"Goodness!" whispered Marjory, "there's no knowing what Laura told her--she never _did_ tell anything straight."
"Let's keep still," said Mabel. "Perhaps she'll think there's nobody home."
"No hope of that," said Jean. "She saw us come in. But, pshaw! she can't hurt us anyway."
"No," said Marjory. "What's the use of being afraid? _We_ didn't do anything to be ashamed of. Aunty Jane says we should have turned Laura out the day she took the handkerchiefs."
"I'm not exactly afraid," said Bettie, "but I don't like Mrs. Milligan. Still, we'll have to let her in, I suppose."
A second vigorous peal at the bell warned them that their visitor was getting impatient.
"You're the biggest and the most dignified," said Marjory, giving Jean a shove. "_You_ go."
"Don't ask her in if you can help it," warned Bettie, in a pleading whisper. "The doorbell sounds as if she didn't like us very well."
But the visitor did not wait to be asked to come in. The moment Jean turned the key the door was flung open and Mrs. Milligan brushed past the astonished quartet and sailed into the parlor, where she seated herself bolt upright on the cozy corner.
"I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Milligan, in a hard, cold tone that fell unpleasantly on the cottagers' ears, "if you consider it ladylike for four great overgrown girls to pitch into one poor innocent little child and a helpless baby? Your conduct yesterday was simply _outrageous_. You might have injured those children for life, or even broken the baby's back."
"Broken the baby's back!" gasped Bettie, in honest amazement. "Why, I simply lifted him with my two hands and set him just outside the door. I never was rough with _any_ baby in all my life!"
"I happen to know, on excellent authority," said Mrs. Milligan, "that you slapped both of those helpless children and threw them down the front steps. Laura was so excited about it that she couldn't sleep, and the poor baby cried half the night--we fear that he's injured internally."
"Nobody _here_ injured him," said Mabel. "He always cries all the time, anyhow."
"We _did_ put them out and for a very good reason," said Jean, speaking as respectfully as she could, "but we certainly didn't hurt either of them. I'm sorry if the baby isn't well, but I know it isn't our fault."