but she did not like
being caught upon the wall, and therefore made a rapid descent, though
not without a moment's entanglement of skirt, which delayed her long
enough to show where she had been, as Mr. Dutton was at the same moment
advancing to his own wall on the opposite side of the Nugent garden.
Perhaps he would have pretended to see nothing but for Nuttie's cry of
glee.

'You wicked elf,' said Miss Mary, 'to inveigle people into
predicaments, and then go shouting ho! ho! ho! like Robin Goodfellow
himself.'

'You should have kept your elevation and dignity like me,' retorted
Ursula; 'and then you would have had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Dutton
climbing his wall and coming to our feet.'

'Mischievous elves deserve no good news,' said Mr. Dutton, who was by
no means so venerable that the crossing the wall was any effort or
compromise of dignity, and who had by this time joined Mary on her
grass plat.

'Oh, what is it! Are we to go to Monks Horton?' cried Nuttie.

'Here is a gracious permission from Lord Kirkaldy, the only
stipulations being that no vestiges of the meal, such as sandwich
papers or gooseberry skins, be left on the grass; and that nobody does
any mischief,' he added in an awful tone of personality. 'So if I see
anybody rooting up holly trees I shall be bound to interfere.'

'Now, Mr. Dutton, it was only a baby holly in a chink.'

'Only a holly tree! Just like the giant's daughter when she only
carried off waggon, peasant, oxen, and all in her pinafore.'

'It is not longer than my finger now!'

'Well, remember, mischief either wanton or scientific is forbidden. You
are to set an example to the choir-boys.'

'Scientific mischief is a fatal thing to rare plants,' said Mary.

'If I'm not to touch anything, I may as well stay at home,' pouted
Nuttie.

'You may gather as many buttercups and daisies as the sweet child
pleases,' said Mr. Dutton; whereupon she threatened to throw her books
at his head.

Miss Nugent asked how they were to go, and Mr. Dutton explained that
there was only a quarter of a mile's walk from the station; that return
tickets would be furnished at a tariff of fourpence a head; and that
there would be trains at 1.15 and 7.30.

'How hungry the children will be.'

'They will eat all the way. That's the worst of this sort of outing.
They eat to live and live to eat.'

'At least they don't eat at church,' said Nuttie.

'Not since the peppermint day, when Mr. Spyers