Grandma Sherwood looked at them with an expression, not so much of surprise, as amused exasperation.
"I'm glad you weren't killed," she said, "but you look as if you had come very near it. What have you been up to now?"
"We haven't been up at all, Grandma," said Marjorie, cheerfully, "we've been down—in the well."
"In the well!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherwood, her face blank with surprise. "Marjorie, what can I do with you? I shall have to send you home before your vacation is over, unless you stop getting into mischief! Did you fall down?"
"It was my fault, Mrs. Sherwood," said Molly; "truly, I didn't mean mischief, but it was such a hot day and I thought it would be cool down the well—"
"And it was," interrupted Marjorie; "and we had a pretty good time,—only I was too heavy and I went down whizz—zip! And Molly came flying up, and if we hadn't caught each other, I s'pect we'd both have been drowned!"
Grandma Sherwood began to realize that there had been not only mischief but real danger in this latest escapade.
"Molly," she said, "you may go home, and tell your mother about it, and I will talk it over with Marjorie. I think you were equally to blame, for, though Molly proposed the plan, Marjorie ought not to have consented."
So Molly went home and Mrs. Sherwood had a long and serious talk with her little granddaughter. She did not scold,—Grandma Sherwood never scolded,—but she explained to Marjorie that, unless she curbed her impulsive inclinations to do reckless things, she would certainly make serious trouble for herself and her friends.
"It doesn't matter at all," she said, "who proposes the mischief. You do just as wrong in consenting to take part, as if you invented the plan yourself."