CHAPTER IV.
THE SWEETS OF FREEDOM.
"You can do as you like, Milly; but I shall go!"
Small Herbert set his foot to the ground with a gesture of immovable firmness. Milly watched him with admiring eyes, still halting between two opinions.
"Oh, but, Bertie, isn't it naughty?"
"I don't care if it is. I'm going."
It was like hoisting the signal of revolt—revolt from the rule of the elder sister. They both knew that Prissy would never go, or let them go either, if she knew of the plan. And to slip away unknown to her, though not a difficult matter upon a Saturday afternoon, would mark an epoch in the life of this pair of properly-brought-up children, as both instinctively felt, though they could not have expressed themselves upon the subject.
"It's our holiday afternoon," said Bertie stoutly, his square face looking squarer than ever. "Nobody's told us never to go out of the orchard; we're allowed to know Pickle and Puck. They say they're going out for a lark on Saturday afternoon, and I'm going with them."
Milly's eyes were growing brighter and brighter; she looked with open admiration upon Herbert. He was younger than herself, but at this moment he seemed the older of the pair.
"Bertie," she asked, in a voice that was little above a whisper, "what is a lark?"