"Come out! Come out!" she cried, beckoning so frantically that she nearly lost her balance.
Polly was annoyed. She was in the midst of an enchanting tale, and she so wished to finish reading it. Truly, she was not glad to see Gwen Harcourt.
She never treated anyone rudely, however, so she closed her book and went out to greet her early visitor.
"I guess you'd think I wanted to come up here if you knew HOW I came," said Gwen.
"How did you come?" Polly asked, not because she cared but in order to say SOMETHING. She could not say that she was glad to see her.
"Through the window and over our hedge," said Gwen. "Mama said that as I'd been horrid at the breakfast table I must stay in all the forenoon. I didn't think that was fair, because I wasn't VERY horrid. I put my foot on the table so I could tie my shoe ribbons. Papa said, 'Gwendolen!' and I took it down quick. Then I took some peanut shells from my pocket and sailed them in my cup of chocolate. They looked like little boats. My piece of melon had the stem on it and I said it was a music box. I wound the stem round and round, and sung 'Yankee Doodle.' Mama made the waitress take me away from the table and I just howled all the way! I don't think I need have stayed in for such little things as that! I DIDN'T stay in. I jumped out of the window, it's near the ground, and then, because it was the shortest way, I scrambled right over the hedge. Horrid old thing! It had thorns on it, and it scratched my knee."
Polly thought her a handsome little savage.
Gwen thought that she had made an impression upon Polly.
"There was just one reason why I acted so. Mama had guests, and she had just been telling them what a good child I was, and I thought it would be a joke to do some queer things at the table.
"I thought because she had company she wouldn't send me away, but she did," she concluded.