When she returned to the kitchen, she found Johnny its only occupant, her mother and uncle having set off for the village.
“I say, Alie,” cried Johnny, “wasn’t it lucky that uncle asked me instead of you about shutting the cat in? ’Twas you that closed the door, you know.”
“Oh, Johnny!” said his sister, “I feel so unhappy about it! I wish that I had told mother everything—I don’t think that I could have spoken to uncle. It seems just as if I were deceiving them both!”
“Nonsense!” cried Johnny, in a very loud tone; “you ought to be too happy that the storm has blown over!”
But the conscience of Alie would make itself heard, notwithstanding her brother’s voice of scorn. She had been accustomed from the time when she could first talk, to speak the simple truth, and the whole truth. She knew that there may be falsehood even in silence, when that silence tends to deceive. She felt that she had wronged her uncle, by destroying his property, and, however unintentionally, causing the death of his pet; and instead of frankly confessing the wrong, and asking pardon, she was concealing the matter. Alie went slowly up to her own little room, took down from its shelf her well-used Bible—that would be a safer counsellor than her brother! She opened it, and the first verse upon which her eyes rested was this, The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Alie closed her book, and resting her head upon her hand, sat and thought:—
“Mother has often told me that the language of heaven is truth, and that whosoever loveth or maketh a lie shall never be admitted to that happy place! But why should my mind be so troubled?—I have not said a single word that is not true. But I have concealed the truth. And why?—because of the fear of man, which the Bible tells me bringeth a snare. What then would be my straight course of duty? to confess that I threw down the poison? Would not that bring my brother into trouble? No; for it was I who climbed on the chair, I who knocked over the bottle, I who last shut the door—all the mischief was done by me, though it was not done for my own pleasure. I know what will be my best plan,” said Alie, with a sigh of relief at coming to anything like a decision: “I’ll confess all to mother when she comes back from the village; and she will choose a good time, when my uncle is in a pleasant temper and I am out of the way, and tell him that I killed poor Tabby, but am exceedingly sorry that I did it.”
So Alie returned to the kitchen, and put on the water to boil for tea and sat down to her unfinished work, awaiting her mother’s return. Her heart beat faster than usual when she heard the clump, clump of her uncle’s wooden leg, but still more when he entered the house alone.
“Where’s mother?” said Johnny.
“She’s gone to the vicarage,” replied Jonas. “She met a messenger to tell her that the lady there is taken very ill, and wants some one to nurse her; so she sheered off straight for Brampton, and desired me to come back and tell you.”
“When will she return?” asked Alie with anxiety.