Doris did not wait to hear the completion of the sentence, but turned impatiently away and retraced her footsteps to the house, whilst Felicia walked on slowly towards the Priory in a very disturbed state of mind. She had no idea that Doris had been deliberately endeavouring to frighten her with the thought of her grandfather's anger, and her spirits grew more and more depressed as she reflected on the possibility of being sent to boarding-school. She felt so upset that she took a turn around the lake to gain time and control of her feelings before encountering her grandfather and Uncle Guy; and when, at last, she entered the house, it was a positive relief to hear that the former was not at home.
"Father's bothered about the gipsies," Uncle Guy informed her when she sought him in his sitting-room, where, subsequently, they had tea together; "they've been setting snares for rabbits in the woods, he has found several himself to-day, and he's furious about it. I believe father would rather give away a hundred rabbits than have one poached. Woe betide the man caught in the preserves after this!"
"Do you think it is really the gipsies who are snaring the rabbits?" Felicia asked in somewhat faltering accents.
"Little doubt of it. I only hope there will be no fuss between them and the gamekeepers. Poachers are, as a rule, a desperate set. I wish these gipsies would see fit to clear out of the district."
"I wish they had never come," Felicia said so fervently that her uncle was surprised.
The little girl had resolved she would tell her grandfather she had been to the encampment, and explain the circumstances which bad taken her there; but, unfortunately, she did not see him that night, and the next morning, when she met him at breakfast, he was so full of his grievances against the gipsies that she could not summon up sufficient courage to make her confession. So the opportunity for telling him passed, and as the day wore on she began to ask herself if she need tell him at all. Why should she risk his anger when she had not intended to do any harm? Still, she had disobeyed him, and her conscience told her she ought to inform him of the fact. She did not do so, however, for the longer she procrastinated, the greater became her dread of speaking out, and at the root of her cowardice was the fear that he would send her away from the Priory. Her relations had become very dear to her, especially Uncle Guy, and Molly—the only friend near her own age she had ever possessed, whilst she had grown deeply attached to Miss Barton, in whose favour she had been prejudiced from the first.
"Have you told grandfather about the little gipsy girl you played the good Samaritan to the other afternoon?" Doris asked Felicia a few days later, with a faint note of sarcasm in her quiet voice.
"No; I took your advice—"
"My advice?" Doris quickly interrogated; "what do you mean? I gave you no advice that I remember."
"You said, 'Why do you say anything to grandfather about it?'" Felicia reminded her a trifle reproachfully.