It was certainly not at all remarkable¹ that the entire party should be drowsy² 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 mischief³ 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 dressing⁴ that morning she had made a sort of vow⁵. 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 perfectly⁶, and never, never, never deceive Aunt Sophy again.”
 
Now, Pauline, unaware⁷ 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 125presents 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 hideous⁸ toilet-covers, the grotesque⁹ 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 fatigue¹⁰, 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 tiresome¹¹ 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 abashed¹². “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 poked¹³ about. I looked under the bed, and there was an old bandbox where you kept your summer hat afore Aunt Sophy came; and I 126pulled 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 backwards¹⁴ and forwards.
 
“I see’d,” she began, “such a funny thing!”
 
“Penelope, you are too tormenting¹⁵!”
 
“I see’d such a very funny thing!”
 
Miss Tredgold was seen approaching. Penelope looked round at her and then deliberately¹⁶ 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. 127“You are always spying and prying¹⁷. 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 unreasonably¹⁸ anxious about her. Notwithstanding Verena’s assurance that Pauline had the sort of complexion¹⁹ that often looked white in summer, the good lady was not reassured²⁰. 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 landlady²¹ she happened to know, and engaged some remarkably²² 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............