"I did not break the bowl," she repeated.
"But, my dear, the pieces which you carried under your apron to the garden?" murmured Miss Thomasine, greatly aghast at the turn which affairs were taking.
"How do you know I did?" asked Theodora, her face, which had become pale, again growing red.
"I—I thought I heard them clatter, but I may have been mistaken."
"The only thing to do," said Miss Joanna, "is to go to the garden ourselves, and find what is left of the bowl. You said, Thomasine, that she appeared to have placed the pieces among the currant-bushes. Then we shall discover whether or not you were mistaken. You are painfully weak and indefinite, and I am glad that I, for one, always know what I am talking about. Do you not agree with me, Adaline, that it would be well for us to go?"
Miss Middleton acquiesced, and the five sisters made themselves ready for their walk. They were arrayed in garden hats and black silk mantillas, and each one carried a sunshade. Even in the midst of her misery Theodora wondered at their dressing so exactly alike, and why they all wore gloves that were too large for them.
SLOWLY THEY WALKED, TWO BY TWO, ALONG THE PATH.
Slowly they walked, two by two, along the path which led to the garden, the maids watching them from the kitchen windows, and John, the hired man, pausing in his work among the sweet-pease to stare after them in astonishment. He also had heard of the calamity which had befallen the household, but he did not know the connection between that and the foot of the garden, and he never before had seen his mistresses walk there at high noon (as it was according to the old dial), though he had lived with them, and hoed their potatoes for twenty years.