,
+honest enough, but we hadn't the blue blood of the Dales in us. That is
+how I was brought up. Well, you, sir, were married, and came to live here
+with your good lady. It was the will of the Almighty that she should be
+taken, and the children were left motherless; and my little Nancy and I,
+we used to watch to do them a kindness. They were right pleased to come
+over and see us, and to ride barebacked on my two Forest ponies, and have
+their fun whenever they could get as far away as The Hollies. And Nancy
+was free to come to your house, and much she enjoyed it."
+
+"Well, Robert, very natural--very natural indeed," said Mr. Dale.
+
+"So I took it; so I took it."
+
+Here the farmer flashed an angry eye in the direction of Miss Tredgold.
+
+"But never mind," he continued. "I did not presume--far from that--far
+indeed from that. It pleased the Almighty to give you ten daughters, Mr.
+Dale, and to give me but one. And I love my one as much, perhaps, as you
+love the whole of your ten. But be that as it may, when Nancy went to The
+Dales to have her fun and her larks and her gay time, I was as pleased as
+Punch. And then this good lady came, and she said to herself, 'Who is
+Nancy King?' and the young ladies told her the plain truth; and then this
+good lady did not take the trouble to inquire. A farmer's daughter was
+only a farmer's daughter to her. Oh, I am not blaming her; but a little
+thought, a little less prejudice, would have prevented a lot of mischief.
+Anyhow, the good aunt gave the word--my girl and the young ladies were to
+have nothing to do with each other in the future. Mark you that, sir,
+when they were brought up, so to speak, together--always tumbling about
+in the same hay-field, and riding the same ponies, and playing the same
+games. It was all to end because of madam. Now, Mr. Dale, I was real mad
+when Nancy came and told me what had happened. My feelings were hot and
+strong and bitter, and I thought the treatment dealt out to my child and
+me none too just. So, sir, when Nancy asked me to help her, I helped with
+a will. When Miss Pauline came over to see us--which she did unknown to
+her aunt--I gave her the best of welcomes, and we started our midnight
+picnic for no other reason in life but to have her with us."
+
+"When did you have your midnight picnic?" asked Miss Tredgold very
+gently. "When? Kindly give me the date."
+
+The farmer looked into her face. When he saw how white she was, and when
+he glanced at the two little girls, Briar and Patty, his heart smote him.
+
+"I was given over to evil feelings at that time," he said, "and I don't
+pretend for a moment I did right. Miss Pauline didn't want to be coaxed,
+but Nancy was a rare temptress. We did our best, and the children
+came--three of them. You want to know the date, madam. It was the date of
+Miss Pauline's birthday--the night after her birthday. Oh, yes, madam, we
+had our wild time--a right good time, too." The farmer gave a short
+laugh. "You thought your young ladies quite out of the reach of the
+influence of Farmer King and his family; but you never guessed, madam,
+that all through one long beautiful summer night we had revels in the
+woods--dancing, madam; and a picnic, no less; and the young miss crowned
+with flowers as queen, and given the best presents we could give her. We
+took a drive under the oaks and elms and beeches of the New Forest, and
+you never guessed, madam--never. But Miss Pauline, Miss Briar, and Miss
+Patty were there, and Miss Pauline was our queen. Ah! she had a gay
+birthday, but you ask her what sort of a birthnight she had. It is true
+she was queen of the day, but that was nothing to the time when she was
+queen of the night. Well, sir"--the farmer's eyes shone as he spoke----
+"I meant it as a big joke, and I was desperately proud of myself; but I
+saw even then that Miss Pauline was fretting, and I spoke to her quite
+seriously, and I said, 'If ever the time comes when you want a friend, I
+am the man for your purpose. Don't you forget that; because you are a
+Dale and I am a King, and you Dales have always been our liege lords, so
+don't you forget that.' And the child, sir, she believed me. Lots of
+things happened afterwards, but of them I have nothing to say until last
+night. Miss Pauline came back to me, and she reminded me of what I had
+said to her that night in the woods. And, sir--and, madam--I mean to keep
+my promise. I came home at midnight, and there she was standing at the
+gate, white and slim and pretty as though she was a moonbeam. And she
+said, 'You promised to help me when I was in trouble, and I have come to
+you to get you to keep your promise.' Now, sir and madam, I have come
+here about that. The young lady wants to be helped. She has got a shock,
+and wants a bit of humoring. She says some words which have no meaning to
+me, but they mean something to her, and she must be humored. 'I want to
+wash and be clean,' she keeps saying; and she wants Nancy and me to take
+her away to the seaside where the waves are big and strong, and she
+insists on it that she will only go with Nancy and me. So, Miss Tredgold
+and Mr. Dale, I have come here to-day to say that we mean to take her."
