out in the open
air."

"Oh, you do look bad, Paulie!" said Nancy. "It is that terrible fasting
you went through to-day. My dear girls, what do you think? This poor
little aristocrat, far and away too good to talk to the likes of
us"--here Nancy put her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh
at the prostrate Pauline--"far too grand, girls--fact, I assure you--was
kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water
at supper. All these things are owing to an aunt--one of the tip-top of
the nobility. This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor
internal arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the poor child into
a place she calls Punishment Land, and kept her without food."

"That isn't true," said Pauline. "I could have had plenty to eat if I had
liked."

"That means that if you were destitute of one little spark of spirit
you'd have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold
plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? Hungry again?"

"No; it is my arm. Please don't touch it."

"Do look!" cried Amy Perkins. "Oh, Nancy, she has got an awful burn!
There's quite a hole through the sleeve of her dress. Oh, do see this
great blister!"

"It was a bit of one of the squibs," said Pauline. "It lit right on my
arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don't suppose it's much hurt, only
I feel a little faint."

"Dear, dear!" said Nancy. "What is to be done now? I don't know a thing
about burns, or about any sort of illness. Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps
she can tell us something."

"Let's put on a bandage," said one of the other girls. "Then when you lie
down in bed, Pauline, you will drop asleep and be all right in the
morning."

Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep into bed. Her arm
was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless it felt slightly more
comfortable. Presently she dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that
doze she awoke soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her
side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming from the
other end of the long room, and to observe also that there was not a
chink of light anywhere; and, finally, to be all too terribly conscious
of a great burning pain in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor
Pauline's slumbering conscience.

"Why did I come?" she said to herself. "I am a wretched, most miserable
girl. And how am I ever to get back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree