"Of course I do."
"Mean what?" asked Nina, full of curiosity.
"I don't think I'll let you know. It's a secret."
"Yes, do. I'll never tell. Truly and honestly I won't."
"Well, why shouldn't we slip out of the side door, and run down the road to that little shop at the corner of Valley Lane; we could buy some chestnuts there, and perhaps some fireworks as well. I have sixpence here in my pocket."
"Oh, we should be caught!"
"No, we shouldn't. If we manage well, nobody will see us, and it won't take ten minutes. There's plenty of time before tea. Who'll come?"
No one spoke. The adventure was so serious that each girl felt rather doubtful about undertaking it, and shook her head.
"Well, you are a set of cowards," said Hazel. "I wish Connie Camden wasn't having her music lesson; she'd go in a second. Linda, you might."
"Don't, Linda," pleaded Sylvia. "It really isn't worth it. I shan't."
"Linda isn't bound to ask your leave," said Hazel sharply. "She can do as she likes, I suppose. Come, Linda. It would be such a joke!"
"I'm sure Marian wouldn't let me go," said Gwennie, "or go herself either. She's at her practising now."
"All right! I don't want either of you, nor Jessie Ellis. But, Nina, you like a little fun, I know. Come with Linda and me."
"I didn't say I would," faltered Linda.
"Yes, you will, and Nina too. We three are the only ones in the class with an ounce of courage."
Nina hesitated a moment and was lost. She was very easily led, and it flattered her so much to have Hazel Prestbury actually begging for her company that she had not the strength of character to refuse. Linda looked first at one of her friends and then at the other; they were almost equally balanced in her affections, but on this occasion Hazel, the elder, the more important, and the more persuasive, slightly turned the scale.
"I don't know whether I'll really go," she said; "but I'll come as far as the gate, and watch you start. There can't be much harm in that."
"Miss Coleman said we mustn't go into the garden to-day. It's raining," volunteered Gwennie.
"Oh, bother! We don't mind the rain. By the way, you girls must all promise faithfully you won't be so mean as to tell," said Hazel.
"You needn't be in the least afraid," replied Sylvia, rising, and going over to the bookcase; "we're none of us telltales, at any rate, whatever other names you may call us."
The naughty trio crept quietly from the playroom into the dressing-room, where their garden hats and jackets were kept; then, quite forgetting either to change their shoes or put on goloshes, they ran into the drizzling rain, and, keeping well behind the bushes, soon reached the front gate and peeped cautiously out. Nobody was in sight, the road looked perfectly clear, and it would hardly take five minutes to gain the small shop in Valley Lane and buy what they wanted.
"Come along!" said Hazel, holding out her hand to Linda.
But Linda stopped. The remembrance of a look she had seen in Sylvia's eyes rose up before her, again her friends seemed to be pulling in two different ways, and her own better judgment told her which was the right one.
"I think I won't," she said. "I only came to see you off, you know.
I'm going back to play draughts with Sylvia."
"Very well," replied Hazel, much offended. "Nina and I will go by ourselves. Don't expect any of the chestnuts or fireworks, for you shan't have them."
Linda managed to return through the garden unobserved, and finding Sylvia in the classroom, the two sat chatting quietly until the teabell rang. Nina and Hazel came in to tea rather out of breath, and with very red cheeks.
"We've got them," they whispered. "A whole bag of lovely chestnuts, and two boxes of coloured matches, and a magic snake's egg. We ran all the way back, and didn't see anybody but a policeman."
"We're going to have such a jubilee to-night! Nina's coming into our bedroom to let off the snake with Connie and me," said Hazel.
"It's no fun with only Jessie Ellis," said Nina.
When tea was over, and the girls were just leaving the room, Miss Kaye called to Hazel, Nina, and Linda, saying she wished to speak to them for a moment. She held Elsie Thompson by the hand, and motioned the children into her study.
"Now, girls," she said gravely, "I wish to ask you something. Elsie tells me that she was looking out of the top landing window before tea, and she saw you all three go through the garden to the gate, and run down the road towards Aberglyn. Is this true?"
"No, Miss Kaye," replied Hazel promptly. "We didn't go out anywhere; did we, Nina?"
"No," said Nina, though with less assurance.
It was a bold step of Hazel's to deny what they had done, but Elsie Thompson's habit of making up stories was well known, and on this account she hoped they might escape. Linda gave no reply. She was in a terrible difficulty. To tell the truth would of course implicate the other two; yet she was not prepared with such a deliberate falsehood.
"Did you go down the Aberglyn road, Linda?" asked the headmistress.
"No, Miss Kaye," said Linda, feeling that her truth was only half a truth after all, and more ashamed of herself than she liked to think.
"I am very glad to hear it," said Miss Kaye, looking relieved. "Elsie is such a little girl that I believe she hardly knows yet how naughty it is to tell such wrong tales. I shall have to be very cross with you, Elsie, if you do so again." And, shaking her head at the small six-year-old, she dismissed the four.
Hazel waited till they were safely down the passage, then, seizing Elsie by the arm, she gave her a hard smack.
"You nasty little thing!" she cried; "what do you mean by telling tales about us to Miss Kaye?"
"But I really saw you," wailed Elsie.
"You didn't. And if you say a word about this to Sadie, or May Spencer, or anybody else, a big black bogy will come to your bed to-night and eat you up. Yes, he will," she said, as poor little Elsie fled in terror to the playroom; "he told me so himself."
"I never thought Elsie would see us," said Hazel. "It was most unfortunate. We got out of it better than I expected, though. We shall have to hide away those chestnuts; it won't be safe to roast them, or to let off the snake either."
"Oh, Hazel, I wish you hadn't done it!" said Linda. "We've told the most dreadful stories."
"Well, you haven't, at any rate. Miss Kaye asked if you had been down the Aberglyn road, and you didn't go, so you only said what was quite true."
"Yes, but----"
"Oh, what's the use of 'buts'? We can't help it now! There's the prep.
bell, and we shall have to go along. I hope none of the other girls will say anything. I don't suppose they will."
Linda went into preparation with a very uneasy mind. She was a truthful child, and could not bear to be mixed up with any deceit; but on the other hand she did not like to get her classmates into trouble.
She was astonished that Hazel should behave so; it spoilt her faith in her friend, and recalled to her memory several other incidents which she had not noticed much at the time, but were nevertheless occasions on which Hazel had not acted in a strictly honourable manner.
"There was the Punch and Judy on the beach," thought Linda, "when she asked the man to begin, and promised we would give him some pennies, and then said she hadn't any money with her. And once she found Winnie Ingham's penknife, and kept it in her pocket for a week without telling her. And it was she who told Greta Collins to call 'stingy'
after Nellie Parker, because she only put down threepence for the fireworks; and it was too bad, for Nellie hardly has any pocket money, and she had given all she had. Oh, dear! I wish Hazel wouldn't do such things. She's so nice in every other way. I like her immensely. But what I think is horrid she only laughs at and calls fun. Sylvia never does." And with that last comparison between her two friends, Linda put her elbows on her desk, and her fingers in her ears, and tried to settle herself to the stern task of learning the subjunctive mood of the verb _rendre_, having a lively horror of Mademoiselle's wrath on the morrow if she went to the French class with an ill-prepared lesson.