"Upon my word!
And what next, might I ask?"

"Oh, shut up, and hang your grandmother!" said Pip, brushing past
her, and going a circuitous voyage to the shed lest she should be
watching.

He knelt down beside his little sister and fed her with morsels of
chicken and sips of wine, and stroked her wild hair, and called
her old girl fifty times, and besought her to eat just a little more
and a little more.

And Judy, catching the look in the brown, wet eyes above her, ate all
he offered, though the first mouthful nearly choked her; she would
have eaten it had it been elephant's hide, seeing she loved this boy
better than anything else in the world, and he was in such distress.
She was the better for it, too, and sat up and talked quite naturally
after a little time.

"You shouldn't have done t you shouldn't really, you know, old girl,
and what the governor will say to you beats me."

"He won't know," she answered quickly. "I'd never forgive whoever told
him. I can only stay a week. I've arranged it all beautifully, and I
shall live here in this loft; Father never dreams of coming here, so
it will be quite safe, and you can all bring me food. And then after
a week"--she sighed heavily--"I must go back again."

"Did you really walk all those miles just to see us?" Pip said,
and again there was the strange note in his voice.

"I got a lift or two on the way," she said, "but I walked
nearly all of it, I've been coming for nearly a week:"

"How COULD you do it? Where did you sleep, Judy? What did you eat?"
Meg exclaimed, in deep distress.

"I nearly forget," Judy said; closing her eyes again. "I kept
asking for food at little cottages, and sometimes they asked me to
sleep, and I had three-and-six--that went a long way. I only slept
outside two nights, and I had my jacket then."

Meg's face was pale with horror at her sister's adventure. Surely no
girl in the wide world but Judy Woolcot would have attempted such a
harebrained project as walking all those miles with three-and-six in
her pocket.

"How COULD you?" was all she could find to say. "I hadn't meant
to walk all the way," Judy said, with a faint mile. "I had seven
shillings in a bit of paper in my pocket, as well as the three-and-six,
and I knew it would take me a long way in the train. But then I lost
it after I had started, and I didn't believe in going back just for
that, so, of course, I had to walk."

Meg touched her cheek softly.

"I