"Why are you here at this hour and alone? Why is your dress and your whole appearance so soiled and tattered? Have you strayed from your teachers? Have you lost your way?"
"No, sir," answered Meg.
"No, what?" repeated the old gentleman. "I do not understand your answer."
"I have not lost my way," said Meg.
"Then where are the persons in whose charge you are? Where are your schoolfellows?"
"They are not here. I did not go out with them," said Meg, and paused again.
Her dauntlessness was quelled by fatigue, and by the chill weight of these eyes fixed upon her.
"Will you answer me plainly? Why are you here, and why are you alone?"
"I have run away," said Meg with a flicker of her old spirit.