“Yes, of course,” replied the spider. But the instant Priscilla sat down she found herself moving along after her guide just as fast as before. It seemed to her that she was sliding out through one of the roots of the big oak tree.
“Here we are. Now be sure you don’t talk back.”
Slowly it seemed to grow light—not bright light, but just so that she could see where she was. She was in a room, and it looked a good deal more like a cellar than a parlor.
At one end of the room sat the Hopolanthus, and really until he spoke he wasn’t very terrible. He looked exactly like the kangaroo Priscilla once saw in the Zoo—only after you’d looked at him twice he was a good deal different.
“What has this—this young person been doing, now?”
The way he emphasized that word “now” made Priscilla forget all about not talking back. It was just as much as to say that of course she was always doing something wrong, and the only question was as to what she had done last. She opened her mouth to reply, when she was violently seized by the arms, and a shrill voice from just behind answered for her.
“Ah, she eat ze cake—ze big piece of cake, and ze big—ah, ze emense plate of ze ice cream. It is not wonder she lie here and keek ze grass, and make ze dreadful groan. Ze sillee child.”
And Susette shook her again, and Grace and Halbert danced around and yelled like a pair of young savages. It was a full minute before Priscilla could find her voice.
“You had no business to wake me up just when—you always do things wrong. I was just going to tell the old Hopolanthus that—”
But the children stopped dancing around, and Susette stood still and stared—which wasn’t common for Susette—and Priscilla couldn’t help seeing that they didn’t know what on earth she was talking about. She rubbed her eyes and looked up among the branches of the big oak. There was nothing there—neither bumble-bee, nor spider, nor Hopolanthus—only a small green tree toad who winked his dull little eyes just exactly as if he might, or might not, know all about it.