Pauline stood still for a minute, watching Nancy as she disappeared from view; then slowly and sadly she went up to the house.
She was too tired and depressed to mind very much that the rain was falling in showers, soaking her thin white muslin dress, and chilling her already tired and exhausted little frame. The rattle of the thunder, the bright flash of the lightning, and the heavy fall of the tempest could not reach the graver trouble which filled her heart. The way of transgressors had proved itself very hard for poor Pauline. She disliked the discomfort and misery she was enduring; but even now she was scarcely sorry that she had defied and disobeyed Aunt Sophia.
After a great deal of difficulty, and with some injury to her already injured arm, she managed to climb the beech-tree and so reach the gabled roof just under her attic window. She pushed the window wide open and got inside. How dear and sweet and fresh the little chamber appeared! How innocent and good was that little white bed, with its sheets still smoothly folded down! It took Pauline scarcely a minute to get into her night-dress, sweep her offending white dress into a neighboring cupboard, unlock the door, and put her head on her pillow. Oh, there was no place like home! It was better to be hungry at home, it was better to be in punishment at home, than to go away to however grand a place and however luxuriant a feast.
“And Nancy’s home isn’t grand,” thought Pauline. “And the food was rough. Aunt Sophia would even call it coarse. But, oh, I was hungry! And if I hadn’t been so naughty I’d have been very happy. All the same,” she continued, thinking aloud, as was her fashion. “I won’t go to that midnight picnic; and Renny must not go either. Of course, I can’t tell Aunt Sophia what I did last night. I promised Nancy I wouldn’t tell, and it wouldn’t be fair; but see if I do anything wrong again! I’ll work like a Briton at my lessons to-day. Oh, how badly my arm hurts! And what an awful noise the storm is making! The thunder rattles as though it would come through the roof. My arm does ache! Oh, what lightning! I think I’ll put my head under the sheet.”
Pauline did so, and notwithstanding the tempest, she had scarcely got down into the real warmth of her bed before sleep visited her.
When she awoke the storm was over, the sun was shining, and Verena was standing at the foot of her bed.
“Do get up, Paulie,” she said. “How soundly you have slept! And your face is so flushed! And, oh, aren’t you just starving? We only discovered last night that you hadn’t touched any of your food.”
“I’m all right,” said Pauline.
“You will try to be good to-day, won’t you, Paulie? You don’t know how miserable I was without you, for you are my own special most darling chum. You will try, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will try, of course,” said Pauline. “Truly—truly, I will try.”