Penelope drank her vinegar three times a day. She applied¹ herself to this supposed remedy with a perseverance² and good faith worthy³ of a better cause. This state of things continued until on a certain night she was seized with acute pain, and awoke shrieking⁴ out the startling words, “Vinegar! vinegar!” Nurse, who was not in the plot, thought the child was raving⁵. She scolded Penelope more than pitied her, administered a strong dose, and, in short, treated her as rather a naughty invalid⁶.  
“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 thraldom⁷.
 
“I mustn’t take so much vinegar,” thought the little girl; “but I do hope that being so ill, and taking the horrid⁸ 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 determined⁹ she would. Of late she had been reading all the books she could find relating to the sea. She devoted¹⁰ herself to the subject of shells and seaweeds, and always talked with admiration¹¹ of those naughty children who got into mischief¹² 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 darted¹⁴ into her erratic¹⁵ 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 lodgings¹⁶ at Easterhaze. But the difficulties in the way of such an undertaking¹⁷ 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.132
 
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 possessed¹⁹ 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 confiding²⁰ 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 wont²¹, 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 awfully²².”
 
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 scarlet²³ 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 standing¹⁸ 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?”133
 
Briar turned pale; Patty glanced at her. Adelaide, who had watchful²⁴ 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 shrug²⁵ 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 smite²⁶ 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.134
 
“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 depressed²⁷, 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 adverse²⁸ 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 wrath²⁹, “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 135education, and the pretty ponies³⁰ 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 Providence³¹ 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 shameful³²; 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 shrieked³³ 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 136Sophy 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 groans³⁴; 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 belittle³⁵ 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,”............