Girls of the Forest Part 23

"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 sc.r.a.pe."

"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 sc.r.a.pes. 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 a.s.sured 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 s.h.i.+llings' worth either way. If you come, I get three beautiful pairs of gloves. If you don't come, I give the boys ten s.h.i.+llings. 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."