CHAPTER XIV
One Saturday afternoon in July, while the other girls were playing and chattering on a shady porch, Anne slipped with Honey-Sweet through a hole in the hedge and sauntered toward an old brown-stone house set in spacious grounds near the 'Home.' Anne had long been wanting to explore the place. She had never seen any one there—the house was closed for the summer—and in her stories it figured as an enchanted castle. As she walked ankle-deep in the unclipped grass under the catalpa and elm-trees, she looked around with eager interest.
She liked everything about the place, even the clump of great rough dock which had grown up around the back door. A frog hopped under the broad leaves as she passed. She almost expected to see it come forth changed to a fairy. Of course she didn't believe in fairies now, but this looked like a place where they would stay if there were any.
At last she wandered toward a great clump of boxwood near a side gate. It made such a mass of greenery that Anne pulled aside a branch to see if it were green inside too. She gave a gasp of delight. The tall, close-growing stems were thickly leaved on the outside and bare within; in the centre there was a hollow space, like a little room. There must be fairies, after all, to make such a beautiful place as this.
Anne pulled aside a branch and crept in. One might have passed a yard away and never suspected that she was there. After a while, she put Honey-Sweet down and set to work as a tidy housekeeper should. With a broom of twigs, she swept up the dead leaves. Then she went out and pulled handfuls of grass to make a carpet, which she patterned over with blue stars of periwinkle. For chairs she brought two or three flat stones. How time flew! While she was looking for green moss to cover these stones, she was startled to see the sun setting, a red ball on the horizon. She hurried back to the 'Home.' As she slipped through the hedge, Emma, the pupil-teacher in charge, hurried across the yard.
"Where on earth have you been, Anne?" she asked crossly. "The supper-bell rang long ago. I've looked for you everywhere. Where've you been, I say?"
"Over there," Anne answered, nodding vaguely toward the lawn.
"Out of bounds!" exclaimed Emma. "You knew better, Anne. That you did. You come straight to Miss Farlow. She was dreadful worried when I told her I couldn't find you."
Miss Farlow, too, reproved Anne sharply. She was to have a bread-and-water supper, and then go straight to bed. And she must never again go out of bounds alone—never. That was strictly forbidden.
Anne ate her bread and drank her water with a downcast air. She was not thinking about the scolding and her punishment. She was troubled because Miss Farlow had forbidden her to go off the 'Home' grounds again. Must she give up her dear secret playhouse? She and Honey-Sweet had had such a good time! And they were planning to spend all their Saturday afternoons there. Finally she asked Emma what would be done if she disobeyed Miss Farlow and went outside bounds again.