Mother was far away, Sally well knew, but who else was there to save her from this dreadful plight?
The new white dress was covered with mud, wet and soft black mud. Muddy were Sally’s shoes and stockings, muddy were her knees.
Sally looked at herself in dismay. Then she began to cry. She put her hands up to her face, she cried and rubbed, she rubbed and cried.
And when Sally put her hands down, you could call her nothing but a black-a-moor. Instead of a pink-and-white little girl, dressed in a fresh white frock, there stood in Sally’s back garden a black child, only faintly streaked with white, who stood first on one foot and then on the other, because she simply didn’t know what else to do.
Where could she go? Who would help her? What would the company think? And what, oh! what, would Mother say?
At the thought of Mother, Sally fairly danced up and down.
‘Oh! Oh!’ wailed Sally, remembering how Mother had told her to be ‘as quiet as a mouse and as polite as a lady.’ ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’
How could a wet, uncomfortable black-a-moor be ‘as quiet as a mouse and as polite as a lady’? It simply couldn’t be done.
I really do not know what would have happened next if, just then, Sally had not heard some one unlocking the back door.
Then came Mother’s voice calling, ‘Sally! Sally!’