"Oh, Father!" cried Marjorie. "Was this wrong, too? Is everything mischief? Can't we do anything at all without we have to be punished for it? We thought this was truly a good work, and we thought we were doing our duty!"
Like a little whirlwind, Marjorie flew across the room, and threw herself, sobbing, into her father's arms.
"My dear child," he said, kissing her hot little brow, "wait a moment till I explain. We want to talk over this matter, and get each other's ideas about it."
"But you're going to say it was wrong,—I know you are! And I was trying so hard not to do naughty things. Oh, Father, how can I tell what I can do, and what I can't?"
"There, there, Midget, now stop crying. You're not going to be punished; you don't deserve to be. What you did was not wrong in itself,—at least it would not have been for older people. But you children are ignorant of the ways of the grown-up world, and so you ought not to have taken the responsibility of dictating to or advising grown people. That was the wrong part."
"But we meant it for their good, sir, more than for our own," said King, by way of justification.
"That's just it, Kingdon, my boy. You're too young yet to know what is for the good of grown men and women who are old enough to be your parents and grandparents. You wouldn't think of dictating to your mother or myself 'for our good,' would you? And all grown people ought to be equally free from your unasked advice."
"But, Father," insisted King, "if you kept this place looking like a rubbish-heap, wouldn't I have a right to ask you not to?"
"You'd have only the right of our relationship. A child has many privileges with his parents that he hasn't with any one else in the world. But to come right down to the facts: the letters that you wrote were ill-advised, arrogant, and impertinent."
Kitty looked frankly bewildered at these big Words, Marjorie buried her face on her father's shoulder in a renewed burst of tears, while Kingdon flushed a deep red all over his honest, boyish face.