Peggy looked down. Her little white feet were all dabbled with earth stains and green streaks. The lawn had been very wet with dew, and she had run across it and then across two of the flower-beds, so the earth had stuck to her damp feet and stained them brown.
“Oh!” said Peggy. She was very frightened. Then she remembered Dr. Seaton’s advice. “I think, Martin,” she said, “I will go and speak to auntie alone.” And without more ado, she ran across the passage and into Aunt Euphemia’s room without giving herself time to think. You will find this isn’t a bad way of telling about anything you are afraid to tell.
“Please, auntie, I’ve come to show you my feet, and tell. It’s because I went out last night through the window, after I was put to bed. I wanted to pound chalk again, and I did for quite a long time, and then I didn’t, and I went back to bed,” she cried all in a breath, holding up her night-dress to show the brown earth-stains on her feet. Aunt Euphemia sat up in bed and stared.
“Peggy!” she exclaimed, “you went out—went out into the garden in your night-dress!”
“Yes. Please, auntie don’t be very angry. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong; it was only that I wanted so very much to find some more pearls,” Peggy pleaded.
Martin came in, grim and rather pleased to have found Peggy out in such a fault.
“There’s no doing with her, Miss Roberts,” she said—“always in some mischief or other; and if I may suggest, I think a young lady that could do so wrong should just be kept in her bed all day. I doubt but she’ll have got a chill too. A day in bed will just be the best thing for her.”
Aunt Euphemia always agreed with everything Martin said, and Peggy knew her fate was sealed. Outside, the beautiful, happy world was all green and bright; but she was going to be put to bed and kept there all day.
“Come away,” said Martin triumphantly; “you must just take your bath, and then go back to your bed, Miss Peggy. No jam with your bread to-day, mind.”
So Peggy was bathed and put to bed; and turning her face to the wall, she wept long and bitterly and repented of her sins.