, then, I should advise
you to tell _me_ the story, and then I can tell it to father, and save
you the trouble."

"Yes, Juliet," added Mr. Burnet; "tell us the whole story."

Thus persuaded, the girl poured out the tale of her adventures, which
had been pent up in her stubborn heart, as the waters were sometimes
pent up in the lock; and then, just as the waters when they escape
from the lock pour out and away in a mad foaming rush, so Juliet's
thoughts and words poured themselves out in a torrent when once she
began to talk.

"I thought--I thought--it was quite easy to manage a boat; and I
thought I would just take the _Fairy_ a little way, over to the
opposite bank, and get some forget-me-nots and come back again."

"Were you not forbidden to take out the boat?" asked Mr. Burnet.

Juliet hung her head, and then lifting it said, "Yes; but I did not
care. I would not be ordered about by them, nor by nobody. So I got
into the boat when they were all busy and untied the bit of rope from
the post, and then the water made it move away quite quick. And I
wanted to sit on the little seat that goes across, and I slipt and
caught my shin such a crack against the edge of it, and I went down on
my face on the floor; and I should have liked to call out, but I did
not want anybody to know that I was gone. And when I did get on the
seat and rubbed my shin-bone, which it has got the skin scratched off
and sticking to my stocking, there was two great pieces of wood to be
put out on each side to push the boat on with."

"The sculls," Philip put in.

"They ain't skulls; they are more like arms, or legs perhaps. They
were so heavy, and when I pulled one up from the floor and put the end
of it over into the water, I found it was the wrong end, and the spoon
part had come into the boat. So I got that one to go right after a
fight with it, and the other one went right much sooner; and so when
they were right in their sockets the boat was gone out into the middle
of the water. And I _was_ frightened, I can tell you."

"I should think so!" said Mr. Burnet.

"Go on," said young Leonard.

"And so I tried to put both the sticks in the water at the same time,
but when one went down the other went up, and the one that went down
made a great splash, and then got itself so much under the water that
it would not come up again for a long time; and so the one that went
up seemed to get stuck, and when it came down it made a worse splash
tha