"It would be nice to have strawberries for tea, aunt, and Lizzie could help John."
Miss Gordon sighed. "If I could only trust you, Elizabeth," she said. "But I wonder what new trouble you'll get into?"
"Oh, I promise I won't get into any!" gasped Elizabeth in solemn pledge, all unconscious that it was equivalent to a promise from the wind not to blow.
"It's no use promising," said Miss Gordon mournfully. "You know, Elizabeth, I have warned you repeatedly against the wild streak in you, and yet in the face of all my admonitions you still persist in acting in an unladylike manner. Now, when I was a little girl, I never went anywhere with my brother, your dear papa, except perhaps for a little genteel stroll——"
Elizabeth could bear no more. The last prop of endurance gave way at the sight of John and Charles Stuart marching calmly past the window, rattling their tin pails.
"Oh, Aunt Margaret!" she burst out in anguished tones, "couldn't you—would you please finish scolding me when I get back. The boys are gone!"
Miss Gordon paused, completely baffled. This strangest child of all this strange family of William's was quite beyond her.
"Go then," she said, with a gesture of despair. "Go. I have nothing more to say."
Elizabeth was tearing down the garden path before she had finished. To be cast off as hopeless was anguish, but it was nothing to the horror of being kept at home to be made genteel. In a moment more, with shrieks of joy, she was flying down the lane, towards two disgusted looking boys reluctantly awaiting her at the edge of the mill-pond.