Stella curled her lip and lifted her eyebrows scornfully. "You needn't be afraid," she said; "nobody wants one of your old berries. If you are so particular, it is very easy to separate them by putting a layer of leaves on top of ours, and yours on top of that, and then there will be no mixing, and we shall be sure to get all that belongs to us."
Marjorie agreed to this arrangement, being quite ready to have a supply of water on hand, and so Stella carefully arranged the berries and said she would carry the bucket herself and that Marjorie and Alice could take turns in carrying the water. So, after everything was adjusted, they set off toward the town, following the dusty road by which they had come.
The way home did not seem as long as the morning's walk, and not a great deal of time had passed when the spires of the village churches appeared in the distance, then they reached the outlying houses, and finally the main street. "I'd just kite up the back way if I were you," said Stella to Marian; "it is a little bit shorter and you won't be likely to meet so many people. Good-bye. We turn off here, you know. I hope you won't get a scolding."
The fear of this, or worse, had been in Marian's heart all along, though she had not mentioned it, and as she stole in the back gate and up the garden walk she hoped she would meet neither her grandmother nor Heppy. The little bucket of blackberries no longer seemed worth while, and she set it down near the apple tree, ran in the side door, past her grandfather's study, and on up-stairs, hoping she could get by the sitting-room without being seen.
But her hopes were in vain, for on the landing appeared her grandmother. "Is that you, Marian?" she asked. "Where have you been all day? Come in here and give an account of yourself."
For a second it was in Marian's thought to say that her nose was bleeding and to make her escape to her room, change her frock and then reappear, but she knew it was only putting off the evil day, for the frock's condition would be discovered sooner or later; and then she was a truthful child, and could not have brought herself to make a false excuse, even though the outcome might have been better for her. So she entered the sitting-room timidly and stood with drooping head before her grandmother.
"Where have you been all day?" repeated her grandmother.
"Oh, didn't Mrs. Hunt tell you?" said Marian in a weak voice. "She said she would. I've been blackberrying."
"With whom?"
"Some of the girls."