"Oh, Scampie, dear, _have_ you come, and do you really love me still?"

whispered Hetty as the dog leaped into her arms, and she clasped his paws round her neck and kissed his s.h.a.ggy head.

Scamp uttered a few short rapturous exclamations and licked her face and hands all over.

"But you must be very quiet," she said, "or you will wake the house and we shall be caught. Come now, lovie, and I'll hide you in my own room."

She closed the door as quietly as possible and crept upstairs again, carrying the dog hugged in her arms.

As she stole along the pa.s.sage to her room, one of the maids whispered to another who was sleeping in the room with her:

"Oh, I have heard a great noise down-stairs, and one of the dogs was barking. And just now I am sure I heard feet in the pa.s.sage."

"Some one has got into the house then," said the other maid listening.

"Oh, lie still, don't get up!" said the first maid. "It must be burglars."

"I will go and waken the men," said the other courageously. And down-stairs she went and wakened the butler and footman. Soon they were all searching the house, the butler armed with a gun, the others with large pokers. No burglars were to be found, and the butler was very cross at having been called out of his bed for nothing at all.

The maids persisted that some one had been in the house, some one who must have escaped while they were giving the alarm. Mr. Enderby heard the noise and came out of his room and learned the whole story. After an hour of searching and questioning and discussion all went to bed again, everybody blaming everybody else for the silly mistake that had been made.

Next morning Hetty slept long and soundly after her midnight adventure, and when the maid who called her went into her room she was astonished to see a dog's head on the pillow by the sleeping child. Scamp put up his nose and barked at the intruder, and Hetty wakened.

"Laws, Miss Hetty, you are a strange little girl," said the maid, who was the very girl who had alarmed the house during the night. "How ever did you get a dog into your room?"

"It's only Scamp, my own Scamp, and he wouldn't hurt anybody," said Hetty; "please don't beat him away, Lucy. He came in the middle of the night trying to find me, and I took him in. Perhaps Mrs. Enderby will let me keep him now."

"That I am sure she will not," said Lucy. "You naughty little girl. And so it was you who disturbed the house last night, frightening us all out of our senses, and getting me scolded for giving an alarm. Wait till Mr.

Enderby hears about it."

"You are _very_ unkind," said Hetty; "as if I could help his coming in the night-time!"

"And I suppose you could not help letting him into the house and taking him into your bed?" said Lucy scornfully.

"No, I couldn't," said Hetty. "And you can go and tell Mr. Enderby as soon as you please."

At this Lucy flounced out of the room quite determined to complain of the enormity of Hetty's conduct.

When the little girl appeared in the school-room with Scamp following at her heels she was not in the best of tempers, and held her chin very high in the air. Miss Davis met her with a stern face.

"Hetty, what is this I hear of you? How could you dare to bring a strange dog into the house in the middle of the night?"

"It wasn't a strange dog; it was Scamp," said Hetty, putting on her most defiant air. "I don't think it was any harm to let him in."

"Not, though I tell you it was?" said Miss Davis.

"No," said Hetty.

"Then I must ask Mrs. Enderby to talk to you," said Miss Davis.

"Meantime the dog cannot stay here while we are at breakfast."

And she rang the bell.

"Tell Thomas to come and fetch this dog away to the stable-yard," she said to the maid who answered the bell.

"Scamp always stayed in the room with me at Amber Hill," said Hetty, two red spots burning in her cheeks.

"You must learn to remember that you are no longer at Amber Hill," said Miss Davis.

Phyllis and Nell now came into the school-room and looked greatly surprised at sight of the dog, Hetty's angry face, and Miss Davis's looks of high displeasure. They took their places in silence at the breakfast table.

"I am not likely to forget it," retorted Hetty bitterly. "At Amber Hill everybody was kind to me. n.o.body is kind here."

"You are a most ungrateful girl," said Miss Davis. "What would have become of you if Mr. and Mrs. Enderby had not been kind?"

At this moment Thomas entered.

"Take away that dog to the stable-yard," said Miss Davis.

Hetty threw her arms round Scamp's neck and clung to him.

"You shall not turn him out," she cried. "He came and found me, and I will not give him up."

"Do as I have told you, Thomas," said Miss Davis; and Thomas seized Scamp in spite of Hetty's struggles, and carried him off, howling dismally.

"Now, you naughty girl, you may go back to your own room, and stay there till you are ready to apologize to me for your conduct," said Miss Davis.

"Oh, please don't send Hetty away without her breakfast," pleaded Nell.

"I will go. I will not stay here. I will run away!" cried Hetty wildly.

"Let her go, Nell," said Phyllis, giving her sister a warning look; and Miss Davis said:

"When she is hungry she can apologize for her conduct. In the meantime she had better go away and be left alone till she recovers her senses."

Hetty fled out of the room and away to her own little chamber, where she locked herself in and flung herself in a pa.s.sion of rage and grief on the floor.

"I _will_ go away," she sobbed. "I will run away with Scamp and seek my fortune. Miss Davis is going to be as bad as Grant, reminding me that I am a charity child. Oh, why was I not born like Phyllis and Nell, with people to love me and a home to belong to? It is easy for them to be good. But I shall never be good. I know, I know I never shall!"

After half an hour had pa.s.sed a knock came to the door, and Lucy demanded to be admitted.

"Go away, you cruel creature!" cried Hetty. "I will not have you here."

Lucy went away, and after some time Hetty heard Mrs. Enderby's voice at the door.

"I hope you will not refuse to let me in," she said. "I request that you will open the door."

Hetty rose from the floor very unwillingly and opened the door, and Mrs.

Enderby came in.