“What’ll I do that for?” she asked, through her tears.  “I’m wet enough now!”

“Yes, I know,” said Charlie.  “And you can’t get any wetter by dabbling your feet and legs in the water.  But it will wash off the mud.  You might as well wash it off.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bunny.  “Your legs will dry better if they are just wet, instead of being wet and muddy, Sue.  Dabble ’em in the brook.”

Sue thought this must be good advice, since it came from both boys.  She was about to sit down near the place where she had slid into the brook, but Charlie said: 

“No, not there!  That water’s all muddy.  Come on down to a clean place.”

This Sue did, sitting on the grassy bank and thrusting her feet and legs into the water up to her knees, splashing them up and down until most of the mud was washed from her stockings and shoes.

“Now we’ll take you home,” said Charlie.

“No!” exclaimed Sue.  “I don’t want to go home!”

“You don’t want to go home?” repeated Bunny.  “Why not?  You have to get dry things on, Sue!  Mother won’t scold you for falling into the brook when it wasn’t your fault!”

“I know she won’t,” Sue said.  “But—­but—­I’m not going in the house looking all soaking wet!  There’s company—­some ladies came to call on mother before we went out to play—­and they’ll see me if I go in the front door.  I’m not going to have them laugh at me!”

“We’ll take you in the side door then,” offered Bunny.

“That’ll be just as bad,” whimpered Sue.  “They can see me from the window.”

“Well, then we’ll go in the back way,” Charlie proposed.

“No!” sobbed Sue.  “If I go in the back way Mary’ll see me, and she’ll say, ‘bless an’ save us!’ and make such a fuss that mother’ll come out and it will be as bad as the front or side door!” complained the little girl.  “I don’t want to go home all wet!”

“But you’ll have to!” insisted Bunny.  “You can’t stay out here till you get dry.  You must go to the house, Sue!”

“Not the front way nor the side way nor the back way!” Sue declared.

“Then how are you going to get in?” asked Bunny.  “Do you want to go in through the cellar?”

“I’d have to come up in the kitchen,” objected Sue, “and Mary would see me just the same and she’d say, ‘bless an’ save us!’”

“Well, but how are you going to get in?” Bunny demanded.  “There isn’t any other way.”

“Yes, there is!” suddenly exclaimed Charlie.

“How?” asked Bunny Brown.

“Up the painter’s ladder,” went on Charlie.  “They’re painting the roof of your sun parlor.  And the ladder’s right there.  We can get Sue up the ladder to the roof of the sun parlor, and there’s a second-story window she can get in so nobody can see her, and change her things.”

“Oh!  A ladder!” gasped Sue, when she heard how Charlie and her brother planned to get her into the house unseen by company.  “A ladder!”