One day in July their mother and father had occasion to leave home for a long afternoon and evening.
"You can stay outdoors till half-past six," Mrs. Spenser said to her little girls; "then you must come in to tea, and at half-past seven you must go to bed as usual. You may play where you like in the grounds, but you must not go outside the gate." She kissed them for good-by. "Remember to be good," she said. Then she got into the carriage and drove away.
The children were very good for several hours. They played that little Marianne was their baby, and was carried off by a gypsy. Lois was the gypsy, and the chase and recapture of the stolen child made an exciting game.
At last they got tired of this, and the question arose: "What shall we do next?"
"I wish mother would let us play down the road," said Emmy. "The Noyse children's mother lets them."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Lois, struck by a sudden bright idea. "Let's go down to the shut-up house. That isn't outside the gate."
"O Lois! yes, it is. You can't go to the front door without walking on the road."
"Well, who said anything about the front door? I'm going to look in at the back windows. Mother never said we mustn't do that."
Still, it was with a sense of guilt that the three stole across the lawn; and they kept in the shadow of the hedge, as if afraid some one would see and call them back. Little Marianne, with her rag doll in her arms, began to run after them.
"There's that little plague tagging us," said Kitty.