Laura had heard this threat before, and thought it wiser not to reply.
Gobbling up the rest of her breakfast she slipped away.

With the other children at her heels she made a round of the garden,
bidding good-bye to things and places. There were the two summer-houses
in which she had played house; in which she had cooked and eaten and
slept. There was the tall fir-tree with the rung-like branches by which
she had been accustomed to climb to the very tree-top; there was the
wilderness of bamboo and cane where she had been Crusoe; the ancient,
broadleaved cactus on which she had scratched their names and drawn
their portraits; here, the high aloe that had such a mysterious charm
for you, because you never knew when the hundred years might expire and
the aloe burst into flower. Here again was the old fig tree with the
rounded, polished boughs, from which, seated as in a cradle, she
had played Juliet to Pin's Romeo, and vice versa--but oftenest Juliet:
for though Laura greatly preferred to be the ardent lover at the foot,
Pin was but a poor climber, and, as she clung trembling to her branch,
needed so much prompting in her lines--even then to repeat them with
such feeble emphasis--that Laura invariably lost patience with her and
the love-scene ended in a squabble. Passing behind a wooden fence which
was a tangle of passion-flower, she opened the door of the fowl-house,
and out strutted the mother-hen followed by her pretty brood. Laura had
given each of the chicks a name, and she now took Napoleon and Garibaldi
up in her hand and laid her cheek against their downy breasts, the
younger children following her movements in respectful silence. Between
the bars of the rabbit hutch she thrust enough greenstuff to last the
two little occupants for days; and everywhere she went she was
accompanied by a legless magpie, which, in spite of its infirmity,
hopped cheerily and quickly on its stumps. Laura had rescued it and