"Well, if you don't care for feeding the animals perhaps you would like to play in the hay-loft?" said Madge with calm patience.
"Oh, yes! That is just what I should like!" cried Ann eagerly. A loft seemed to present fewer possibilities of danger than any of the other places of amusement to which they had yet taken her.
There was a little difficulty about climbing a ladder out of the yard. Ann was awkward, and the red cashmere dress being rather long she continually tripped over it. But when they had once safely reached the loft they had a grand game of play among the great heaps of hay and straw, scattering them untidily all over the neatly-swept floor in a way that was certain to drive Barton almost wild whenever he discovered it.
The distant ringing of a large bell at last broke in upon the children's shouts.
"That is to call us," explained Madge. "They always ring it when we are out in the fields and forget tea. But it can't be tea now because we have had it. I expect Mrs. Winter wants to go home."
"Oh, whatever will Grandmama say when she sees my dress!" wailed Ann as they emerged from the gloom of the loft into full daylight. "It was new to go to London," she continued sadly; "and Mother said it would do to wear on Sundays all through the year."
The red cashmere had indeed suffered sadly. It bore greasy traces of having been in contact with the pig-sty door all down its front, and was also torn in more than one place. Mrs. Winter was very much distressed by her grandchild's appearance when they returned to the house, and scolded her somewhat severely for having behaved in a rough and unmannerly fashion when out on a visit. Poor Ann burst into tears, and was only partially comforted when Miss Thompson took her upstairs and kindly stitched together the worst of the rents so that she might not look absolutely ragged on her way home.
When the little pony cart drove away from the door Madge returned rather thoughtfully to the schoolroom with the tortoise-shell cat in her arms.
"It seems a curious thing," she said, "that people are not always happy when you mean them to be. I thought Ann would like the same things as we do, and after all she has gone away almost crying, and hasn't enjoyed herself a bit."
"Another time," answered Miss Thompson, "when you really wish to give your guests pleasure, you had better consult their tastes instead of your own. If you had only considered for a moment, it was not probable that a town child would be as familiar with animals as you are; and it was also easy to see that Ann had been dressed in her best clothes for the afternoon and was afraid of hurting them."