"Jane will bring you your dinner," said her grandmother, shortly,
for she began to think the punishment she had devised was more
like a new game.

"Goody!" cried Marjorie. "I do love dinner on a tray. Send plenty
of strawberries, please; and, Grandma, don't think that I'm not
truly being punished, for I am. I shall think over my naughtiness
a good deal, and when I look at those awful shoes, I don't see how
I COULD have done such a wicked thing. But you know yourself,
Grandma, that we ought to make the best of everything, and so I'll
just get what fun I can out of my books and my strawberries."

Mrs. Sherwood went away, uncertain whether she had succeeded in
what she had intended to do or not. She knew Marjorie would not
leave the stairs without permission, for the little girl was
exceedingly conscientious.

Left to herself, Marjorie began to take in the situation.

She carefully unpacked her dressful of things, and arranged them
on the steps. In this she became greatly interested. It was a
novel way of living, to go always up and down and never sideways.
She planned her home for the day with care and thought. She
decided to reserve a narrow space next the banister to go up and
down; and to arrange her belongings on the other side of the
staircase. She put her clock on the top step that she might see it
from any point of view; and on the other steps she laid neatly her
books, her paint-box, her writing things, and her toys. She became
absorbed in this occupation, and delightedly scrambled up and
down, arranging and rearranging her shelved properties.