"I hadn't meant
to walk all the way," Judy said, with a faint mile. "I had seven
shillings in a bit of paper in my pocket, as well as the three-and-six,
and I knew it would take me a long way in the train. But then I lost
it after I had started, and I didn't believe in going back just for
that, so, of course, I had to walk."
Meg touched her cheek softly.
"It's no wonder you got so thin," she said.
"Won't the Miss Buttons be raising a hue-and-cry after you?" Pip asked.
"It's a wonder they've not written to the pater to say you have skedaddled."
"Oh! Marian and I made that all safe," Judy said, with a smile of
recollective pleasure. "Marian's my chum, you see, and does anything
I tell her. And she lives at Katoomba."
"Well?" said Meg, mystified, as her sister paused. "Well, you see,
a lot of the girls had the measles, and so they sent Marian home, for
fear she should get them. And Marian's mother asked for me to go there,
too, for a fortnight; and so Miss Burton wrote and asked Father could I?
and I wrote and asked couldn't I come home instead for the time?"
"He never told us," Meg said softly.
"No, I s'pose not. Well, he wrote back and said 'no' to me and
'yes' to her.
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