+
+"Can I see her?" asked Miss Tredgold. "I have nothing to say. Perhaps I
+did wrong that time. We all make mistakes sometimes. I ought to have
+known you better, Mr. King. But that time is over. The important thing
+now is to restore the balance of Pauline's mind. Can I see her?"
+
+"You can, madam, when the right time comes; but that is not to-day, and
+it won't be to-morrow. This is my business now, madam, and you must leave
+it to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CLEANSING WATERS.
+
+
+That very day Farmer King went away with his daughter and Pauline. They
+went to a small village called Rosestairs, not many miles from
+Easterhaze. The farmer was immensely proud and pleased at having the care
+of Pauline, and he was determined that if man could restore her to
+health, he would be that individual. Rosestairs was a very pretty little
+place, and quite sheltered. The Kings took lodgings in a tiny cottage,
+where they lived as plainly as people could. Here Pauline rested and took
+long walks, and, as she expressed it afterwards, found herself again. But
+although day by day the weight in her head grew less, the haunting words
+still clung to her: "Wash and be clean." One night they entered into her
+dreams, and she awoke quite early with the words hovering on her lips:
+"Wash, Pauline; wash and be clean." Nancy was sleeping peacefully by her
+side. Pauline raised her head. She felt well--absolutely well--but for
+those haunting words. She stole out of bed and went and stood by the
+window.
+
+The sea was only a few yards off, and the waves were coming in fresh and
+lovely and sparkling. "Come, wash," they seemed to say, and each soft
+thud of a wave on the shore seemed to repeat the words.
+
+"I will--I will; I must," thought the young girl.
+
+She opened her trunk very softly, took out her bathing-dress, put it on,
+and ran down to the beach. There was no one about. In a moment she had
+entered the waves. She breasted them as far as her waist; she ducked and
+covered herself with the invigorating salt water. And as the sparkling
+salt water rolled over her, it seemed to her fancy that a load rolled off
+her mind. She felt light of heart and gay. She felt cheerful and happy. A
+few minutes later she was back in the cottage. Nancy turned in her sleep,
+started, opened her sleepy eyes, and looked at the dripping figure
+standing in the middle of the room.
+
+"Why, Paulie," she cried, "what are you doing? Oh, you are dripping wet;
+your hair and all. What have you been at?"
+
+"I am wet because I have washed. I have washed and I am clean. Oh, Nancy,
+Nancy! it is as right as possible. The terrible, haunting words have
+gone, and the longing for the sea has gone. I know that I am forgiven.
+Nancy, do you hear? I am washed, and I am clean. Oh! I know at last what
+it means."
+
+"For goodness' sake take off those wet things and get back into bed and
+let me warm you up. You will catch your death."
+
+"My death!" cried Pauline, "when I am so happy I scarcely know how to
+contain myself."
+
+Nancy sprang out of bed, dragged Pauline towards her, and helped her to
+pull off her wet things. Then she wrapped her up in her warm night-dress,
+made her cuddle down in bed, and kissed her and hugged her.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said, "you are the queerest girl; but your face looks as
+it did long ago."
+
+"I feel as I did long ago--or, rather, I feel different. I was a child
+then and did not understand much. Now, it seems to me, I understand a
+great deal--yes, a great deal. Oh! and there is your father in the
+garden. I must dress; I must go to him."
+
+So Pauline jumped out of bed, got quickly into her clothes, and ran out
+to join the farmer.
+
+"Mr. King," she cried, "I am quite well again."
+
+"It looks like it, little missy," said the farmer.
+
+"I am," repeated Pauline. "I am as perfectly well as a girl can be. You
+know how often I told you I wanted to wash and be clean. I had my wash
+this morning, and it was really what I did want, for that dull feeling
+has left my head. I know just everything, and how I behaved, and all the
+rest, and I am prepared to take the bitter as well as the sweet. It is
+very, very sweet living here with you and Nancy, and whatever happens,
+you will be my friends as long as I live. And it is very bitter to think
+that I must tell Aunt Sophia and Verena and the rest of them the whole
+truth; but, bitter or not, I am going to do it, and I am going back to
+them, for it is right. I want to go back to them this very day. May I?"
