"Oh! that's not fair," cried the girl. "You are a rude boy. Now you've
got to get it."
"No, indeed. Get the stable-man to get it."
She turned to John, "Please to get it."
"How can I?" he said.
"Go up inside--there's a trap door. You can slide down the snow and get
it."
"But I might fall."
"There's your chance," said Tom grinning. John stood, still irresolute.
Leila walked away into the stable.
"She'll get a man," said Tom a little regretful of his rudeness, as she
disappeared.
In a moment Leila was up in the hayloft and out on the roof. Spreading
out arms and thin legs she carefully let herself slide down the soft snow
until, seizing her cap, she set her feet on the roof gutter, crying out,
"Get a ladder quick." Alarmed at her perilous position, they ran and
called out a groom, a ladder was brought, and in a moment she was on the
ground.
Leila turned on the two lads. "You are a coward, Tom McGregor, and you
too, John Penhallow. I never--never will play with you again."
"It was just fun," said Tom; "any of the men could have poked it down."
"Cowards," said the girl, tossing back her dark mass of hair and moving
away without a look at the discomfited pair.
"I suppose now you will go and tell the Squire," said Tom. He was
alarmed.
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