Anne pulled aside a branch and crept in.  One might have passed a yard away and never suspected that she was there.  After a while, she put Honey-Sweet down and set to work as a tidy housekeeper should.  With a broom of twigs, she swept up the dead leaves.  Then she went out and pulled handfuls of grass to make a carpet, which she patterned over with blue stars of periwinkle.  For chairs she brought two or three flat stones.  How time flew!  While she was looking for green moss to cover these stones, she was startled to see the sun setting, a red ball on the horizon.  She hurried back to the ‘Home.’  As she slipped through the hedge, Emma, the pupil-teacher in charge, hurried across the yard.

“Where on earth have you been, Anne?” she asked crossly.  “The supper-bell rang long ago.  I’ve looked for you everywhere.  Where’ve you been, I say?”

“Over there,” Anne answered, nodding vaguely toward the lawn.

“Out of bounds!” exclaimed Emma.  “You knew better, Anne.  That you did.  You come straight to Miss Farlow.  She was dreadful worried when I told her I couldn’t find you.”

Miss Farlow, too, reproved Anne sharply.  She was to have a bread-and-water supper, and then go straight to bed.  And she must never again go out of bounds alone—­never.  That was strictly forbidden.

Anne ate her bread and drank her water with a downcast air.  She was not thinking about the scolding and her punishment.  She was troubled because Miss Farlow had forbidden her to go off the ‘Home’ grounds again.  Must she give up her dear secret playhouse?  She and Honey-Sweet had had such a good time!  And they were planning to spend all their Saturday afternoons there.  Finally she asked Emma what would be done if she disobeyed Miss Farlow and went outside bounds again.

Emma knew and answered promptly and cheerfully.  She would be whipped, and that severely.

Anne turned this over in her mind.  She was very much afraid of the rod which had seldom been used to correct her—­but a whipping did not last long, after all, and it would be far worse to give up her beautiful new playhouse.  If Miss Farlow wished to whip her for going there, why, Miss Farlow would have to do it.  Grown-up people had to have their way.  But she wondered if Miss Farlow would not just as lief whip her before she went as after she came back.  It would be a pity to spoil the beautiful afternoon with expectation of punishment.

After prayers next Saturday morning, Anne lingered near Miss Farlow’s desk.

“Do you wish to speak to me, Anne Lewis?” asked that lady, frowning over a handful of bills.

“If you please—­wouldn’t you as soon—­won’t you please whip me before I go out of bounds?” she requested.

“What’s that you’re saying, Anne Lewis?  What do you mean?” asked Miss Farlow.

Anne explained.

“Pity sake!” the bewildered lady exclaimed.  She looked at Anne over her spectacles, then took them off and stared as if trying to find out what kind of a queer little creature this was.  “Do you mean,” she inquired solemnly, “that you’d rather be a bad girl and go out of bounds and be whipped—­rather than be good and stay in bounds?”