"I will either come to you or send for you when I am ready;" and, feeling very crushed, they made their way to the old nursery, now called "the schoolroom," and there waited with curiously mingled feelings for what was to happen next.
They did not expect it to be anything _very_ serious; but they hated to vex their father, and they felt that now they really had vexed him.
Oh how slowly the minutes passed, and what a lot of them there were! It seemed to them that time enough had elapsed in which to have set every limb that Jabez possessed, and to hear the recital of every wrong he had ever received at their hands; and by the time they heard their father's footstep coming their hopes and fears had gone up and down again many times, and they had pictured themselves sentenced to every possible and impossible punishment that their minds could imagine..