“Run away! You don’t mean it!” cried Armyn, standing still and aghast, so much shocked that her elevation turned into shame; and Charles answered for her—
“Yes, to be sure she did, when they locked her up because she wouldn’t tell lies to please them. How did you get out, Kittens? What jolly good fun it must have been!”
“Is this so, Kate?” said Armyn, laying his hand on the bridle; and his displeasure roused her spirit of self-defence, and likewise a sense of ill-usage.
“To be sure it is,” she said, raising her head indignantly. “I would not be made to tell fashionable falsehoods; and so—and so I came home, for Papa to protect me:” and if she had not had to take care to steady herself on her saddle, she would have burst out sobbing with vexation at Armyn’s manner.
“And no one knew you were coming?” said he.
“No, of course not; I slipped out while they were all in confabulation in Aunt Jane’s room, and they were sure not to find me gone till dinner time, and if they are very cross, not then.”
“You go on, Charlie,” said Armyn, restoring the bridle to his brother; “I’ll overtake you by the time you get home.”
“What are you going to do?” cried boy and girl with one voice.
“Well, I suppose it is fair to tell you,” said Armyn. “I must go and telegraph what is become of you.”
There was a howl and a shriek at this. They would come after her and take her away, when she only wanted to be hid and kept safe; it was a cruel shame, and Charles was ready to fly at his brother and pommel him; indeed, Armyn had to hold him by one shoulder, and say in the voice that meant that he would be minded, “Steady, boy I—I’m very sorry, my little Katie; it’s a melancholy matter, but you must have left those poor old ladies in a dreadful state of alarm about you, and they ought not to be kept in it!”