"Yes," said Jack.
"Then you acted very wrongly, Jack," the headmistress said gravely. "I do not suppose that you quite realised it, but what you were doing was nothing less than stealing. If you had been poor children and had been caught by the keepers, you would probably have been severely punished. As it is, I cannot allow you to escape all punishment for your wrong-doing. You will all three write out, 'I must not steal,' three hundred times, and hand your lines to Miss Burton not later than to-morrow evening."
"But, please, Miss Oakley, Gerry didn't steal them. She wasn't with us out walking, and she didn't know anything about it until after tea," said Jack.
"But she helped you to eat them, I suppose?" said the headmistress.
"Y—yes, but she didn't have anything to do with thinking of the plan. She just happened to be in the sitting-room, so we asked her to join in," said Jack.
"Well, perhaps her crime wasn't quite so great as yours," said Miss Oakley, with a little smile. "All the same, since she took part in the feasting, I think she also must pay for her pleasure. Geraldine, suppose you write out, 'Chestnuts are bad for the digestion,' one hundred times—I think that will be enough for your share. Now you may go."
The three made their way back to the sitting-room, rather crestfallen at the ignominious ending to their cosy evening, and full of wrath against Miss Burton for what Jack termed her "beastly sneakiness." At least, Jack and Nita were full of wrath. Gerry was too unhappy at having got her friends into trouble to be angry with anybody.
"I'm most awfully sorry, Jack," she said miserably. "If only my beastly pocket hadn't burst it would have been all right! I always seem to be getting you into trouble! I am such a stupid ass over things!"
"Oh, that's all right," said Jack, trying to be magnanimous, although she could not help agreeing with Gerry about her stupidity. Gerry certainly seemed an expert at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. "You couldn't help your pocket bursting, of course."
But in spite of her words, Gerry could not help feeling that both her companions blamed her a little for the unfortunate accident—Nita more so, perhaps, than Jack. It would have been some consolation if she had been allowed to share fully in the punishment, but Jack, with that scrupulous honesty of hers, had effectually prevented her from doing that. Gerry would gladly have done the lines for all three of them, but that, of course, was impossible, and she could only bear her own share of the burden laid upon them.