Hattie sat down upon the lower step, and doubling herself over and rocking back and forth, said between paroxysms of laughter,—
"Oh, dear! Bessie is round there talking to the old fellow. She's all right. Didn't I play you two geese a nice trick, though? How you did run! I didn't think you could be so taken in. Oh, what fun!"
"What!" exclaimed Lily, indignation taking the place of her alarm, "were you tricking us? Didn't he try to take your hair? Hattie, Hattie! you mean, mean girl! And you told us a real wicked story, too. How dare you do it?" And Lily stamped her foot at Hattie, in a real passion at the trick which had been played upon her.
The effect was different upon Belle. She was a sensitive little thing, easily overcome by any undue excitement; and, throwing herself upon Maggie, she burst into a violent fit of sobbing and crying.
Miss Ashton and her friends heard and came to inquire into the trouble; and Hattie was now rather frightened herself as she saw the effect of her foolish deceit.
Lily indignantly told the story, which amounted to this. It was a well-known fact, and had unfortunately come to the ears of our little girls, that some man had lately attacked several children, and suddenly severed the hair from their heads, making off as fast as possible after he had done so. He did this for the sake of the hair, which he probably sold; but he was, of course, a bad man and a thief, and the children all felt much dread of him.
So when Hattie had come flying up to Bessie, Belle, and Lily, without any hat, and seemingly in a state of the wildest excitement, and had told them, with every appearance of truth and of being herself excessively frightened, that "that old man there" had snatched off her hat and tried to cut her hair, they had readily believed her—as an old man was really there—and had turned about and run away in great alarm. They had been terrified half out of their senses; and now here was Hattie confessing—yes, glorying, till Miss Ashton came—that she had "tricked" them, that she was "only in fun," it was all "a joke."
But her triumph was speedily brought to an end, when Miss Ashton saw Belle's state, and heard how it had been brought about. She sternly reprimanded Hattie, and bade her go into the house, and remain there.
But where was Bessie?
The other children declared that "an old man was really there;" and, in spite of Hattie's confession that she had only been joking, Maggie's mind was filled with visions of her little sister's sunny curls in the hands of a ruffian; and away she flew in search of her, quite regardless of any supposed risk to her own wealth of dark, waving ringlets.