"I'm sure I don't know," replied Briar. "She's the rummiest little thing that ever walked. But there's no good in taking any notice of what she says."
"Of course no one does," answered Adelaide. "But I do wonder if ghosts ever walk across the lawn. Do you believe in ghosts, Briar?"
"Certainly not," said Briar. "No girl in her senses does."
"I don't know at all as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?"
"I don't know," said Briar. "I don't want to talk about ghosts. I don't believe in them."
She got up and crossed the lawn. The next moment Pen had tucked her hand inside her arm.
"You needn't keep it from me," she said in a whisper. "It was you and Patty and Paulie. I knew who you were, 'cos the moon shone on Patty's Glengarry cap. You needn't deny it."
She felt her heart smite her as she told this lie. She walked quickly.
"Do leave me," she said. "You are a little girl that doesn't at all know her own place."
"But I do know it," said Penelope. "My place is at the seaside. I want to go there. I'm 'termined to go there. If I don't go one way I'll go another. Why should Paulie, what is the naughtiest of girls, have all the fun? I don't mind Renny being there so much. And why should I, what is the very best of girls, be kept stuck here with only nursey and you childrens to bother me? I am going. I'm 'termined."
"I've told a lie about it. I said we weren't on the lawn at all. I told her she was talking nonsense."
"Couldn't you have got out of it by any other way?" asked Patty. "It doesn't seem right to tell lies."
"I could with any one but Pen; but Pen can see through a brick wall. I had to tell it, and very plump, too, where Pen was in the question."
"Well, it makes me feel horrid," said Patty. "I am sorry we went. I think we did awfully wrong."
"We did it for Paulie. We'd do more than that for her," replied Briar.
"I suppose so. I certainly love Paulie very much," answered Patty.
"And, Patty," continued Briar, "having told such a great black lie to help her, we must go through with it. Pen means mischief. She's the sort of child who would do anything to gain anything. She wants to go to the seaside, and she wouldn't mind whom she got into trouble if it suited her own ends. We must remember she means mischief, and if she talks again about three figures on the lawn, you and I have got to stick to it that we didn't go. Do you understand?"