She was right. As they came into the room, the Lord Chancellor said, “I dare say the young lady did want to see your baby. Nobody knows better than I do, from long experience of the law, that young ladies like to see babies, and you have nothing to teach me about that. But you had no right whatever to lend her your keys, and allow her to go in and out of this room as she pleases.”
When he had said this he changed his expression of face completely, and smiled at Peggy and the four dolls. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I am glad to see you all looking so well, and I expect you are glad to see me looking well. I should say now that none of you have been in the least inconvenienced by your visit to this handsome building.”
He said this as if he were inviting them to agree with him, and added, “Why, for part of the time you haven’t even had the door locked, which must have taken away the idea of a prison from your minds altogether.”
Peggy thought this was rather cool, considering they had just heard him scolding Mr. Emma for letting them have the door unlocked. While the Lord Chancellor had been speaking, Mr. Emma had been making signs to her in a pathetic imploring sort of way, pointing up to the ceiling and at her and himself and the Lord Chancellor and the tea-tray on the table, and making words at her with his mouth, none of which she could understand. But suddenly she understood by his signs what he wanted to convey to her. He was begging her not to tell the Lord Chancellor that she had carried the tray up to the top story. So she nodded her head and put her finger on her mouth to assure him that she would keep his secret, for she did not want to get him into further trouble. He seemed a little soothed by this, but still very dejected, as he stood with his head on one side behind the Lord Chancellor.
“If I had not made it a rule of life never to take tea twice on the same day,” said the Lord Chancellor, “I should feel inclined to ask you for a cup. I assure you that this is better tea than I drank at my own house half an hour ago. Really, I feel inclined to wish that I could be sent to the House of Cards myself, for a short time. I doubt if there is a more comfortable place in the whole of Dolltown. Now, confess, ladies. Haven’t you found it so?”
“We have nothing to complain of in our treatment,” said Wooden, in a polite and simple but yet dignified way. “But nobody likes to be in prison, and I would rather go without my tea altogether than have it and be shut up.”
The Lord Chancellor seemed delighted with this speech. “Now, it is a most extraordinary thing,” he said, “that you should express those sentiments. I was half afraid, when I came in, that you would be so delighted with your present situation that you would not want to exchange it for another. In fact, I thought you might even refuse to do so. I am very glad indeed that I was mistaken. For I have come to tell you that his most gracious Majesty, moved by one or two things that I have said to him, has instructed me to release you and Peggy. Now, don’t tell me—please don’t tell me—that you would rather stay where you are.”
“No, I shall not,” said Wooden. “I am very glad to be let out of prison. I ought never to have been sent here. None of us ought. Are my mother and aunt and Lady Grace still to be kept here?”
“If she and Peggy go, I go,” said Wooden’s aunt. “That’s flat.”