Will you
come to see me often?"
"If mamma will let us. I'm afraid maybe she will not, because we were
naughty about coming when we had no right to."
"Well, we'll see how we can manage it. I will tell your father about
it, myself, or, better still, I will walk home with you, and you can
tell your story to your mother, and let me beg pardon for you. How will
that do?"
Dimple's eyes spoke her thanks, and she turned to Florence who answered
with a satisfied smile.
And so by Mr. Atkinson's kind request the culprits were forgiven, and
were promised that they should go again since Mr. Atkinson really wanted
them. "And you must feel at liberty to play about the grounds all you
choose," he told the girls. "They can run about, and sit on the porches
and do as they please, so long as they do not trample the flower-beds,
or get into any mischief," he said to Mrs. Dallas.
"We wouldn't hurt anything for the world," put in Florence and Dimple,
eagerly. And they bade their good friend farewell, feeling very humble
and thankful that matters had turned out so well for them.
"We don't deserve it, and I feel dreadfully ashamed of myself," said
Florence, meekly.
"I think Mr. Atkinson put our heads in the fire," said Dimple, soberly.
"What do you mean?" her mother asked.
"Why, isn't that what the Bible says when any one does something very
kind to you after you have been mean to him?"
Mrs.
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