The girl suddenly dashed the tears from her eyes. What did the Leaves matter? Why shouldn't she endure a bad quarter of an hour looking at Miss Carter's terrified eyes? She couldn't live without Rosamund!
Accordingly, she pulled rapidly back to the shore, moored her boat, and rushed helter-skelter up to the house. Her mother met her in the hall.
"What is the matter, Irene dear?" she said.
"Nothing," said Irene. "Don't keep me. I want to speak to Rosamund."
Like a whirlwind, the wild little girl dashed through the house, up the winding stairs, down the corridor, until she burst into Rosamund's room. There she flung herself on the ground at her friend's feet, twined her arms round her waist, laid her head on her knee, and burst into tears.
"I will do anything you wish, for I can't live without you!" sobbed Irene.
CHAPTER XV.
A DRIVE TO THE RECTORY.
Rosamund was wonderfully wise for her years. She did not make a great fuss over Irene's tears. She did not soothe or pet her overmuch; she merely said, "I am glad you have come to your senses," and then she got up and began to prepare for lunch; so that Irene, feeling like a beaten child, and yet with a sense of happiness which she had never experienced before in the whole course of her life, went off to her own room, smoothed out her tangled hair, tidied her dress, and came down to lunch also, looking quite like a little ordinary Christian child—the sort of child who might have been first to a kindergarten and then at a good school—not the wild, obnoxious, terrible little creature whom every servant and every governess alike dreaded.