“It will make things easier,” she thought. “They will all be on the lawn doing their needlework, and Aunt Sophia will be reading to them. I will go past them quite quietly to my room, and then——”
These thoughts made Pauline comparatively happy. Once or twice she smiled, and a vindictive, ugly expression visited her small face.
“She little knows,” thought the girl. “Oh, she little knows! She thinks that she is so clever—so terribly clever; but, after all, she has not the least idea of the right way to treat me. No, she has not the least idea. And perhaps by-and-by she will be sorry for what she has done.”
Seven o’clock was heard to strike in the house. Pauline, retracing her steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss Tredgold. Miss Tredgold slightly raised her voice as the culprit appeared. She read aloud with more determination than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was hemming and watched Pauline.
“I a’most wish I wor her,” thought the ex-nursery child. “Anything is better than this horrid sewing. How it pricks my fingers! That reminds me; I wonder where Aunt Sophy’s thimble has got to. I did look hard for it. I wish I could find it. I do want that penny so much! It was a beauty thimble, too, and she loves it. I don’t want to give it back to her ’cos she loves it, but I should like my penny.”
Pauline had now nearly disappeared from view.
“Paulie is up to a lark,” thought Penelope, who was the sharpest of all the children, and read motives as though she was reading an open book. “She doesn’t walk as though she was tur’ble unhappy. I wonder what she’s up to. And that red stain on her cheek was fruit; course it was fruit. How did she get it? I wish I knew. I’ll try and find out.”
Pauline had now reached her bedroom. There she hastily put on her best clothes. They were very simple, but, under Miss Tredgold’s regime, fairly nice. She was soon attired in a neat white frock; and an old yellow sash of doubtful cleanliness and a bunch of frowsy red poppies were folded in a piece of tissue paper. Pauline then slipped on her sailor hat. She had a great love for the old sash; and as to the poppies, she thought them far more beautiful than any real flowers that ever grew. She meant to tie the yellow sash round her waist when she reached the shrubbery, and to pin the poppies into her hat. The fact that Miss Tredgold had forbidden her to wear this sash, and had herself removed the poppies from her Sunday hat, gave her now a sense of satisfaction.
“Young ladies don’t wear things of that sort,” Miss Tredgold had said.
“A young lady shall wear things of this sort to-night,” thought Pauline.