Spreading out arms and thin legs she carefully let herself slide down the soft snow until, seizing her cap, she set her feet on the roof gutter, crying out, "Get a ladder quick." Alarmed at her perilous position, they ran and called out a groom, a ladder was brought, and in a moment she was on the ground.
Leila turned on the two lads.

"You are a coward, Tom McGregor, and you too, John Penhallow.

I never--never will play with you again." "It was just fun," said Tom; "any of the men could have poked it down." "Cowards," said the girl, tossing back her dark mass of hair and moving away without a look at the discomfited pair.
"I suppose now you will go and tell the Squire," said Tom.

He was alarmed.
She turned, "I--a tell-tale!" Her child-code of conduct was imperative.
"I am neither a tell-tale nor a coward.

'Tell-tale pick a nail and hang him to a cow's tail!'" and with this well-known declaration of her creed of playground honour, she walked away.
"She'll tell," said Tom.
"She won't," said John.
"Guess I'll go home," said Tom, and left John to his reflections.
They were most disagreeable.
John went into the woods and sat down on a log.