“Open the door immediately, you bad, bad children!” she exclaimed.
“Oh Phyllis, can we hide anywhere?” said Susie.
“No, no, Susie,” answered Phyllis; “we are found out, and we have got to pay for it. Well, I have enjoyed myself; haven’t you?”
“If you don’t open the door immediately,” said Miss Fleet’s voice again, “I shall have it burst open.”
“Yes, children, open the door directly,” said a sterner, older, graver tone; and then Ralph drew himself up, and Edward prepared for severe punishment, for it was the Rector’s voice which now was heard.
“Give me the key, Phyl,” said Ralph, turning to the little girl. “I will say it was almost altogether my fault.”
“You will do nothing of the kind, for it is not true,” said Phyllis.
She turned very white, and her lips trembled. She did not like the bad moment which lay before her, but on no account was she going to excuse herself. So she marched—“just as if she were a queen, the darling,” said Susie, describing it afterwards—to the door and unlocked it, and flung it open, and stood with her hair hanging about her shoulders and her frock in disorder, facing the indignant but almost speechless Miss Fleet and the tall, burly figure of the Rector.
“Well?” said Miss Fleet. “Well, and what have you to say for yourself?”
“I know I have, been very naughty,” said Phyllis; “I know it quite well, and,”—her eyes danced—“and I’m not sorry; no, I have had such a good time that I’m not sorry. As to the children of the Rectory, they are not a bit, not one scrap to blame. It was all my doing. I wrote a letter to Ralph when you forbade them all to come, for it was shabby of you; and, as you would not allow us to have tea properly downstairs, we had it here. That is all.”