“I wish I could go too!” sighed Gracie.  “I wish I could run about and have good times like you and Max!”

“Maybe you will, some o’ these days.  Good-by, little one,” said Max, giving a parting pat to the little white cheek.

“Good-by,” cried Lulu from the doorway; “don’t fret, because maybe I’ll find something pretty to bring you when I come back.”

She took a small basket from the table in the hall, Max shouldered his fishing-rod, which he had left there behind the front door, and they went out together.

CHAPTER XI.

“Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted,
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.”
—­Shaks.

The children walked very fast, glancing this way and that till satisfied that there was no longer any danger of encountering Mrs. Scrimp, then their pace slackened a little and they breathed more freely.

“Won’t she be mad because you came without asking her, Lu?” queried Max.

“I s’pose so.”

“What’ll she do about it?”

“Scold, scold, scold! and threaten to make me fast; but she knows she can’t do that.  I always manage to get something to eat.  I’ve found a key that fits the pantry door; so I just help myself.  She doesn’t know about the key and wonders how it happens; thinks she forgot to lock it.”

“But, Lulu, you wouldn’t steal!”

“’Taint stealing to take what papa pays for!  Max, you’re too stupid!” cried Lulu indignantly.

Max gave a long, low whistle.  “Fact, Lu! that’s so! our father does pay for more than we can possibly eat, and expects us to have all we want.”

“Do you get enough, Max?”

“Yes; and right good too.  Mrs. Fox is real good and kind; but he’s just awful!  I tell you, Lu, if I don’t thrash him within an inch of his life when I grow to be a man, it’ll be queer.”

“Tell me about him! what is it he does to you?”

“Well, in the first place, he pretends to be very good and pious; he preaches and prays and talks to me as if I were the greatest sinner in the world, while all the time he’s ten times worse himself and the biggest kind of a hypocrite.  He tells me it’s very wicked when I get angry at his hateful treatment of me, and gets as mad as a March hare himself while he’s talking about it.”

“Well, I’d let him storm and never care a cent.”

“Yes, but that isn’t all; he beats me dreadfully for the least little thing, and sometimes for nothing at all.  One time he bought a new padlock for the barn-door and pretty soon it disappeared.  He couldn’t find it anywhere, so he called me and asked me what I had done with it.  I said I hadn’t touched it, hadn’t seen it, didn’t even know he had bought one; and that was the truth.  But he wouldn’t believe me; he said I must have taken it, for I was the only mischievous person about the place, and if I didn’t own up and show him where it was, he’d horsewhip me till I did.”