“It was a narrow escape,” said Carter, shaking his head at them, “and what puts such wicked mischief into your heads, I don’t know.  But it’s not for me to be reprovin’ ye.  March into the house now, and tell your Grandma about it, and see what she says.”

“I’ll go in,” said Marjorie, “but if you’d rather, Molly, you can go home.  I’ll tell Grandma about it, myself.”

“No,” said Molly, “it was my fault.  I coaxed you into it, and I’m going to tell your grandma about it.”

“I was just as much to blame as you, for I didn’t have to go down the well just because you coaxed me.  But I’ll be glad if you will come with me, for, of course, we can explain it better together.”

Hand in hand the two culprits walked into the room where Mrs. Sherwood sat sewing.

They were a sorry-looking pair, indeed!  Their pretty gingham frocks were limp and stringy with dampness, and soiled and stained from contact with the buckets and the moss-grown sides of the well.

Marjorie had been unable to get her shoes on over her damp, torn stockings, and as Molly’s head had been drenched with water, she presented a forlorn appearance.

Grandma Sherwood looked at them with an expression, not so much of surprise, as amused exasperation.

“I’m glad you weren’t killed,” she said, “but you look as if you had come very near it.  What have you been up to now?”

“We haven’t been up at all, Grandma,” said Marjorie, cheerfully, “we’ve been down—­in the well.”

“In the well!” exclaimed Mrs. Sherwood, her face blank with surprise.  “Marjorie, what can I do with you?  I shall have to send you home before your vacation is over, unless you stop getting into mischief!  Did you fall down?”

“It was my fault, Mrs. Sherwood,” said Molly; “truly, I didn’t mean mischief, but it was such a hot day and I thought it would be cool down the well—­”

“And it was,” interrupted Marjorie; “and we had a pretty good time,—­only I was too heavy and I went down whizz—­zip!  And Molly came flying up, and if we hadn’t caught each other, I s’pect we’d both have been drowned!”

Grandma Sherwood began to realize that there had been not only mischief but real danger in this latest escapade.

“Molly,” she said, “you may go home, and tell your mother about it, and I will talk it over with Marjorie.  I think you were equally to blame, for, though Molly proposed the plan, Marjorie ought not to have consented.”

So Molly went home and Mrs. Sherwood had a long and serious talk with her little granddaughter.  She did not scold,—­Grandma Sherwood never scolded,—­but she explained to Marjorie that, unless she curbed her impulsive inclinations to do reckless things, she would certainly make serious trouble for herself and her friends.

“It doesn’t matter at all,” she said, “who proposes the mischief.  You do just as wrong in consenting to take part, as if you invented the plan yourself.”