So I wouldn't listen
a moment, and I ran down, with him after me, saying, 'Hear reason,
Mysie.' And I ran full butt up against some-body--Lord Ormersfield it
was, I found--but I didn't know then. I only said something about
begging pardon, and dashed on, and opened the door. I saw a whole lot
of fine people all at five-o'clock tea, but I couldn't stop to get more
frightened, and I went up straight to Lady Rotherwood and said,
'Please, I did it.' Mamma do you think I ought not?"
'There are such things as fit places and times, my dear. What did she
say?'
"At first she just said, 'My dear, I cannot attend to you now, run
away;' but then in the midst, a thought seemed to strike her, and she
said, rather frightened, 'Is any one hurt?' and I said, Oh no; only my
umbrella has gone right through the roof of the conservatory, and I
thought I ought to come and tell her directly. 'That was the noise,'
said some of the people, and everybody got up and went to look. And
there were Fly and Ivy, who had got in some other way, and the umbrella
was sticking right upright in the top of one of those palm-trees with
leaves like screens, and somebody said it was a new development of
fruit. Lady Rotherwood asked them what they were doing there, and Ivy
said they had come to see what harm was done. Dear Fly ran up to her
and said, 'We were all at play together, mother; it was not one more
than another;' but Lady Rotherwood only said, 'That's enough, Phyllis,
I will come to you by-and-by in the schoolroom,' and she would have
sent us away if Cousin Rotherwood himself had not come in just then,
and asked what was the matter.
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