Meg smoothed the dusty, tangled confusion of her hair.

“But you can’t live out here for the week,” she said, in a troubled voice.  “You’ve got a horrid cough with sleeping outside, and I’m sure you’re ill.  We shall have to tell Father about it.  I’ll beg him not to send you back, though.”

Judy started up, her eyes aflame.

“If you do,” she said—­“if you do, I will run away this very night, and walk to Melbourne, or Jerusalem, and never see any of you again!  How can you, Meg!  After I’ve done all this just so he wouldn’t know!  Oh, how can you?”

She was working herself up into a strong state of excitement.

“Why, I should be simply packed back again tomorrow—­you know I would, Meg.  Shouldn’t I now, Pip?  And get into a fearful row at school into the bargain.  My plan is beautifully simple.  After I’ve had a week’s fun here with you I shall just go back—­you can all lend me some money for the train.  I shall just meet Marian at Katoomba on the 25th; we shall both go back to school together, and no one will be a bit the wiser.  My cough’s nothing; you know I often do get coughs at home, and they never hurt me.  As long as you bring me plenty to eat, and stay with me, I’ll be all right.”

The rest and food and home faces had done much already for her; her face looked less pinched, and a little more wholesome colour was creeping slowly into her cheeks.

Meg had an uncomfortable sense of responsibility, and the feeling that she ought to tell someone was strong upon her; but she was overruled by the others in the end.

“You couldn’t be so mean, Meg,” Judy had said warmly, when she had implored to be allowed to tell Esther.

“Such a blab!” Bunty had added.  “Such an awful sneak!” Pip had said.

So Meg held her tongue, but was exceedingly unhappy.

CHAPTER XII Swish, Swish!

On the fourth day of Judy’s residence in the loft, Martha Tomlinson remarked to her fellow-servant and sufferer, Bridget, that she believed them blessed children were in a conspiracy to put her “over the river.”

Bridget’s digestion was impaired that morning, and she merely remarked that she supposed the dear little things only felt a desire to see her in her proper place.

I should explain to you, perhaps, that “over the river” meant Gladesville, which is Sydney’s Colney Hatch.

Many things had led the unhappy Martha to a belief in this conspiracy.  For instance, when she went to make Pip’s bed as usual one morning all the bedclothes had gone.  The white counterpane was spread smoothly over the mattress, but there was absolutely no trace of the blankets, sheets, and pillows.  She hunted in every possible and impossible place, questioned the children, and even applied to Esther, but the missing things could not be found.

“There’s a man in corduroy trousers hanging round here every night,” Pip said, gloomily regarding his stripped bed.  “I shouldn’t wonder if he had something to do with it.”