“We will send at once to enquire,” said Miss Ford. “We must on no account wait until Mrs Burton returns; there is not an instant to lose.”
“I will go myself,” said the doctor. “I know where their encampment is. It is really scarcely likely that they have the child. Gipsies don’t often steal children now-a-days. We may find the little fellow anywhere. I will also call at the police station, and get the police to begin to search for him.”
When Dr Pyke left the house, Miss Ford turned to Harriet.
“A nice sort of school-mother you have made,” she said. “You don’t suppose that you will win your pony after this, you bad girl. Come with me at once into the third form parlour, and wait there until Mrs Burton returns. She will then decide what is to be done with you.”
“I don’t want any pony,” suddenly sobbed Harriet. “I only want Ralph. I know I am desperately naughty, but I don’t want anything in all the world now but Ralph.”
“It is easy for you to talk like that now that you have neglected the poor little fellow so shamefully, and disobeyed Mrs Burton’s strictest orders. Come with me at once, you bad child.”
Harriet went. So subdued was she, that she did not even hate Miss Ford for speaking to her in this way. A minute later, she found herself in the third form special parlour. One electric light was on. It threw a dim reflection over the scene. Harriet looked round at the familiar objects—the table in the middle, the story-books, the globes in their corner, the birds in their cages, and the parrot in his cage.
The small birds were all asleep. The books and toys, and tables and chairs could not move; but the parrot was wide awake, and very much alive. He hopped from side to side and looked hard at Harriet. At last, he screamed in a noisy, shrill tone:
“Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha! Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha!”
Poor Harriet. She flung herself down on the floor and cried as though her heart would break. She was only a little girl still, and not all bad. That pony with his side-saddle, that perfectly made habit, all the delights which she had sinned so deeply to obtain, would have been as ashes now in her mouth. She only wanted Ralph now, and Ralph was far away. Why had she behaved so badly? Oh what, what was happening?