"Why not? I've done a great deal for her."
"She's ongrateful," said Pen. "She didn't send no message. I 'spect she'll have forgot you when she comes back."
"I can make it a little too hot for her if she does."
"What's making a thing too hot?" asked Penelope.
"Oh, making it so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes pit-a-pat," replied Nancy. "There! I'm not going to talk any more. If you won't tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room and have some dinner?"
"I won't. I'm going home. As Paulie didn't send you a message, are you going to make it hot for her?"
"That I am. Somebody will come here--somebody I know--to see somebody she knows; and there will be a begging and imploring, and somebody she knows will do nothing for somebody I know. Now, can you take that in?"
"You are very funny," answered Penelope, "but I think I can. I'm glad, and I'm not glad, that I comed. I won't stay to dinner; I'm going straight away home this blessed minute."
Penelope managed to reach home unattended. She was tired and draggled and dusty, and also very much scratched. Her sisters received her with whoops of astonishment and welcome. They had not missed her, it is true, but when they saw her coming sadly and sheepishly in at the wicket-gate they concluded that they had. Adelaide was the first to reach her.
"Don't ask me any questions and you'll hear no lies," was Pen's remark. She waved her fat hand as she spoke. "I am going to nursey straight away. I has something I wants to say to nursey. Has the post gone? I want to catch the post immediate."
"You are too queer for anything," said Adelaide; "but go your own way. You'll catch it for being out all by yourself in the woods."
"I won't catch it, but there are others who will," replied Penelope. "And now keep out of my way. I want to find nursey."
She marched in a most defiant and even queenly style towards the house; and the others, after laughing for a moment, returned to their various pursuits and forgot all about her.
When nurse saw Penelope she uttered a groan.
"There you come," she said. "You are a handful! You never turned up at dinner-time, although we looked for you everywhere. Now, where were you hiding?"
"Never mind that, nursey. Get out your writing 'terials."