out pudding)--he
said--

"Please we've brought some pudding for the poor people."

He looked us up and down, and he looked at our basket, then he said:
"You'd better see the Matron."

We waited in a hall, feeling more and more uncomfy, and less and less
like Christmas. We were very cold indeed, especially our hands and our
noses. And we felt less and less able to face the Matron if she was
horrid, and one of us at least wished we had chosen the Quaggy for the
pudding's long home, and made it up to the robbed poor in some other way
afterwards.

Just as Alice was saying earnestly in the burning cold ear of Oswald,
"Let's put down the basket and make a bolt for it. Oh, Oswald, _let's_!"
a lady came along the passage. She was very upright, and she had eyes
that went through you like blue gimlets. I should not like to be obliged
to thwart that lady if she had any design, and mine was opposite. I am
glad this is not likely to occur.

She said, "What's all this about a pudding?"

H.O. said at once, before we could stop him, "They say I've stolen the
pudding, so we've brought it here for the poor people."

"No, we didn't!" "That wasn't why!" "The money was given!" "It was
meant for the poor!" "Shut up, H.O.!" said the rest of us all at once.

Then there was an awful silence. The lady gimleted us again one by one
with her blue eyes.

Then she said: "Come into my room. You all look frozen."

She took us into a very jolly room with velvet curtains and a big fire,
and the gas lighted, because now it was almost dark, even out of doors.
She gave us chairs, and Oswald felt as if his was a dock, he felt so
criminal, and the lady looked so Judgular.

Then she took the arm-chair by the fire herself, and said, "Who's the
eldest?"

"I am," said Dora, looking more like a frightened white rabbit than I've
ever seen her.

"Then tell me all about it."

Dora looked at Alice and began to cry. That slab of pudding in the face
had totally unnerved the gentle girl. Alice's eyes were red, and her
face was puffy with crying; but she spoke up for Dora and said--

"Oh, please let Oswald tell. Dora can't. She's tired with the long walk.
And a young man threw a piece of it in her face, and----"

The lady nodded and Oswald began. He told the story from the very
beginning, as he has always been taught to, though he hated to lay bare
the family honour's wound before a stranger, however judgelike and
gimlet-eyed He told all--not conceali