"Only for a walk," she answered.
"A walk all by yourself? How pale you are, dearie. Have you a headache?"
"No, Auntie."
Aunt Marjorie pulled Judy forward. She felt her forehead and looked at her tongue, and put her in such a position that she could gaze down into her throat.
Not being able to detect anything the matter, she thought it best to scold her niece a little.
"Little girls oughtn't to walk slowly and to be dismal," she said. "It is very wrong and ungrateful of them. They ought to run about and skip and laugh. Work while you work, and play while you play. That was the motto when I was a little girl. Now, Judy, love, go out with Babs and have a good romp. You had better both of you go to the hay-field, for it might distract your poor father to hear your two merry voices. Run, my dears, run; make yourselves scarce."
"Come, Babs," said Judy. She held out her hand to her little sister, and the two went away together.
"Do you know, Judy," said Babs, the moment they were out of Aunt Marjorie's hearing, "that I saw a quarter of an hour ago a great big spider in the garden catching a wasp. He rolled the poor wasp round and round with his web until he made him into a ball."
"And did you leave that poor wasp to die?" asked Judy, keen interest and keen anger coming into her voice.
"No, I didn't," said Babs. "I took him away from the spider. I wouldn't be kite so cruel as to let the poor thing die; but I s'pect he'll die all the same, for he can't get out of the ball that he's in."