All the time before, her hot childish heart had been telling her that her father could not really be so cruel, that he did not really mean to send her away among strangers, away from dear, muddled old Misrule and all her sisters and brothers; he was only saying it to frighten her, she kept saying to herself, and she would show him she was not a chickenhearted baby.
But on Sunday night, when she saw a trunk carried downstairs and filled with her things and labelled with her name, a cold hand seemed to close about her heart.

Still, she said to herself, he was doing all this to make it seem more real.
But now it was morning, and she could disbelieve it no longer.
Esther had come to her bedside and kissed her sorrowfully, her beautiful face troubled and tender.

She had begged as she had never done before for a remission of poor Judy's sentence, but the Captain was adamant.

It was she and she only who was always ringleader in everything; the others would behave when she was not there to incite them to mischief and go she should.

Besides, he said, it would be the making of her.