"You needn't think you're going to stay here with us," said Blanche Greenwood, hotly. "Because we don't want you. We didn't ask you to come, and you may go away and walk by yourself."
"I've no wish to stay with you, I'm sure," replied Ernestine with equal temper. "I would rather have your room than your company. I've picked all the lilies I want, so you're welcome to any that are left, so far as I'm concerned, if that's why you wish to get rid of me."
And with this parting shot, she took her flowers and walked slowly away in the opposite direction to that in which we had come, by a small path that led from the wood up on to the moor beyond.
"You're terribly wet, Phil; your boots are simply squelching with water. I don't know what Mrs. Marshall will say!" said Cathy, as she hurried me back to the farm as fast as possible, to be dried.
Somewhat to my relief, neither Mrs. Marshall nor any of the teachers was there. Like ourselves they were all trying to make the best of the fine afternoon out-of-doors.
"Deary me! Who'd have thought of you falling into that bit of a brook?" said Mrs. Thompson, aghast, as I walked into the kitchen in my moist skirts. "We must get you out of those wet things, honey. I've some clothes of my Lizzie's as would fit you while your own is at the fire."
Lizzie's skirt was decidedly too short for me, and Lizzie's boots were equally large and roomy; her stockings, moreover, were of thick, home-knitted worsted, very hot and uncomfortable; but I was grateful for anything in the circumstances, and would, I believe, have worn a pair of sabots if they had been offered to me.
"We shall just have time for a walk, Cathy, after all," I said. "It can't be very late yet, and we don't start home until six o'clock. Let us go up that path through the glen that led on to the moors."
"Nay! Don't go there!" called out Mrs. Thompson, who happened to overhear my remark just as we left the house. "There's a bull up on yon moor as isn't safe at all. It do run folks sometimes. I thought ye had been with the rest when I warned ye all. Keep in our own fields, and ye'll be right enough, but don't go roamin' far away."
"Never mind," said Cathy. "We'll go back to the wood, at any rate, and pick some more lilies, if there are any left."