ch."

This speech changed Mary's intention. She was ashamed to produce the
clog now. She drew her hand out of her pocket empty, gave a proud toss
of the head, and said with crimson cheeks:

"I haven't brought anything."

There was silence in the room. Every eye was fixed upon her; it was the
most cruel moment of her life. Even Jackie flushed hotly, turned away,
and began to pull out all the blades of a new pocket-knife someone had
given him.

How stupid it was of Fraulein not to let the matter drop, without saying
anything more! Instead of this she held up her hands and exclaimed:

"Est-ce possible? Do I onderstand? Nozing? You have not brought
nozing for Jean's jour de fete? But perhaps I do not onderstand?"

It was so irritating to see her standing there waiting for an answer,
that Mary, never very patient, lost her temper completely.

"No, you don't understand. You _never_ do," she said, and rushed out of
the room into the garden. She ran quickly when she once got outside,
for she felt that she could not get far enough away from the whole party
in the school-room; from Fraulein with her stupid remarks, from the
visitors who had all stared in surprise, even from Jackie who
misunderstood. But it was natural, after all, that he should do that.
How could he know she had brought anything for him? And now she had
been rude to Fraulein, and made his party uncomfortable. She wondered
presently whether they would come after her, and persuade her to go
back; it would be unkind if they did not, and yet she would rather be
alone just then. There was no one following her, and she thought she
would go somewhere out of sight. The nut-walk would be best. So she
turned into the kitchen-garden, and soon came to the nut-walk; the trees
grew on each side of it with their branches meeting overhead, and in one
of the biggest Jackie had contrived to fix a sort of perch made out of
an old board. There was a convenient notch a little lower down, where
you could place your feet, and it was considered a most comfortable
seat, amply large enough for two. Mary was fond of sitting there, and
now it seemed a sort of refuge in distress; she swung herself up into
it, sat down, and leaned her bare head against the branches at the back.
Through the thick leaves she could see a long way--all over the
kitchen-garden, and a bit of the lawn near the house, and the brown roof
of the stables, where the pigeons sat in a long row. W