"But I'm to be punished to-morrow."
"To stamp it upon your memory," said Granny; then she kissed Charity very lovingly:
"Tell God what you have told me, my child, and go to sleep. You have a fresh day to begin to-morrow, and wake up good."
Then Granny went away. She never said much to the children, but she knew that Aunt Alice's words to her niece had been many and severe, and she did not wish to add to them.
It was a very subdued Charity who came to lessons next morning. She apologised to Miss Vale for what she had done, and for the whole of that afternoon Charity sat in the schoolroom writing an imposition for her aunt. It was only one sentence she had to write over and over again, many hundreds of times.
"Self-will and independence, unless under authority, always lead to disaster. Charity Blair."
Her back ached, her fingers ached, and her head ached before she had finished, but Charity had learned her lesson, and she never played truant again.
She told Faith and Hope afterwards about her day, and though she joined the boys, and actually caught a fish with a rod which they lent her, and though she had talked and laughed with them and was as jolly as she could be, underneath all was the miserable feeling of having done wrong.
"It doesn't really pay," she said.
Later on the three little girls spent an afternoon at the Hall with some other boys and girls. Charlie was well enough to be out again, and he was there.