+
+"Yes, my lass; I understand you," said the farmer gravely.
+
+                    *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a lovely day for the time of year; although it was November, the
+sun shone brilliantly. Miss Tredgold stood on the lawn in front of the
+house and talked to Verena, who stood by her side.
+
+"I understand all of you now, Verena," she said, "except Pauline. I never
+did understand her, and I sometimes think I never shall, poor child!"
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," said Verena. "When Paulie comes back she will be as
+you never knew her--as she used to be, her sweetest and best. In some
+ways she is stronger and better and braver than any of us. I think she
+ought to make a splendid woman some day, for she has so much character
+and so much determination."
+
+"I think I have done the rest of you good by coming here; but if I have
+done Pauline harm, I sometimes wonder if I can ever be happy again," said
+the poor lady.
+
+"You have not done her harm. Only wait until she comes back. She is just
+getting the right treatment now. She felt everything so terribly that her
+mind was quite numb and incapable of conducting her right for a time; but
+wait until she returns."
+
+"Day after day I long and hope for her return," said Miss Tredgold, "but
+day after day there is a fresh excuse."
+
+"And yet you say you want her to return," said Verena. "Oh, aunty, aunty!
+who is this coming up the path? Here she is--Paulie herself; and Nancy is
+following her, and there is Farmer King. They have entered by the
+wicket-gate and are coming up through the plantation. Oh, look, look! And
+she is well. I know by the way she walks, by the way she runs, by the way
+she smiles. She is as well as ever she was in all her life."
+
+"Better--far better than ever!" cried Pauline's gay and almost rollicking
+voice. "Here I am, stronger than ever, and quite, quite well."
+
+The next moment Pauline's arms were flung round her aunt's neck.
+
+"You must forgive me first of all," she said. "I have come back to
+confess, and I want to get my confession over. I want all the others to
+stand round and listen. Ah! here they come. Don't rush at me for a
+moment, girls. Don't hug me or do anything of that sort. Stand still and
+listen, listen, listen. I was rebellious, and I did wrong, and----"
+
+"My darling," interrupted Miss Tredgold, "we know the whole story. We
+only want you to confess that you did wrong, and then never, never to
+allude to it again; for I see, Pauline, by your eyes that you mean to do
+right now."
+
+"I will obey you because I love you," said Pauline.
+
+"There, madam! I think she is pretty well restored," cried the farmer.
+"And she is the best young lady in the world. Nancy and I have brought
+her home, and now, with your permission, madam, we will take our leave."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" cried Miss Tredgold. "If you did wrong, Pauline, I
+was by no means altogether in the right. I little knew when I told you,
+my dears, to have nothing more to do with Farmer King and his daughter,
+that I was preventing your enjoying the society of a gentleman. Please
+shake hands with me, Mr. King."
+
+Farmer King's face was quite pale with emotion.
+
+"I admire you; I thank you," said Miss Tredgold. "You are a man in a
+thousand;" and again she held out her hand.
+
+This time Farmer King wrung it. But he was absolutely speechless; not a
+single word passed his lips.
+
+"Nancy," said Miss Tredgold, "I revoke what I said. You must come and see
+my girls whenever you like."
+
+"On condition, madam," said the farmer, "that the young ladies sometimes
+come to see Nancy and me."
+
+"Certainly," said Miss Tredgold; "but I also must put in a condition."
+
+"What is that, madam?"
+
+"That I occasionally accompany them."
+
+But at this the farmer gave such a cheer of hearty goodwill that all the
+children joined in in spite of themselves.
+
+"Was there ever anything quite so jolly in all the world?" cried Pauline.
+"I feel younger than ever, and jollier than ever. Here comes father, too.
+We are all together. Father, I am back again, and it is all owing to
+Farmer King and Nancy that I am cured. Whom shall we cry three cheers
+for? You give the word."
+
+"Aunt Sophy, of course," cried Verena.
+
+"Hip! hip! hurrah!" shouted the Dale family.
+
+"And I should like to suggest a hearty cheer for my good old friend,
+Farmer King," said Mr. Dale.
+
+"And for his cure," said Pauline.
+
+And then the Dale family and the King family joined hands and shouted
+"Hip! hip! hurrah!" once more.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Girls of the Forest, by L. T. Meade
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