“If you please, Miss Farlow.”  Anne stood her ground bravely though her knees were shaking.

“Anne Lewis, if whipping will not make you obey, we must—­must try something else,” Miss Farlow said severely.  She considered awhile, then she asked:  “Why are you so anxious to go out of bounds?”

Anne went a step nearer.  “It isn’t far,” she said.  “Just across the hedge.  It’s a secret.  A beautiful place.  I take Honey-Sweet—­she’s my doll—­and we play stories.  It’s just my private property.”  Anne used the words she heard often from the larger girls.

“You mean that you play it is,” Miss Farlow corrected gravely.  “You don’t get in mischief—­or go where it’s unsafe?”

“Indeed I don’t, Miss Farlow,” said Anne, earnestly.  “I just sit there and play with Honey-Sweet.”

“It’s safe and near, and the Marshalls are away—­they wouldn’t care,” considered Miss Farlow.  “I’ll allow you to go there this one afternoon.  Tell Emma I say you may play beyond the hedge.”

Anne skipped away with a radiant face.  On hearing her message, Emma scowled and said:  “I think you oughtn’t to have any holiday at all for making so much trouble last Saturday.  I could have crocheted dozens of rows on my mat while I was looking for you.  I tell you what, missy, if you’re naughty and disobedient, you’ll be sent away from here.”

“Sent where, Miss Emma?” asked Anne.

“Oh, away.  Back where you came from,” answered Emma.

Anne ran away, happier than ever.  Being sent away, then, was the “something else” that Miss Farlow said they must try if she were naughty and disobedient.  “Back where she came from!” That meant to Miss Drayton and Pat.  Anne resolved that she would be very naughty so they would send her away as soon as possible.  That evening she began to carry out her plan and let a cup fall while she was washing dishes.  Jane, who was helping her, looked frightened, but Anne only smiled.  That was one step toward Miss Drayton.  During the days that followed, Anne was a very naughty girl.  She came late to breakfast, with rough hair and dangling ribbons; she tore her aprons; she rumpled her frocks; her usually tidy bed was in valleys and mountains; her tasks were neglected or ill done.  She was reproved; she was punished.  But she accepted each reproof and punishment calmly.

“Next time,” she thought, “they will think I am bad enough to send me away—­back to dear Miss Drayton.”

The punishment she disliked most was that on Saturday afternoon, instead of being allowed to go out, she was sent to her room in disgrace.  She was sitting doleful by a window, neglecting the task assigned her, when Milly came in.  Milly was one of the larger girls who went out as a seamstress.

“You kept in, ain’t you?” she said, sitting down and beginning to make buttonholes.

Anne nodded.

“What’s come over you?” Milly asked.  “You don’t act like the same girl you used to be.  Why, you’re downright bad.”