"Oh! we'll be quite happy together," said Irene, with a careless nod; and then she went up to her room, opened the door gently, shut it quietly behind her, and shading the candle with one hand, went over to little Agnes's bed.
There was no Agnes there. But a huge hedgehog had curled itself up in a ball close to the pillow where the little delicate head had been pressed. Irene was afraid of no living creature, and she recognized the hedgehog at once. She took it up and laid it on the window-sill. Then she looked round her. Her face was white as death; her teeth chattered. She suddenly left the room and went straight to Lucy's. She opened the door without knocking.
"Lucy!" she said.
"What is it?" said Lucy, who was brushing out her long fair hair.
"Did you put a hedgehog into Agnes's bed?"
"Certainly not," said Lucy.
"Well, some one did as a trick, and the child isn't there."
"The child isn't there? There's only one person who could do that sort of thing, and that is yourself, as you know very well," said Lucy. "But is the child nowhere in the room?"
"You come and look for her, will you?" said Irene. Her tone and manner had completely altered. She was forcing herself to use self-control. Had Fuzz and Buzz, and Thunder and Lightning, and the Stars been present at that moment, there is not the least doubt that Irene would have elected them to wreak their vengeance on Lucy; but she was keeping herself in for all she was worth at the present moment, for after all even Lucy did not much matter—it was little Agnes who mattered.
"Here's the hedgehog," said Irene when they entered her bedroom—"a great big one—and some one had put it into the little one's bed, and she's not there, and you know how timid she is. Where is she? You know I didn't do it. Is it likely I'd do it to one I love?"