"What is it?" said Mr. Fairchild; "there is some little mystery here; let us hear it. What has happened? I trust that you have not been playing in the sun and made yourselves unwell."
"No, papa," replied Henry, "we are not"—he was going to say hungry, but that would not have been true. "We are not—we do not—we do not wish for any supper; do we, Emily?"
"What!" said Mr. Fairchild, with a smile, and yet at the same time a little alarmed—"what! did you and Emily talk the affair over before, and agree together that you would not have any supper with us?"
"We did, papa," replied Henry bravely, "and when the things are taken away we will tell you all about it."
"I do beg," said Mr. Fairchild, "that you will tell us all about it, even before we begin to eat; for there is your mamma looking anxious; Emily looking ready to cry, and Lucy, too, with her. What is this great secret?"
"I will tell you, papa," said Henry, getting up, and walking round to his father's knee. "I opened the door, papa," he said; "it was not Emily's fault, she told me not to do it—and then she came out—and she went to the top of the barn, and we went after her—and she chattered to us—and then she went, and then we came after her—and then she sat on the gate, and went on and came to the stile, talking all the way, almost as if she had been making game of us. Did she not, Emily?"
"Really, my dear boy," replied Mr. Fairchild, forcing himself to smile, "you must try to make your story plainer, or we shall be more in the dark at the end of it than we were at the beginning. All I now understand is, that you and Emily climbed over the roof of the barn after some
body. Well, and I hope you got no fall in this strange exploit?"
"You are not angry, papa?" said Lucy. "Henry has often been on the thatch of the barn and never got hurt."
"I did not say I was angry, my dear," replied Mr. Fairchild. "I might say that it was neither safe nor prudent for little girls to scramble up such places, and I might say, do not try these things again; but if no harm was intended, why was I to be angry? But I must hear a more straightforward story than Henry has told me; he has not given me the name of the person who went chattering before him and Emily; was it a fairy, a little spiteful fairy, Emily? Did you let her out of a box, as the princess did in the fairytale? And what has all this to do with your refusing your suppers? Come, Emily, let us hear your account of this affair."