"Under the piazza!" Alice replied. "How did she get there?"
"Oh, we've got a way," Robert answered. "There was a lattice loose and we sneaked in."
"What ails the child; hasn't she heard us calling? Tell her to come right out."
"She says she's never coming out any more," Robert reported.
"Sara!" Alice called through the lattice, "Sara, come out!"
No answer but a sniffle.
"Sara, what is the matter?"
Again no answer.
"Sara, mind your mother."
Still silence. Robert wriggled through the hole. Through the lattice he reported:
"She won't come out because she's ashamed." More conferences with Sara. "She's ashamed because she's been sent home. Mis' Tobey sent her home."
"Mrs. Tobey sent her home?" cried Alice. "Mrs. Tobey sent Sara home!" Many a time she had longed to send home Tobey children. "And why," she cried, anger rising in her, "and why pray, should Mrs. Tobey send home poor little Sara?"
Another long conference with Sara then Robert's shocked voice hissed through the lattice: "She was sent home for teaching The Swear to Stuffy."
"But how did Sara get The Swear?"
"Not from me, not from me!" cried Robert. "She got The Swear off Ted Jennings! You told her not to buy it off him. Well, she didn't! She just got 'round him, she just argued to him, and he told her it to get rid of her: she says so herself. He told it to her to keep her from tagging, for the fellers was making fun of him because she tagged after him so—and then she went